The Movie Cricket

Movie reviews by Sean P. Means.

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Spider-Man (Tom Holland) gets a surprise from a villain from another universe, in “Spider-Man: No Way Home.” (Photo courtesy of Marvel and Sony/Columbia Pictures.)

Spoiler-free review: 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' is a twisty action movie that pits Tom Holland's Peter Parker against villains from across the franchise's multiverse

December 13, 2021 by Sean P. Means

With the third installment of their collaboration putting Peter Parker onscreen, actor Tom Holland and director Jon Watts work a good amount of magic in “Spider-Man: No Way Home” — thanks to the borrowed cache of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and past iterations of the famous wall-crawler.

To get everyone up to speed without spoiling anything that isn’t in the marketing campaign or in the previous films, a recap: Peter Parker has been outed as Spider-Man, thanks to the vengeful muckraker J. Jonah Jameson (J.K Simmonds, in a role he first played in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man” trilogy). Jameson, now an Alex Jones-style conspiracy theorist, has framed Spidey with the murder of Mysterio (seen in “Spider-Man: Far From Home”), and being a public figure is a drain on Peter’s personal life — and his relationshp with his girlfriend, Michelle Jones-Watson, aka MJ (Zendaya).

In an attempt to get his life back, Peter goes to Dr. Steven Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), last seen together at Tony Stark’s funeral at the end of “Avengers: Endgame,” to ask if he can turn back time or something. Strange offers to cast a spell to make people forget that Peter Parker is Spider-Man — but the spell goes awry and doesn’t take. But something else does happen: Suddenly, the multiverse opens up and delivers former enemies of previous “Spider-Man” movies at our Peter’s doorstep.

Some of them, like Dr. Otto Octavius (Alfred Molina) and his robotic tentacles, you’ve seen in the trailers. Others are a surprise, and I wouldn’t want to deprive anyone of the excitement of seeing who shows up to the party. Needless to say, it’s an old-school monster mash, and a chance for Holland and Watts to show how they stack up against the actor/director teams of before — Raimi and Tobey Maguire in their “Spider-Man” trilogy of the early aughts, and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield in their two “Amazing Spider-Man” films.

Screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Summers, who also wrote the first two Holland/Watts chapters, pen a twisty, tightly plotted story that gives every character their moment without feeling too crammed — not an easy trick in movie that clocks in just shy of 2-1/2 hours. The only major stumbles are in the mid-credit and post-credit scenes, when the franchise overlords have to impose their corporate will to whet appetites for the next movie while we’re still digesting the one we just saw.

Holland has now played Peter in more movies than either Maguire or Garfield have — three with “Spider-Man” in the title, plus “Captain America; Civil War” and two “Avengers” movies — and has made the role his own. He’s showing Peter’s maturity, as he finally comes to terms with what it means to be Spider-Man, taking to heart the character’s motto, uttered here by Marisa Tomei’s Aunt May, that with great power comes great responsibility. Holland’s Peter — with his friends MJ and Ned Leeds (Jacob Batalon) in his corner — proves he’s strong enough to face any villain from any universe, and keep Spider-Man swinging for more movies to come.

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‘Spider-Man: No Way Home’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of action/violence, some language and brief suggestive comments. Running time: 147 minutes.

December 13, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Teen-age Fabietto (Filippo Scotti, left) rides through Naples with his mother, Maria (Teresa Saponangelo), and father, Saverio (Toni Servillo), in director Paolo Sorrentino’s coming of age comedy/drama, “The Hand of God.” (Photo courtesy of Netflix.)

Review: 'The Hand of God' is Paolo Sorrentino's sensuously gorgeous love letter to his boisterous Naples family.

December 08, 2021 by Sean P. Means

In his latest movie, and arguably most personal one, “The Hand of God,” Italian director Paolo Sorrentino introduces audiences to his sprawling, boisterous family — and puts a teen version of himself at the center, trying to figure out what to make of it all.

The opening scenes, which show the many uncles and aunts who gather for weekend meals at the Schisa family’s home in Naples, may make a viewer feel like they’re visiting your significant other’s family for the first time. There are so many faces to encounter, names to remember, and quirks to associate with those faces and names, that you may feel overwhelmed. And by bombarding us with so many relatives, Sorrentino is perfectly capturing what being part of a family is all about.

