Review: Zach Braff's drama 'A Good Person' has moments of elegance and emotion, but also times where the phoniness takes over.

There’s been talk lately about whether AI programs could write a workable screenplay, given the right prompts — but I argue that it’s already happened, and someone typed the words “Zach Braff” and “addiction drama” into a computer, and the script for “A Good Person” popped out.

Braff wrote and directed this heavy drama — and if you’re at all familiar with his unfairly maligned 2004 comedy-drama “Garden State,” the movie that helped invent the “manic pixie dream girl,” you aren’t surprised by Braff’s name in the end credits here.

Florence Pugh stars as Allison, who first appears to be a prototypical “manic pixie dream girl.” She plays piano and sings, and she has cool New York friends, all of whom show up for her engagement party — to celebrate her impending marriage to the super-nice Nathan (Chinaza Uche). 

Then, as she’s driving with Nathan’s sister, Molly (Nichelle Hines), and Molly’s husband, Jesse (Toby Onwumere), she looks at the map on her phone for a second — and looks up to see a backhoe lurching out into traffic. The crash kills Molly and Jesse, and leaves Allison dealing with pain and guilt.

Move forward a year, and Allison isn’t the “dream girl” any more. She’s more like the depressed, screwed-up character Braff played in “Garden State.” She’s physically recovered from the car crash, but the emotional damage is still insurmountable — as is the opioid addiction she has developed from the pain pills she took after the accident. She’s living with her mom, Diane (Molly Shannon), and long since cut off her engagement to Nathan.

Realizing that she’s hit rock bottom, Allison works up the nerve to find and attend a meeting for addicts. As soon as she enters the room, though, she sees the last person she wants to see: Nathan and Molly’s father, Daniel (played by Morgan Freeman, who worked with Braff in 2017’s “Going in Style”). When Allison tries to run away, it’s Daniel — who has been sober 10 years, but keeps a bottle of whiskey hidden to test his resolve — who convinces her to stay. 

And, just like that, we’re in a drama about addiction, recovery and relapse. Braff, who can be a sensitive screenwriter, manages to steer clear of the clichés common to addiction-themed movies. Unfortunately, he steps into other traps, including the painfully earnest plot device of making Daniel a model-train hobbyist — and thus letting Freeman deliver an opening narration about “a world where the neighbors are always kind, the lovers always end up together, and the trains always take you to the far-off places you always swore you’d go.”

Though Braff’s story hits all the stations of the cross in Allison’s road to redemption, there are some bright spots. The standout is Celeste O’Connor (“Freaky”), playing Molly’s teen daughter Ryan, now living with Daniel and testing his revived parenting skills — as well as overcoming her resentment at Allison entering their life.

“A Good Person” veers between moments of genuine feeling and moments of phony schmaltz — and ends up delivering more of the fake stuff than the real thing. 

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‘A Good Person’

★★1/2

Opening Friday, March 24, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for drug abuse, language throughout and some sexual references. Running time: 129 minutes.

Review: 'The Tutor' is a nonsensical thriller with a twist ending that's ridiculously bad

It’s surprising that “The Tutor” didn’t end up in the less-traveled end of a Netflix queue — because if idiotic psychological thrillers like this one escape their natural habitat, what are streaming services good for?

When we meet Ethan Campbell (Garrett Hedlund), he’s a hard-working rent-a-tutor helping rich New York teen-agers get through their SATs. When he’s not working, he’s setting up house with his pregnant girlfriend, Annie (Victoria Justice), in an apartment no gig worker could afford in a million years. (New York City is portrayed by interiors in Birmingham, Alabama, and a lot of Big Apple stock footage.) 

When Ethan’s boss (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) calls with an irresistible offer — tutoring a super-rich teen in the suburbs at three times his regular rate — Ethan thinks about the impending costs of having a baby and says yes. Ethan is driven, by chauffeur, to a mansion, where he finds his new student, Jackson (played by “Stranger Things” co-star Noah Schlapp).

Ethan is duly impressed by Jackson’s ostentatious wealth, and creeped out by Jackson’s demeanor — which swings from boredom about his lessons to self-destructive anger about getting an answer wrong. When Ethan goes looking for Jackson and instead finds the teen’s laptop, with a folder full of surveillance photos of Ethan and Annie in the city, Ethan’s rating of Jackson goes from mildly creepy to full-on psychotic.

More plot elements pop up in Ryan King’s first produced screenplay, namely the mention of a woman who died under mysterious circumstances 10 years earlier. King’s script and Jordan Ross’s direction keeps spiraling toward the most ludicrous plot twist I’ve seen in a long time.

