Review: Documentary 'Try Harder!' takes viewers inside a high school for overachievers, and suggests that college admissions isn't the only thing in life

Director Debbie Lum strikes a careful balance in her documentary “Try Harder!” — to celebrate the high-achieving students in one of America’s competitive high schools, while raising thorny questions about the competing that happens there.

Lowell High School in San Francisco is one of the most selective schools in the country, designed to teach STEM to the city’s best students and getting them into the best colleges. Importantly, the majority of students there are Asian Americans, often children of first-generation immigrants who, as the movie shows, fulfill the stereotype of the “tiger mom.”

Lum concentrates mostly on five teens, achieving a cross-section of the student body. Three of them are Asian American, one is white, and one is the daughter of a Black woman and a long-absent white father. Through them, the movie talks about the issues of race in the college-admission game — how some schools view Asian students as robotic test-taking machines, or how the biracial girl, Rachael, hears casually racist comments from her rival classmates.

Lum’s film also makes a strong argument that a school like Lowell, by being so laser-focused on college admissions, denies their kids the thing some colleges want most: A well-rounded life. There are a lot of extracurricular activities shown in the film — one boy, Alvan, discovers he enjoys dance class, while Rachael edits the school newspaper — but it’s forcefully implied that those are second-string behind the STEM work.

“Try Harder!” delves into these issues, but keeps the focus on the students, who are far more than the sum total of their application essays or the number of Ivy League schools that rejected them. Leaving the film, you can’t help but hope they learn more at college than the coursework.

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‘Try Harder!’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 24, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language. Running time: 85 minutes.

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This review ran previously on this site on January 30, 2021, when the movie premiered at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival.

Review: 'The Matrix Resurrections' proves that Lana Wachowski's ideas — like stars Keanu Reeves and Carrie-Anne Moss — haven't aged a day

It’s been 22 years since the Wachowskis first took viewers through “The Matrix,” and 18 years since we went in last, with “The Matrix Reloaded” and “The Matrix Revolutions” — which turns out to be exactly enough time away to appreciate a return visit, in “The Matrix Resurrections,” which puts the “trip” in “nostalgia trip.”

The new film starts with what looks like a familiar situation: A fast-moving woman with short hair is evading mean-looking agents in matching suits, and when she can’t run she fights using gravity-defying moves. But it’s not the Trinity we remember from the first films. This woman, we’re told, is named Bugs, and played by Jessica Henwick (“Love & Monsters”) — but she’s a believer in Neo, “the one” who can free the humans enslaved by robot invaders to fill the computer-program world of The Matrix.

Where is Neo, the savior of the earlier trilogy? He’s living under his old name, Thomas Anderson, a video game designer in a prosperous San Francisco software firm — and, yes, still played by Keanu Reeves. His most popular game, called “Binary,” has elements from Anderson’s imagination, such as a leather-clad heroine named Trinity.

Anderson’s business partner (Jonathan Groff) informs him that the parent company — he actually refers to Warner Bros., the company that released all the “Matrix” films (and put the franchise in the new “Space Jam” movie) — wants a sequel. This prompts a brainstorming session with the younger game designers and marketers to rant about how game-changing the first game was, in a clever bit of meta-analysis that shows director Lana Wachowski has more of a sense of humor than we realized.

Anderson tells his analyst (Neil Patrick Harris) that he sometimes sees flashes that suggest his world isn’t real — to which the analyst prescribes more blue pills. But then, in the coffee shop, Anderson sees a woman who looks oddly familiar, who goes by the name Tiffany (played by Carrie-Anne Moss). 

That’s about as close to the land of spoilers as I’m willing to go, except for one thing: There’s a character with a familiar name — Morpheus — but with a different face (the one he shares with actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II). This Morpheus, like the last one, has a mission to bring Anderson back out of The Matrix, though things outside aren’t exactly what we might remember.

Wachowski, working with co-writers David Mitchell and Aleksandar Hemon, clearly is enjoying playing in this particular sandbox again. She deploys all the iconography, and sometimes actual footage, from the previous films, usually with a fond wink — but also repurposing the familiar into fresh new storytelling.

Some things can’t be duplicated, though. The absence of Hugo Weaving, the originator of the ruthless Agent Smith, is keenly felt. But what this movie does for a new antagonist is fascinating.