After a bit, things settle down, and Sorrentino imparts a fair amount of information. The main character is a teen, Fabietto (played by Filippo Scotti — which, I think, is how you say “Timothee Chalamet” in Italian), who’s fairly quiet, at least in comparison to his loud family. His dad, Saverio (Toni Servillo, the star of Sorrentino’s “The Great Beauty”), is kind and laughs easily, mostly at the pranks that Fabietto’s mother, Maria (Teresa Saponangelo), likes to pull on neighbors and relatives. Together, his parents are still deliriously in love, whistling a tune to each other that’s their coded love language.

There are many others, though the one who sticks out in Fabietto’s recollections is his buxom aunt, Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri) — if only because of one time, when his parents were breaking up a domestic disturbance between Patrizia and her jealous husband, Franco (Massimiliano Gallo), that Fabietto saw his first naked breast since he was weaned.

The era is important: It’s the mid-1980s, a time notable in Sorrentino’s memory because his local soccer team, Napoli, signed a player who some consider the greatest who ever lived: Diego Maradona. (The title refers to Maradona’s infamous goal for Argentina, aided by an uncalled handball foul, in the 1986 World Cup quarter-final against England.) 

The first hour of the film is a delight, a slightly manic run of boisterous family gatherings, where Fabietto mostly observes the gentle insults and sharp banter among his relatives. At the midway point, though, there’s a family tragedy, and Fabietto’s world is plunged into despair. “Reality is lousy,” Fabietto declares, as he decides he wants to become a filmmaker so he can create a reality more to his liking.

The reality Sorrentino creates here is sumptuous and sensuous, whether the cool bay where the family goes swimming or the decaying Neapolitan buildings where you might find a fully lit chandelier sitting askew on the floor. It’s also a reality brimming with fascinating characters, most notably the upstairs neighbor, The Baroness (Betty Pedrazzi), who teaches Fabietto about the mechanics of sex, and the cantankerous director (Ciro Capano), who hates fans and shouts at Fabietto to find his inspiration.

“The Hand of God” becomes, in Sorrentino’s loving hands, the Italian vacation you’ve always wanted to take, with the most interesting people you could find for company.

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‘The Hand of God’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 10, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), available for streaming starting December 15 on Netflix. Rated R for sexual content, language, some graphic nudity and brief drug use. Running time: 131 minutes; in Italian with subtitles (or dubbed on Netflix).

December 08, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Masao (Steve Iwamoto) prepares to die, comforted by the ghost of his late wife, Grace (Constance Wu), in writer-director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s drama “I Was a Simple Man.” (Photo by Eunsoo Cho, courtesy of Strand Releasing.)

Review: 'I Was a Simple Man' is a beautiful, moving tale of a man dealing with his regrets and ghosts as he reaches the end of his life

December 08, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Beautiful and elegiac, writer-director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s “I Was a Simple Man” is a profoundly moving ghost story about a man reflecting on his regrets as he prepares for the end of his life.

Steve Iwamoto, in only his second screen appearance, gives an elegantly spare performance as Masao Matsuyoshi, a Japanese-American living in Hawai’i. He’s an old man, facing down some unnamed illness that will likely kill him sooner rather than later. He lives alone, sometimes helping his perpetually unemployed son, Mark (Nelson Lee), who says he talks to the family’s ghosts.

Masao has two other children: Henry, who lives on the mainland and is only present as an annoyed voice on the phone; and Kati (Chanel Akiko Hirai), who lives in town, on the other side of the island, and visits occasionally and reluctantly — leaving Masao’s care, toward the end, to his grandson, Gavin (Kanoa Goo).

In an important way, though, Masao is not alone. He’s visited by the ghost of his wife, Grace (played by “Crazy Rich Asians” star Constance Wu). Grace has been gone some 60 years — she died on the day in 1959 when Hawai’i became the 50th state — and most of Masao’s regrets stem from what happened after Grace died.

Yogi shows us those days in flashback, with Tim Chiou playing Masao in 1959, and Kyle Kosaki playing him in 1941, opposite Boonyanudh Jiyarom as a young Grace. Past and present collide frequently in Yogi’s telling, one informing the other to paint a full picture of Masao’s life.

It takes a few minutes for a viewer to recalibrate their bearings to Yogi’s thoughtful, deliberate pacing. “Time moves differently out here,” Gavin remarks late in the film, long after the viewer has reached that conclusion. Within those slower rhythms, though, Yogi lets us appreciate the beauty of Hawai’i and the literally haunted mood it casts over Masao’s final days and his eventual peace.

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‘I Was a Simple Man’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 10, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for mature themes and some sexuality. Running time: 100 minutes.