Here’s the thing about twist endings: For one to work, a viewer must be able to watch the movie a second time and see the signs that were missed on first viewing. It doesn’t matter how outlandish the premise of the twist. What matters is whether it can be made plausible. And there’s nothing in “The Tutor,” particularly in Ethan’s actions, that seem remotely believable if one pieces them together mentally after the big reveal.

Hobbling the film even more is that Ross, as a director, seems to create zero rapport among his three leads — so we’re never invested in anything they say or do. “The Tutor” shows that its filmmakers need to go back for some remedial film school classes.

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‘The Tutor’

★

Opens Friday, March 24, at some theaters. Rated R for language, some violence and sexual material. Running time: 92 minutes.

Review: 'Shazam! Fury of the Gods' is an uneven superhero movie that can't stand on its own in a world of franchises

The current turmoil over Warner Bros. restarting the DC movie universe, starting over next year by producers James Gunn and Peter Safran, leaves the last movies under the old regime, such as “Shazam! Fury of the Gods,” in something of a pickle.

This superhero movie was made in the mold of the Marvel Cinematic Universe — where the story before us is often shot through with callbacks to past installments and call-aheads to future chapters. But when we know there aren’t going to be those future chapters, how do we watch this movie as a story beholden only to itself?

The second “Shazam!” movie shows our hero (Zachary Levi) trying to deal with the great responsibility that comes with great power (oh, wait, that’s Spider-Man’s thing) — especially as the leader, of sorts, of the six superpowers kids who live with his human alter ego, Billy Batson (Asher Angel), in a Philadelphia foster home. The six of them try to do good, like in the early going when they save motorists from a collapsing bridge, but are mocked in the media as the “Philadelphia Fiascos.” 

PR problems turn out to be the least of our hero’s worries. In Greece, a pair of supernatural women — played by Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu — show up to reclaim the staff of Atlas, which works off the same kind of magic that gave our six kids their powers. Meanwhile, Billy’s best friend, Freddy Freeman (Jack Dylan Grazer), in his non-super form, develops a heavy crush on the school’s new girl (Rachel Zegler, from “West Side Story”), who introduces herself as Ann, but is more than she appears to be.

Director David F. Sandberg returns from the first film, and doesn’t change much of what made the first “Shazam!” so much fun: Showing Levi’s superhero as a kid in a ridiculously buff adult body, enjoying the heck out of his situation. Now, as then, when things get serious — and our hero has to save the world from Mirren and Liu’s nefarious plans — the mood drags a bit, even when screenwriters Henry Gayden (who wrote the first “Shazam!”) and Chris Morgan (a veteran of the “Fast & Furious” franchise) try to inject some humor into it. (A running gag involves some extended product placement for a popular brand of candy.)

Then there’s the stuff, especially in the end and the now-obligatory mid- and post-credit scenes, that are supposed to connect this movie to the future movies that we know Gunn and Safran aren’t going to make. This includes the appearance of a major actor — I’d say it’s a spoiler, but Warner Bros. put the scene in its advertising during the Oscars — whose next DC movie has already been canceled, and a mid-credit scene that teases a superhero mashup that isn’t going to happen.

“Shazam! Fury of the Gods” is serviceable superhero storytelling, but it’s missing the great spark of absurdity that made the first movie so engaging. Before, we had a kid who’s becoming a superhero. Now, we’ve got a superhero who’s becoming a grown-up — which isn’t as interesting here as it should be.

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‘Shazam! Fury of the Gods’

★★1/2

Opening Friday, March 17, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sequences of action and violence, and language. Running time: 130 minutes.

Review: 'Turn Every Page' captures a decades-long collaboration built on love of the written word

In her warm-hearted and good-humored documentary, “Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb,” director Lizzie Gottlieb (the daughter of one of her subjects) explores the sometimes tempestuous but always respectful relationship between a writer and his editor.

Speaking as someone who has been a writer for most of his life, and an editor for the last 15 months, I can say that Lizzie Gottlieb tells a good yarn about that special relationship — and captures the personalities of two men who battle over words passionately but always lovingly.

The movie details how Robert A. Caro, a newspaper reporter who switched to writing books, was paired with Gottlieb, already a legend in the publishing industry for discovering and shepherding a slew of great authors — including Joseph Heller on his masterpiece “Catch-22.” (Among other things, Gottlieb suggested the number 22, because the repeated digits were funnier.)

Caro pitched his book idea, a biography of Robert Moses, the urban planner who wielded enormous power in reshaping New York City. Caro wanted to write about how Moses used his power to create great things, such as Lincoln Center, but also did colossal damage to communities — particularly neighborhoods of color — by building highways right down the middle of them. 