While some things change, it’s uncanny how much Reeves and Moss — ages 57 and 54, respectively — have stayed the same. They still have the kick-ass charisma and unflappable allure that was as important to the cool factor of the original “Matrix” as the trench coats and bullet-time effects. They are also the embodiment of a new truth to this franchise: That it’s not about The One, but The Two.

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‘The Matrix Resurrections’

★★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 22, in theaters everywhere, and streaming on HBO Max. Rated R for violence and some language. Running time: 148 minutes.

Review: In 'Sing 2,' Bono proves that, even as a lion, he classes up even the most ridiculous movie

The animated “Sing 2” is an improvement on its 2016 predecessor “Sing,” but that’s not saying a lot. It’s still a jukebox musical with a half-dozen characters each playing through their underdeveloped subplots — only some of the songs are worth the build-up.

Buster Moon, the koala theater impresario voiced by Matthew McConaughey, has everything going his way. He’s producing a show in his town’s biggest theater, a take on “Alice in Wonderland” that opens with Alice — played by the teen elephant Meena (voiced by Tori Kelly) — and the cast singing a passable cover of Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy.” Buster’s hoping a talent scout from Redshore City, this universe’s version of Las Vegas, will be wowed enough to book them for an extended run.

But when the scout, Suki (voiced by Chelsea Peretti), tells Buster the act isn’t good enough for the big city, Buster is not phased. He still loads up his cast into a bus and heads to Redshore City, to audition for the ruthless mogul, a wolf named Mr. Crystal (voiced by Bobby Cannavale).

Crystal is a hard sell, and in desperation Buster drops the name of Redshore City’s most famous rock star, Clay Calloway. Buster promises Crystal he can get Calloway to perform — something the reclusive rocker hasn’t done in 15 years, since the death of his wife. 

I should mention that the reason for the awestruck tone these folks hit when talking about Clay Calloway is that the character, literally a lion, is voiced by Bono. Yes, the Bono, the frontman for U2. And all of Calloway’s songs are U2 songs — and it’s hard not to feel the emotional pull of “Where the Streets Have No Name” or “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” even when coming out of the mouths of animated animals.

So Buster prepares a show to showcase Calloway’s gifts, a musical science-fiction extravaganza devised by the flamboyant pig, Gunter (voiced by Nick Kroll). During rehearsal, Buster must handle: his star, the mama pig Rosita (voiced by Reese Witherspoon) overcoming a fear of heights; Johnny (voiced by Taron Egerton), the gorilla, learning to dance from a hip-hop street artist, Nooshy (voiced by Letitia Wright); Meena having to the stage with an egomaniacal bull actor (voiced by Eric Andre); and finding a place in the show for Crystal’s daughter, Porsha (voiced by Halsey). Meanwhile, Buster assigns Ash (voiced by Scarlett Johansson), the punk-rock porcupine, to talk to Calloway, musician to musician, to convince him to come out of hiding.

So, as with the first movie, director-writer Garth Jennings stuffs too many plot threads and song cues into the mix, creating a frenetic, chaotic mess. Sometimes that energy works in the movie’s favor, but not often enough — until Bono finally shows up, in a stirring duet with Johansson that is the emotional high point. 

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‘Sing 2’

★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for some rude material and mild peril/violence. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: 'The Tender Bar' serves a heavy pour of nostalgia, but Ben Affleck's performance as a favorite uncle is delightful

The nostalgic drama “The Tender Bar” follows the familiar pattern of memoir: Of someone remembering their childhood, and the most interesting person in it. Thankfully, director George Clooney and screenwriter William Monahan (an Oscar winner for “The Departed”) know how to deploy that person quite well.

The movie is based on the memoir of J.R. Moehringer, who recalls growing up on Long Island in the 1970s and 1980s. Jr., played as a kid by a charming newcomer named Daniel Ranieri, and his mom (Lily Rabe) relocate there to move back in with Mom’s parents (Christopher Lloyd and Sondra James) — because Jr.’s deadbeat dad (Max Martini), known as The Voice because of his work as a radio DJ, has flaked on them once again. (There’s an explanation of how Jr., for “Junior,” as he’s named for his dad, becomes “J.R.”)