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This review originally ran on this site on January 29, 2021, when the movie premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

December 08, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Astronomers Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence, left) and Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) are flown by military transport to Washington, D.C., to brief the president, in the end-of-the-world satire “Don’t Look Up.” (Photo by Niko Tavernise, courtesy of Netflix.)

Review: 'Don't Look Up' is an end-of-the-world comedy that loses its subtlety as it takes aim at too-easy targets

December 07, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Director Adam McKay’s broad-brush political satire “Don’t Look Up” asks the question we all have avoided asking for the last two years: What would happen if the wrong people were in charge when it appeared as if the world was about to end?

That’s the scenario set in motion when Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), an astronomy doctoral candidate at Michigan State, one night sees something new in the night sky: A comet. The good news is that, as its discoverer, the powers that be name it Comet Dibiasky. The bad news is that when her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), does the calculations for the comet’s trajectory, the inescapable conclusion is that the comet will hit Earth in six months, obliterating humanity.

The question for Kate and Randall becomes: Who do we tell? And who will believe us?

The answer to the first question is Dr. Clayton “Teddy” Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), chief scientist for NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office — and, as the movie points out, that’s a real thing. On Teddy’s say-so, Kate and Randall are flown immediately to Washington, D.C., to tell the president their findings.

That’s where the real trouble starts for our Michigan astronomers. The president, Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep), is a know-nothing blowhard more concerned with her approval rating, and her scandal-plagued Supreme Court nominee, than the imminent end of everything. Same goes for her chief of staff, her son Jason (Jonah Hill), a bro-dude nepotism hire. Where on Earth does McKay get the ideas for these wacky characters who couldn’t possibly have any basis in our recent reality?

Next stop is the press, which comes with its own sets of problems. The reputable papers are too cautious to take the threat too seriously. Meanwhile, Kate and Randall go on a morning cable-news show, where the oppressively perky hosts (played by Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) are too interested in the latest romantic problems of a pouty pop star (played by Ariana Grande) then in a killer comet. When Kate loses her cool on live TV, she becomes fodder for a thousand internet memes.

Other characters work their way into the mix, including a tech company CEO (Mark Rylance) who talks like a cult leader, a politically incorrect war hero (Ron Perlman), and Randall’s no-nonsense wife June (Melanie Lynskey), who sees her husband’s personality change in the middle of the media storm.

McKay, who co-wrote the story with journalist and political activist David Sirota, has plenty to say about the inability of our current political leaders to cope with a genuine, non-partisan crisis — whether it’s a comet or climate change — as well as the media’s shortcomings, or celebrity-driven culture, and our constant seeking of quick solutions from our technology gurus.

There are some nuggets of sharp humor throughout the movie, from DiCaprio’s panic attack before going on TV to Lawrence’s character’s running obsession with the perplexing behavior of a top Pentagon general (Paul Guilfoyle). And both Streep and Blanchett nail their character’s parallel strains of self-centered blonde cluelessness. 

But what this Oscar-laden line-up — DiCaprio, Lawrence, Streep, Rylance, Blanchett and McKay himself (for adapted screenplay for “The Big Short”) all have statuettes at home — seems to be missing is a sense of how to make this doomsday satire consistently funny. The key is to emphasize the terror of the world’s end to the absurd degree, the way Stanley Kubrick (“Dr. Strangelove”) or Douglas Adams (“The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”) did with slashing wit.

“Don’t Look Up” suffers from not being absurd enough, because the surreal truth of American politics outpaced the incredulity of fiction sometime around the 2016 election. It’s hard to laugh at scenes so similar to ones that were making you cry when they played out on CNN.

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‘Don’t Look Up’

★★

Opens Friday, December 10, in theaters; available for streaming starting December 24 on Netflix. Rated R for language throughout, some sexual content, graphic nudity and drug content. Running time: 145 minutes.

December 07, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman, left) and her on- and off-screen husband, Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem), read through a script for an episode of their hit show “I Love Lucy,” in a scene from writer-director Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos.” (Photo by Glen Weldon, courtesy of Amazon Studios.)

Review: 'Being the Ricardos' examines a marriage, and a comedy partnership, under the microscope of Aaron Sorkin's sharp dialogue

December 07, 2021 by Sean P. Means

With “Being the Ricardos,” writer-director Aaron Sorkin returns to his mothership — television — as he explores the medium’s first multi-hyphenate married couple, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, and finds a wealth of high-stakes drama, passionate romance and marital tension.