After nine years of work, which included Gottlieb cutting Caro’s manuscript of more than a million words by a third, the publishing house Knopf, where Gottlieb was editor-in-chief, published “The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York.” It was a best-seller, and a seminal work of biography and political history. (The movie notes how, during the COVID-19 pandemic, seeing a copy of “The Power Broker” on the bookshelves of people being interviewed over Zoom on cable TV was a sign of authority on their subject.)

Caro then cast about for his next subject, and decided on Lyndon B. Johnson, from his upbringing in rural Texas to his turbulent presidency. Caro pushed Gottlieb to agree to a multi-volume biography, so Caro wouldn’t have to cut pages the way he did on “The Power Broker.”

LBJ’s life has become Caro’s life’s work. Caro and his wife, Ina (who is also his researcher), moved to Texas for three years, to get to know the players in LBJ’s early life and gain their trust. That led to one of Caro’s biggest scoops: The real story behind the ballot-stuffing that won LBJ his first U.S. Senate election in 1948. This became the topic of the second book in Caro’s biography, “Means of Ascent,” published in 1990 (following the first volume, “The Path to Power,” which came out in 1982).

Since then, Caro has written “Master of the Senate” (2002), about his ascent to Senate Majority Leader, and “The Passage of Power” (2012), which includes the 1960 election that made LBJ the vice president, and the assassination of John F. Kennedy that made LBJ president.

Lizzie Gottlieb asks Caro and her father, gingerly, about the processes of writing and editing — and both men, almost superstitiously, demur on questions of the unfinished fifth volume of the LBJ biography. It’s expected to be the last book, and possibly the toughest — since it covers the Vietnam War, the civil-rights movement, the “Great Society” programs, and LBJ’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968. 

The reason for the hushed tones when discussing the last book: Caro is 87, and Gottlieb is 91 — and neither wants to think about how either man may die before the work is done.

The dual portrait Lizzie Gottlieb paints of these two men of letters is tender and absorbing. She loves these guys, these guys love each other — though they would be embarrassed to put that word to it — and they love the work. Their love is contagious, and a viewer would have to have a heart of stone not to fall in love with them, too.

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‘Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb”

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG for some language, brief war images and smoking. Running time: 112 minutes.

Review: Willem Dafoe commands the screen, as a lone thief trapped in a high-rise, in a solo performance in 'Inside'

Willem Dafoe may be one of the most fascinating actors to ever appear in movies — and that fact is what keeps “Inside” watchable, since Dafoe is practically the only character.

Dafoe plays a master thief — the credits say his name is Nemo, but we never hear it during the film — who has been dropped onto the balcony of a penthouse apartment in a New York high-rise. The quick bit of information we get from the voice on his walkie-talkie (Andrew Blumenthal) is that Nemo has a few minutes to disable the alarm, grab the precious art that’s inside, and punch the code to get out the front door. All goes to plan until that last part, when the exit code doesn’t work and Nemo is left trapped in the apartment, abandoned by his radio accomplice.

The penthouse’s absent tenant (Gene Bervoets, seen mostly in photos) is an architect who turned his home into a fortress, as difficult to get out as it was to get in. He’s away on a project in Kazakhstan, so there’s little food in the fridge and no running water. And the thermostat is on the blink, sometimes sending the temperature from over 100 to the 40s. So Nemo’s challenge is to find a way out while also figuring out how to get water, how not to starve, and how not to freeze or roast to death.

Director Vasili’s Katsoupis and screenwriter Ben Hopkins create a scenario that’s as tight and as solid as the door out of the penthouse. Nemo has moments of discovery, of hope, and of despair when he runs into new obstacles. The script also gives Dafoe’s character, who knows good art when he’s stealing it, room to ruminate on what make art valuable, both monetarily and in the eye of the beholder.

Dafoe jones a short list of actors who can own a movie by themselves. Robert Redford did it brilliantly in “All Is Lost,” and Blake Lively’s work in “The Shallows” was quite effective. In the “alone except for people on the phone” category, there’s Tom Hardy in “Locke” and Ryan Reynolds in “Buried” — and with actors who are alone for part of the movie, there’s Tom Hanks in “Cast Away” and Sandra Bullock in “Gravity.”

Dafoe, with his angular body and eyes always looking for a way out of his cage, is fascinating to examine as his character seeks the answers for his life-or-death dilemma. He’s trapped in “Inside,” but never not in command.

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‘Inside’

★★★

Opening Friday, March 17, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Century 16 (South Slat Lake) and Megaplex Jordan Commons (Sandy). Rated R for language, some sexual content and nude images. Running time: 105 minutes.