The memorable character who becomes Jr.’s father figure is his mom’s brother, Uncle Charlie — played by Ben Affleck. Charlie tends bar at The Dickens, a neighborhood dive with an unusual number of books, all of which Charlie has read, though he never went to college. Charlie gives Jr. his education through those books, and the life lessons he picks up from the bar’s regulars.

In the movie’s second half, Jr. (played by Tye Sheridan) is heading to college, and applying what he’s learned at The Dickens. He knows he wants to be a writer, a novelist — though he’ll resort to journalism if necessary. The other area where Charlie’s advice comes into play is in romance, particularly in an on-again, off-again relationship with a classmate, Sidney (Briana Middleton). 

Monahan’s script overloads on the sentimentality, and Clooney’s direction follows down the same path of vintage cars and classic tunes. Neither is helped by the fact that Moehringer’s reminiscences are more interesting in his younger days, recalling Charlie and the bar, than in his college period.

Affleck, giving the second strong supporting performance of the year (the earlier one was in “The Last Duel”), creates the uncle and the bartender we all wish we had: Good-natured, supportive, street-smart and free of judgment. Affleck brings a toughness to “The Tender Bar,” but also a warmth that comes with being part of the family.

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‘The Tender Bar’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City); available for streaming January 7 on Prime. Rated R for language throughout and some sexual content. Running time: 106 minutes.

Review: 'Nightmare Alley' puts Guillermo Del Toro's sumptuous filmmaking to work on a classic noir tale of carnies and con men

Few directors understand how to use the movies as a time machine as well as Guillermo Del Toro, and his latest, “Nightmare Alley,” is a deeply engrossing trip into the noir world of the Great Depression.

It’s in the depths of economic and emotional despair that finds Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) setting a match to his rural home and hitting the road. He lands eventually with a traveling carnival, getting a quick job because he’s got a strong back. The carnival’s boss, Clem Hoatley (Willem Dafoe), gives him a place to sleep amid the pickled fetuses and other oddities in Clem’s collection.

Stanton is a quick study, picking up the secrets of carnival life from his new colleagues. He befriends the carnival’s resident psychic, Zeena the Seer (Toni Collette), and learns to fill in for his partner, Pete (David Straithairn), who is sometimes too drunk to deliver the coded clues for the mentalist act. Stanton also comes up with a new set for Molly Cahill (Rooney Mara) and her “Electric Girl” act — leading to a romance with Molly, who agrees to run away with Stanton for something better.

The movie flashes ahead two years, and finds Stanton and Molly performing an upscale version of Zeena and Pete’s mentalism act in ritzy hotel cabarets. The act draws the attention of a psychiatrist, Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), who’s checking out Stanton’s gifts of clairvoyance on behalf of a rich client, the prominent Judge Kimball (Peter MacNeill) and his wife (Mary Steenburgen). 

Against the advice he learned in the carnival — a warning not to turn the act into a “spook show,” by making the marks think you’re really communing with the departed — Stanton manipulates the Kimballs to tell them what they want to hear about their son, who was killed in the Great War. This leads Stanton to a partnership with Dr. Ritter, to set up her patients for psychic readings, using the information she collects from her patients to sell the act. With Ritter’s help, Stanton meets the ultimate mark, the reclusive and unstable tycoon Ezra Grindle (Richard Jenkins).

Del Toro and his co-screenwriter, Kim Morgan, adapt a classic novel by William Lindsay Gresham (which spawned a 1947 movie version, starring Tyrone Power as Stanton) and distill the dark heart of film noir. Deploying a strong behind-the-camera team — including cinematographer Dan Laustsen and costume designer Luis Sequeira, from his 2017 Oscar-winning “The Shape of Water” — perfectly captures the detailed world of con artists and marks, being taken for dimes at the carnival or thousands of dollars in the palaces of the wealthy.

The movie is blessed with an outstanding ensemble cast, including Del Toro’s personal good-luck charm, Ron Perlman, as the carnival’s strongman, Bruno. Cooper gives a riveting performance, his eyes darting as Stanton constantly works out the angles of his next con. He plays deftly off of his three leading ladies: Collette as the jaded carnival performer, Mara as the ingenue, and Blanchett as the shrink who recognizes a fellow manipulator when she sees one.