Sorkin concentrates the story of Lucy and Desi to a single, eventful week in the mid-1950s. It starts on Sunday night, with Lucy (Nicole Kidman) and Desi (Javier Bardem) on the alert for two potentially damaging news articles. 

One, in the gossip mags, suggests Desi going out with another woman — a story Lucy quickly debunks, though her suspicions over Desi’s late nights playing poker with the guys don’t rest so quietly. The other is a blind item on Walter Winchell’s popular radio show, suggesting that Lucy is being investigated by the House Un-American Activities Committee, accused of being a Communist.

Arriving Monday morning to their Desilu Studios soundstage, Lucy and Desi confront the nervous CBS suits, assuring them that both stories will blow over. They also spring another bit of news that will make the suits quake: Lucy is pregnant, and Lucy and Desi want Lucy’s TV self to also be expecting — something a network TV show has never done before.

As Lucy and Desi arrive for the table read of this week’s episode of “I Love Lucy,” they receive the support of their co-stars — the tart-tongued Vivian Vance (Nina Arianda) and the gruff, hard-drinking William Frawley (J.K. Simmons — along with their executive producer, Jess Oppenheimer (Tony Hale), and staff writers Madelyn Pugh (Alia Shawkat) and Bob Carroll (Jake Lacey).

(Sorkin’s biggest misstep in the film is having older versions of Oppenheimer, Pugh and Carroll — played by John Rubenstein, Linda Lavin and Ronny Cox — sit for documentary-style “interviews.” It’s a narrative crutch the movie doesn’t need, though Lavin’s Pugh delivers the best line to describe Lucy and Desi’s relationship: “They were either tearing each other’s heads off, or tearing each other’s clothes off.”)

During the next four days, Sorkin takes us deep into the mechanics of getting “I Love Lucy” off the ground, from first script reading through blocking and rehearsal in front of the cameras. At each step, Sorkin also shows us how Arnaz was the businessman and innovator (he devised the three-camera shooting set-up that sitcoms use to this day), and how Lucy was the sharp-witted comedienne, her mind always taking apart the gags to make sure they worked.

Other issues crop up during this production week. Lucy notices that Vivian, a former dancer, has lost weight — a minor rebellion against the show’s running gag that her character, Ethel Mertz, is called unattractive by her lump of a husband, Frawley’s character Fred. Meanwhile, Madelyn fights to speak up for herself, and for Lucy’s onscreen persona, amid the casual sexism of the writer’s room. Equally casual is the racism of the suits, and even condescension from Oppenheimer, aimed at the Cuban-born Desi.

Also throughout this week, Sorkin occasionally flashes back to key moments in Lucy and Desi’s life together — from their first meeting while filming a movie (the 1940 musical “Too Many Girls”) through the ups and downs of their respective careers as a movie actress and a band leader, and eventually jumping into this new thing called television.

Kidman and Bardem are magnetic as Lucy and Desi, in large part because they’re not trying — or trying too hard — to give note-perfect impersonations of the TV legends. Bardem captures Arnaz’ charisma, and his businessman’s knack for schmoozing and problem-solving. Kidman occasionally mimics a few of Ball’s classic moments of physical comedy (such as her famous grape-stomping gag), but her real talent here is showing Ball’s quicksilver mind at work as she looks tor the right way to make every joke funnier.

“Being the Ricardos” fits squarely in the Sorkin canon of walking-and-talking workplace dramas — think of “The West Wing” or his less successful TV-centric series “Sports Night” and “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” — where smart people are thrown together in a pressure-cooker situation and come out making magic. It’s also the atmosphere that Lucy and Desi kind of invented, and Sorkin is paying tribute to the legends who set the table for all TV creators to follow.

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‘Being the Ricardos’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 10, in theaters; available for streaming starting December 21 on Prime video. Rated R for language. Running time: 125 minutes.

December 07, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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The Jets, at left, and the Sharks face off at a neighborhood dance, in a scene from Steven Spielberg’s remake of “West Side Story.” (Photo by Niko Tavernise, courtesy of Twentieth Century Studios.)

Review: Steven Spielberg's 'West Side Story' celebrates the classic street-level musical, while finding fresh takes on the material

December 02, 2021 by Sean P. Means

Steven Spielberg’s lush, lovingly captured version of “West Side Story” is proof that a movie — no matter when it’s set or how old its source material is — is firmly a mirror of the time in which it’s made.

Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner decided to set this remake in 1957, the same year composer Leonard Bernstein, lyricist Stephen Sondheim and choreographer Jerome Robbins introduced their street-savvy “Romeo & Juliet” on Broadway. And all the period details, from the cars on the street to Doc’s candy store on the corner, are true to that esthetic.