Review: A young cast with intellectual disabilities may be the only thing going for 'Champions,' but the hint of exploitation doesn't go away.

There’s something noble in what director Bobby Farrelly is trying to do in his new movie, “Champions” — by centering a story on a group of intellectually disabled characters, played by actors who share those disabilities, and laboring mightily not to be condescending in portraying them.

But nobility is about intentions, not the results — and apart from some funny moments provided by those performers with disabilities, there’s not much to “Champions” other than a formulaic sports comedy.

The premise of Mark Rizzo’s script (adapted from a 2018 movie from Spain) starts with Marcus (Woody Harrelson), the hot-headed assistant coach for a minor-league basketball team in Des Moines, Iowa. His career starts spiraling when he disagrees with his head coach, Phil (Ernie Hudson), and pushes Phil to the ground during a game — a moment that goes viral, makes ESPN, and gets Marcus fired. 

Marcus compounds his misfortune with a bad choice: Getting drunk and then driving. He hits a police car, gets arrested, and is given one choice by the judge (Alexandra Castillo): Do 18 months in prison, or work 90 days of community service by coaching a team of kids with intellectual disabilities. Reluctantly, Marcus chooses the community service.

Marcus arrives at the community center, run by the kindly Julio (Cheech Marin), and meets his players. Take it on faith that each of these players has a name, and at least one character quirk — but it would take a second or third viewing to get the names and quirks straight. Notable are Cosentino (Madison Tevlin), a pint-sized and foul-mouthed girl player, and Darius (Joshua Felder), who’s the best player on the team but refuses to play for Marcus (for reasons explained later). 

There’s also Johnny (Kevin Iannucci), whose older sister, Alex (Kaitlin Olson, late of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”) who has had a previous encounter with Marcus — a Tinder hookup that ended with bickering — and isn’t particularly eager to start anything long-term. Alex, a struggling actor who teaches Shakespeare in Iowa schools from her camper van, agrees to become the team’s chaperone and transportation to away games.

Farrelly used to work with his brother, Pater, on such transgressive comedies as “Dumb and Dumber,” “There’s Something About Mary” and “Kingpin” (which featured Harrelson) — before Peter went for moralizing with “Green Book.” Bobby Farrelly seems to be trying to please the angels in the same way, though Bobby still recognizes when a good dirty joke can be employed.

One of the formulaic parts of the story comes when Marcus’ coaching is improving the team and making them better —and, when word gets out, Marcus’ dream of an NBA job seems in his grasp. But the question of whether Marcus is exploiting the teens’ disabilities pops up, which is an odd thing for a movie whose comedic structure is, one could argue, doing the same thing.

At least someone’s generating laughs here. Harrelson and Olson, both reliable comedy performers, have few funny moments and zero chemistry. The young hoopsters may be winners, but not much else in “Champions” is.

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‘Champions’

★★

Opens Friday, March 10, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for strong language and crude/sexual reference. Running time: 123 minutes.

Review: 'The Quiet Girl' is an Irish drama that packs a lot of emotion under its serene surface

As the title implies, the Irish drama “The Quiet Girl” does have a reserved, pensive tone — but there are some powerful emotions brewing under the placid surface of this film, which is one of the nominees in the Academy Awards’ international film category.

Set in a rural part of Ireland, around 1981, the film centers on Cáit (played by newcomer Catherine Clinch), who’s maybe 10 or 12 years old. She’s a middle child in an overstuffed family, where Mam (Kate Nic Chonaonaigh) is pregnant again, and Da (Michael Patric) is spending too much time at the pub. Cáit, too young to go off with her older sisters and too old to be treated like a child, often is left alone, fading into the background.

With the new baby’s imminent arrival, Mam decides that Cáit would be better off going somewhere else for awhile. She makes arrangements to have Cáit spend the summer with an older couple, distant relatives of Mam on a dairy farm a couple hours’ drive away. Da drives her to the farm, but drives away before remembering to unload Cáit’s suitcase.

The woman of the house, Eibhlin (Carrie Crowley), gives Cáit a warm welcome, shows her around the farmhouse, invites her to join in some cooking, and finds some boys’ clothes in a spare room that Cáit can wear. Eibhlin’s husband, Seán (Andrew Bennett), stays at a distance, but eventually warms to the girl, who’s eager to join in the chores and help out on the farm.

Over time, Cáit warms to farm life, and comes out of her shell. But when a neighbor woman, Úna (Joan Sheehy), starts gossiping about Eibhlin and Seán, Cáit starts to question whether everything is what it seems with her new guardians.