“Nightmare Alley” is another case of Del Toro — as he’s done with “The Shape of Water,” “Crimson Peak” and so many other movies — building a fully realized world that draws us in with its seductive menace. The movie is like the funhouse in Clem’s carnival: A hall of mirrors that fascinates us with what we can see inside.

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‘Nightmare Alley’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong/bloody violence, some sexual content, nudity and language. Running time: 150 minutes.

Review: 'The Novice' is a harrowing, stylishly told story of a dangerously intense rowing student.

Writer-director Lauren Hadaway makes an impressive debut with “The Novice,” a college sports drama whose raw intensity and visual punch will make a lot of people take notice.

Already, the Independent Spirit Awards have noticed, honoring the film with five nominations — including best picture, director for Hadaway, editing for Hadaway and Nathan Nugent, and two performances: Isabelle Fuhrman in lead, and Amy Forsyth in support.

Fuhrman plays Alex Dall, a freshman at a small private university, who’s intensely focused on her major in physics until she finds something to get more intense about: Rowing. Alex signs up for the novice-level crew team, and discovers some of the young women are there for fun and others — namely Jamie Brill (played by Forsyth) — are gunning to make varsity, because it means a full-ride scholarship.

Alex and Jamie become friends and rivals as they practice on the ergonomic rowing machines, each trying to beat the varsity rowers’ records. When they’re both offered a chance to practice with the varsity, they become carpool pals, and Alex listens to Jamie complain about the “silver spoon bitches” who are attending the university on their parents’ wealth.

And, as if physics and rowing aren’t stressful enough, Alex also starts a passionate romance with Dani (played by the one-named model-turned-actress Dilone), a physics TA who also sings with a college band. The two meet in fall semester, when Dani is grading Alex’s physics tests — but the relationship heats up in the spring. “I said I don’t date my students,” Dani says. “But you’re not my student any more, are you?”

Hadaway, who rowed for Southern Methodist a decade ago, brings a painful authenticity to Alex’s rowing experiences — something a viewer feels in every cramp, every bead of sweat, every blister on her palm.  She also has worked as a sound editor in Hollywood, which shows in the fierce sound mix, which captures and amplifies Alex’s obsessive focus.

Fuhrman, who was chilling as a 10-year-old in “Orphan” (2009), graduates to stardom-level attention in “The Novice.” Fuhrman embodies the exhilaration and pain of trying to compete at a high level, and how that kind of passion can curdle into something darker and dangerous. 

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‘The Novice’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 17, in theaters. Rated R for language, some sexuality and brief disturbing material. Running time: 94 minutes.

Review: 'Swan Song' showcases a strong performance by Maheshala Ali, in a thoughtful look at death with a science-fiction twist.

A soulful performance by Mahershala Ali bolsters “Swan Song,” a thoughtful take on the familiar science-fiction trope: What would you say if you met your own clone?

Ali plays Cameron, a graphic designer living in the near future, with a loving wife, Poppy (Noemie Harris), and an 8-year-old son, Cory (Dax Ray). Cameron also is dying, but he hasn’t told Poppy yet. Instead, he has met with Dr. Jo Scott (Glenn Close), whose company is offering an alternative: Creating an exact duplicate of Cameron, down to the molecular level, and transferring his memories and mental abilities into the clone.

As with any science-fiction story, writer-director Benjamin Cleary (who won an Oscar for his 2015 short film “Stutterer”) has to establish the ground rules. Dr. Scott tells Cameron that he can’t tell Poppy about the clone, or the deal is off. Also, the clone — who’s called Jack while in the transition stage — will have his memory of meeting Cameron wiped, so the clone ultimately will never know he’s not the original.

Cleary creates a fluidly paced, sleekly designed film that makes room to explore the philosophical questions of such a medical breakthrough. What should a dying man think of the replica created to replace him? Is it OK to replace yourself if your family doesn’t know the difference? And if a man argues with his doppelgänger, is he really just arguing with himself?

Ali’s dual performance finds subtle but real differences between the original Cameron and the copy, and both are compelling as they discuss how and why Cameron is making this decision. Harris gives an achingly tender performance as Poppy, whose past experience with grief goes far in explaining why Cameron is considering being cloned. And Awkwafina gives a strong, serious performance as Kate, a dying woman who got cloned, so she’s been where Cameron is going.