We’re quickly introduced to the two sides in conflict in New York: The Jets, the white street toughs, and the Sharks, the up-and-coming Puerto Rican immigrants. The two gangs are battling over turf that’s quickly disappearing, as the old neighborhood buildings are being torn down to make way for the new, shiny Lincoln Center.

The rival leaders — Riff (Mike Faist) for the Jets, and Bernardo (David Alvarez) for the Sharks — are going to meet at a school dance to make plans for a rumble. Riff wants his Jets co-founder, Tony (Ansel Elgort), there for leverage, though Tony is reluctant because he’s on parole and trying to stay straight, but also excited enough to go that he sings “something’s coming, something good.” Bernardo will attend the dance with his girlfriend, Anita (Ariana DeBose, from the original “Hamilton” cast), and his 18-year-old sister, Maria (played by newcomer Rachel Zegler).

What no one — other than we in the audience — counts on is that Tony and Maria will see each other across the dance floor, and fall in love at first sight. It’s enough to leave Tony marveling at the name Maria: “Say it loud and there’s music playing / Say it soft and it’s almost like praying.”

So what’s new in this version that we didn’t get in the 1961 film, directed by Robbins and Robert Wise, that won 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture?

Perhaps the most noticeable thing early on is that the narrative balance, which used to tip generously to the Jets — reflecting the lily-white Hollywood mentality of the time — is somewhat more even. And many of the scenes involving the Sharks break from English to Spanish, and Spielberg and Kushner opted to leave those passages unsubtitled. Even if some viewers don’t know Spanish, they’ll get the gist of it.

There’s more authenticity in the casting, particularly for Maria. Zegler, a radiant discovery, is of Colombian descent — which isn’t Puerto Rican, but it’s much closer than either Natalie Wood or Marni Nixon (whose singing voice came out of Wood’s mouth) ever got.

Some of the classic songs are repurposed to strong effect. Maria sings the usually frivolous “I Feel Pretty” while working on a department store clean-up crew, and it’s turned into a sly commentary on consumerism. And the plaintive “Somewhere” is given not to naive Tony and Maria, but to the neighborhood sage, the owner of Doc’s candy store: Doc’s Puerto Rican widow, Valentina — tenderly played by the legend herself, Rita Moreno (who won an Oscar portraying Anita in the ’61 version). 

Justin Peck’s dynamic choreography keeps the best of Robbins’ cool angular moves while making the dance feel more naturally part of the cityscape. The rumble itself, though clearly choreographed, feels like a real fight with real stakes — even before the knives come out.

Kushner’s screenplay quietly but forcefully brings out themes that might have been too hot-button for the ’61 version. The attack on Anita by the Jets is one instance, as is the Shakespearean finale. The shadow of gentrification, as Lincoln Center’s rise is about to displace both whites and Puerto Ricans, also looms over the characters in ways the ’61 scarcely considered.

People will ask why Spielberg would remake “West Side Story” when the original still exists. I think of it as following the Broadway tradition of reviving classic works every few years, to let a new generation of talent test itself against the material. Besides, Hollywood has made multiple movies out of many of Shakespeare’s plays, and no one complains about it. If it’s good enough for Shakespeare, it should be good for Bernstein and Sondheim’s beautiful collaboration.

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‘West Side Story’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 10, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some strong violence, strong language, thematic content, suggestive material and brief smoking. Running time: 156 minutes.

December 02, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Malik (Riz Ahmed, left), an ex-Marine who is convinced an alien invasion is happening, tries to persuade his sons, Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan, near right) and Bobby (Aditya Geddada), in the thriller “Encounter.” (Photo courtesy of Amazon Studios.)

Review: 'Encounter,' led by a ferocious Riz Ahmed, is a psychological thriller that leaves the audience off balance

December 01, 2021 by Sean P. Means

A wolf in an alien’s clothing, director Michael Pearce’s “Encounter” is a dark and intense psychological drama that follow the desperate actions of a tortured soul.

Pearce — who made the dark romance “Beast” with Jessie Buckley in 2017 — starts by showing us what appears to be an alien invasion at the microbial level. A meteor has somehow infected microscopic creatures with an alien parasite that is taking over human bodies.

The one person who seems to know this is happening is Malik Khan (played by Riz Ahmed), a former Marine who’s been off the grid for awhile. One night, Malik goes to the home of his ex-wife, Piya (Janina Gavankar), and her new husband, Dylan (Misha Collins), to pick up his sons, 10-year-old Jay (Lucian-River Chauhan) and 8-year-old Bobby (Aditya Geddada), for what he tells them will be a great camping adventure.