Writer-director Colm Bairéad, adapting a 2010 short story by Irish writer Claire Keegan, focuses tightly on Cáit, the calm center of all the excitement going on around her — whether it’s the domestic chaos of Mam and her family, or the life among adults on the farm. Some child actors might wither under such a spotlight, but Clinch is a poised and quietly emotional young performer. 

What’s most remarkable about “The Quiet Girl” is the detail Bairéad imbues to the Irish country life, and the emotional specificity he delivers in every scene. It’s a movie that moves subtly, almost imperceptibly, but packs an emotional punch all the same.

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‘The Quiet Girl’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 10, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for some strong language and smoking. Running time: 96 minutes, in Irish Gaelic with subtitles. 

Review: 'Scream VI' takes Ghostface to Manhattan, for some effectively staged mayhem and pointed movie commentary.

The most surprising thing about “Scream VI” is that a horror franchise that is forcing you to count installments on your other hand can come up with anything surprising at all — which this solid, true-to-the-premise slasher does.

After the traditional opening celebrity kill — nice to see you, Samara Weaving, even if it’s just for a few blood-curdling moments — we get to our main characters. These are the four survivors of the fifth movie, called just “Scream,” from last year. They are Samantha Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) and younger sister Tara (Jenny Ortega), and twin siblings Mindy Meeks-Martin (Jasmin Savoy Brown) and Chad Meeks-Martin (Mason Gooding). The four have all moved to New York, where Tara, Mindy and Chad have started college in New York, and Sam watches over Tara to the point of suffocating her social life.

Sam is trying to deal with the aftermath of the last movie, which ended with her killing the last Ghostface, Richie Kirsch (Jack Quaid, seen here in flashbacks). Now, though, internet rumors have prompted the conspiracy theory that Sam is the real murderous mastermind, orchestrating kills in an effort to top her father, the original Ghostface, Billy Loomis (Skeet Ulrich). 

(Side note: It can’t be coincidence that Sam’s last name references “Halloween” director John Carpenter, the king of the slasher flick — and that if Sam used her family name, she would be Sam Loomis, the name of Michael Myers’ nemesis, played by Donald Pleasance, in the “Halloween” franchise. I missed the last movie, or I would have caught that earlier.)

With another Ghostface on the loose, Sam gets even more concerned about protecting Tara, and her friends Mindy and Chad. She’s also trying to explain stuff to her therapist (Henry Czerny), which goes badly — and is seeing the hunky neighbor, Danny Brackett (Josh Segurra), on the sly.

After the first few bodies, the movie gives us a meeting of the roommates — Sam and Tara’s roomie Quinn Bailey (Liana Liberato), Chad’s roommate Ethan (Jack Champion), and Mindy’s girlfriend Anika (Devyn Nekoda) — to figure out who is trustworthy and who might be a suspect. 

Also, Mindy, the film student of the bunch, observes that the killer isn’t following the rules of a horror movie, or of a sequel. This is a franchise now, and a franchise has its own rules. The most important rule: All bets are off, and anyone can be the killer or the next victim — even legacy players, like reporter Gale Weathers (Courtney Cox), who’s been on this case since the first movie, or “Scream 4” final girl Kirby Reed (Hayden Panettiere).

Kirby, by the way, is now an FBI agent who comes to New York to assist the lead NYPD investigator, Detective Bailey (Dermot Mulroney), who’s also Quinn’s dad.

That’s a lot of characters to keep track of, and that’s not factoring in how the script drops names of the previously deceased (like David Arquette’s Dewey) or, in the case of Sidney Prescott, conveniently offstage because Paramount wouldn’t pay Neve Campbell what she freakin’ deserves. And writers James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick also have fun with the trope — previously used by Jason Voorhees and the Muppets — of moving the action to Manhattan, where safety in numbers doesn’t necessarily work like the characters hope.

The directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, who made the fifth “Scream” and the tricky “Ready or Not” (which starred Weaving), build the suspense well and regularly find the right buttons to push to keep the audience on edge. They also get good work out of the talented cast, particularly Barrera (who sang and danced in “In the Heights”) and Ortega (now in the meme-generating “Wednesday”), who keep their squabbling sister routine as the movie’s through line between the knife attacks.

“Scream VI” is about 15 minutes longer than it needs to be, and some of the “kills” feel repetitive. But overall, it’s a good edge-of-the-seat horror thriller with twists of the knife that will unsettle and surprise viewers — much like the original did.

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‘Scream VI’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 10, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence and language throughout, and brief drug use. Running time: 123 minutes.