None of the logistical or philosophical questions about cloning are particularly fresh — not to anyone with a solid grounding in science fiction. What makes “Swan Song” worth a look is the way Cleary and Ali tackle those ideas, with quiet emotion and genuine curiosity.

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‘Swan Song’

★★★

Opens Friday, December 17, in theaters, and streaming on AppleTV+. Rated R for language. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: 'The King's Man' tries to stage a thoughtful anti-war drama within a famously violent franchise, with mixed results.

Fans of director Matthew Vaughn’s 2014 spy comedy “Kingsmen: The Secret Service” may get lured into the prequel “The King’s Man” expecting the same manic violence and sharp humor — and walk away disappointed that those qualities only emerge in fits and starts.

Instead, Vaughn and his co-writer Karl Gajdusek have attempted to use the franchise as a Trojan horse, delivering a tenderly rendered father/son drama about a pacifism in the face of wartime evil. It’s a jarring juxtaposition, and one that doesn’t come off as tedious and a bit pompous.

The story centers on Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes), an English nobleman working as a diplomat to head off a war looming in Europe in 1914. The impetus for the war, it’s explained, is a longtime rivalry among three royal cousins, all grandchildren of Queen Victoria: King George V of the United Kingdom, Czar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. (In a devilish touch, all three monarchs are played by the same actor, Tom Hollander.)

Lord Oxford is an avowed pacifist, having lost his wife Emily (Alexandra Maria Lara) to a sniper in the Boer War in South Africa in 1902 (shown in the movie’s prologue). Oxford’s vow to his dying wife was to never let their son Conrad see war — which becomes difficult when Conrad (Harris Dickinson) reaches adulthood and wants to do his duty by enlisting in the Royal Army.

In an effort to block Conrad’s plan to go to war, Oxford reveals a secret: He has organized his own intelligence network, deploying his valet Shola (Djimon Hounsou) and maid Polly (Gemma Arterton) to gather information from the servants of world leaders from Moscow to Washington.

Oxford’s expertise leads King George to send Oxford as an emissary to Moscow, to urge Czar Nicholas to stay in the war against the Kaiser’s Germany. To do so, Oxford must counteract the mystical influence of the czar’s chief advisor, the mad monk Rasputin (Rhys Ifans). Oxford’s confrontation with Rasputin, aided by Conrad and Shola, is one of the few bursts of the outlandishly staged action in which the original “Kingsmen” film excelled.

In confronting Rasputin, Oxford starts to piece together a larger conspiracy at work. Vaughn has already let us in on that conspiracy, with a mysterious leader known as Shepherd sending out such well-known minions as Vladimir Lenin and Mata Hari. The ultimate confrontation with Shepherd should be a thrilling capstone, but fizzles into an unremarkable action finale.

It’s intriguing to watch Fiennes, so often cast as an over-the-top bad guy (hello, Voldemort), working here as a genteel, thoughtful hero, a character who struggles to maintain his pacifist ideals as the Great War unravels across Europe. The performance feels out of place in a franchise that made its reputation with exploding heads set to the 1812 Overture (which gets a callback here).

Yes, it feels contradictory for a critic, someone who usually demands movies deliver something fresh and new, to ding a franchise movie that stretches into uncharted territory. Certainly, it’s to Vaughn’s credit for trying a new approach to the franchise’s themes of urbane English figures thwarting attempts at global conquest — especially after the misfire of “Kingsmen: The Golden Circle,” which threw all of the first movie’s sensibility out the window for Americanized mayhem. However noble Vaughn’s intentions with “The King’s Man,” the film itself doesn’t deliver on what it promises, either as an action movie or a wartime drama.

We get a brief glimpse of the Kingsmen Agency in the movie’s final minutes — and a couple of surprising casting choices to set up yet another sequel. That movie, if it gets made, could be what Vaughn was going for all along, and might eventually justify the time and effort he squandered on this one.

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‘The King’s Man’

★★1/2

Opens Wednesday, December 22, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for sequences of strong/bloody violence, language and some sexual material. Running time: 131 minutes.