What soon becomes clear, to Jay and to us, is that there’s much doubt about whether this parasite invasion is real — or whether Malik is losing his mind. Certainly that’s the fear of Malik’s parole officer, Hattie (Octavia Spencer), and of the FBI agent (Rory Cochrane) who is investigating the boys’ departure as a kidnapping.

Part of the tension that Pearce and co-screenwriter Joe Barton build here is in leaving that central question — is Malik saving his kids or putting them in more danger? — up in the air for as long as possible. If Malik is going mad, the world seems to be going with him, particularly in a nasty encounter with some white-supremacist vigilantes.

Not all of the story works, and the inevitability of a “Thelma & Louise”-style ending grows with every minute. But Ahmed, coming off his Oscar-nominated turn in “Sound of Metal,” gives a ferocious performance here, burrowing deep into Malik’s troubled psyche as he wrestles with figuring out the best way to keep his sons safe. It’s a performance that makes “Encounter” irresistibly watchable, even as the plot churns toward the predictable.

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‘Encounter’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 3, in select theaters. Rated R for lanaguage and some violence. Running time: 108 minutes.

December 01, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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Sister Benedetta (Virginie Efira, foreground) prays, as other nuns, and the novice Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia, right), look on in a scene from Paul Verhoeven’s thriller “Benedetta.” (Photo courtesy of IFC Films.

Review: 'Benedetta' lets director Paul Verhoeven go medieval in the convent, with a story of carnality and Catholicism

December 01, 2021 by Sean P. Means

The Virgin Mary and some not-so-virginal nuns feature prominently in “Benedetta,” an erotically charged and sometimes unhinged thriller from Dutch director Paul Verhoeven.

It’s sometime in the 1600s, at a convent in a small Italian town. The Abbess (Charlotte Rampling) takes payment from a nobleman (David Clavel) to enroll his daughter — who as a little girl claimed to speak directly to the Virgin Mary — as a nun. As an adult, the girl, Benedetta (Virginie Efira), is the most devout sister in the order, so much so that she sometimes claims Jesus himself is speaking to her.

The Abbess, who’s cynical about the presence of miracles, indulges Benedetta’s flights of spiritual fancy. But the convent’s peaceful balance is upended when a wild young woman, Bartolomea (Daphne Patakia), runs in seeking sanctuary from her abusive father. Benedetta wants to take Bartolomea in, and Benedetta’s rich parents are willing to pay the Abbess off to let that happen.

Soon, Benedetta — who has never known carnal pleasure — finds herself drawn physically to Bartolomea, and vice versa. This being a Verhoeven movie, this attraction soon manifests itself in scenes of stark sexuality, including the use of a figurine of the Virgin Mary designed to offend any devout Catholics who mistakenly walked into the theater.

Oh, did I mention that Verhoeven and his co-screenwriter, David Birke, based their script off of real events — chronicled in historian Judith C. Brown’s book “Immodest Acts: The Life of a Lesbian Nun in Renaissance Italy”?

Of course, erotic thrillers are nothing new to Verhoeven, who gave the world “Basic Instinct” (1980) and “Showgirls” (1995) — along with action blockbusters like “RoboCop” (1987) and “Total Recall” (1990). Out of favor in Hollywood, Verhoeven went back to Europe, making the World War II spy thriller “Black Book” (2006) and the Isabelle Huppert rape drama “Elle” (2016).

Verhoeven is also an old hand at mixing sexuality and Catholicism — take his pre-Hollywood 1983 thriller “The 4th Man.” So medieval nuns getting it on shouldn’t be a shock, in context.

And, after a while, the novelty wears off, and the story concerns itself with the power dynamics between Benedetta and the Abbess — and with the Nuncio (Lambert Wilson), a papal representative determined to put an end to Benedetta’s claims of being a miracle worker.

Not everything in “Benedetta” tracks as a coherent narrative, and Verhoeven is more interested in throwing rocks in the pond than exploring the aftermath of the splash. But the sparks among the leads — particularly Efira’s electric scenes with Patakia and her cool head-to-head scenes with Rampling — make the movie intriguing even when it’s jumping off the rails.

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‘Benedetta’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 3, in select theaters. Not rated, but probably R for sexual imagery and violence. Running time: 131 minutes; in French and Latin, with subtitles.

December 01, 2021 /Sean P. Means
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