Review: Modern take on 'Carmen' is a tale of lovers on the run that really moves when its leads are dancing

Dancer-turned-director Benjamin Millepied’s debut feature, “Carmen,” is an experimental mix of dance, music and drama — but one wishes in places that it was even more experimental, throwing narrative conventions to the wind and just luxuriating in the dance.

The title suggests a connection to Georges Bizet’s sultry opera, “Carmen,” and there are oblique references to that classic story of a Roma woman who can’t be held down by one man. But, overall, the screenplay — by Loïc Barrere and Alexander Dinelaris — goes its own way to find a story of desperation and romance along the U.S./Mexico border.

On the Mexican side, a young woman named Carmen (played by Melissa Barrera) is on the run from the druglords who killed her mother, Zilah (Marina Tamayo). The movie’s stirring first images are of Zilah, dancing without music, tapping in defiance at the men who eventually kill her.

Carmen arranges an illegal border crossing into New Mexico, which is how she encounters Aidan (Paul Mescal). He’s a former Marine, working as a volunteer sentinel for the Border Patrol, paired with a racist jerk, Mike (Benedict Hardie), who is too eager to hunt down Mexicans. When Mike starts shooting migrants and threatens to kill Carmen, Aidan shoots Mike dead. Now the two strangers are bonded in blood, both knowing the outcome if the law catches up to them.

Aidan helps Carmen get to Los Angeles, to a club owned by Zilah’s childhood friend, Masilda. She’s played by Rossy de Palma, the longtime collaborator of Pedro Almodóvar and a force of nature on the screen. Masilda knows that Carmen, like her mother, is a dancer — and it’s through dance that Carmen will show her true self. It’s also in the dance that Carmen and Aidan start to fall in love.

Millepied, who also choreographed the dance sequences, which are the one part of “Carmen” that’s untethered to the conventions of a lovers-on-the-run narrative. Mescal, fresh off his Oscar nomination for “Aftersun,” isn’t a great dancer, but Barrera is amazing to watch. (A reminder: Barrera, known to many from the last couple of “Scream” movies,” showed her dancing and singing skills in “In the Heights,” as Vanessa, the ambitious fashion designer and love interest of the lead character, Usnavi.)

There are moments when one wishes that Millepied (who may be better known as Natalie Portman’s husband and red carpet arm candy) had tossed the script and just gone full-tilt into the dancing. The expressiveness and emotion he gets in those scenes overwhelm everything else in “Carmen,” and at a certain point even Millepied would have been better served by giving in to the rhythm. 

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‘Carmen’

★★★

Opens Friday, May 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some violence and nudity. Running time: 117 minutes.

Review: 'Master Gardener' gives Paul Schrader another broken man to redeem, but the results aren't as powerful as they could be

The director and screenwriter Paul Schrader, at age 76, is still exorcising his demons in “Master Gardener,” a character profile that shows there are diminishing returns to returning to the same themes.

The title refers to the job description of Narvel Roth, played by Joel Edgerton. He leads a team of growers who tend to Gracewood Gardens, a large estate owned by the imperious Norma Haverhill (Sigourney Weaver). Roth writes about botany and horticulture in his journal — which serves as the movie’s narration — and the entries sometimes take a turn toward the disturbing, like when he compares the buzz one gets from smelling a particular plant to “the buzz you get just before pulling the trigger.”

Schrader reveals fairly early that one of Roth’s unofficial chores is occasionally bedding Norma. When this happens, we see that his gardener’s overalls cover some particularly nasty tattoos on his chest and back.

One day, with the garden’s annual charity auction looming, Norma asks Roth for a favor. Norma’s grand-niece, Maya (Quintessa Swindell), an aimless woman in her 20s, needs a job — and Norma asks Roth to take her on as an apprentice. Her arrival, Roth soon learns, threatens to overturn his carefully maintained life.

“Master Gardener” completes something of a loose trilogy for Schrader, following “First Reformed” (2017) and “The Card Counter” (2021). All three films center on an isolated man — shades of Travis Bickle from Schrader’s true masterpiece, the script for “Taxi Driver” —who uses ritual and routine to beat back the violent demons of his soul.

Edgerton, though, can’t carry that weight with as much soulful intensity as Ethan Hawke or Oscar Isaac. The particulars of Roth’s troubles make him naturally less sympathetic, and it’s a gap Edgerton’s performance can’t span. The Maya role is underwritten, a young woman created solely to be rescued by Roth and be the source of his redemption.

The most fascinating aspects of “Master Gardener” are the character of Norma and Weaver’s laser-focused portrayal of her. Norma is a product of old money, and is comfortable enough to use it to suit her ends — and Weaver gives the character a haughty self-reliance that even Roth’s darkest impulses can’t shake. The other characters may bloom occasionally, but Weaver’s performance is a majestic and thorny rose.

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‘Master Gardener’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 19, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City), Century 16 (South Salt Lake), Megaplex at Jordan Commons (Sandy) and Megaplex Thanksgiving Point (Lehi). Rated R for language, brief sexual content and nudity. Running time: 111 minutes.

Review: 'Fast X' brings back its fast cars and macho swagger, as it wears its narrative incoherence as a badge of honor

The “Fast and Furious” franchise long ago was considered critic-proof, and in the last few installments has become critic-hostile — being so deliberately ridiculous and logic-averse that it flaunts its audience-pandering incredulity as a badge of honor.

But even by the franchise’s harebrained standards — a submarine in “The Fate of the Furious,” space travel in “F9: The Fast Saga” — the newest installment, “Fast X,” sets a new standard for automotive silliness.

Much of this is attributable not to the ever-growing cast of regulars who surround star Vin Diesel, but to the scene-stealing performance of Jason Momoa as this installment’s supervillain, Dante Reyes. Momoa’s flamboyance — flouncy shirts, a gag about nail polish, and a line of banter that makes Nathan Lane look butch — seems designed to be a counterweight to the revved-up machismo of Diesel and male co-stars Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges and Sung Kang. It doesn’t always work, but Momoa is the one constant in the movie.

We meet Momoa’s Dante in a prologue, set 10 years ago and retconning “Fast Five,” providing that film’s Rio drug lord villain (Joaquin de Almeida) a son (Dante) we never knew he had. Dante has made its mission not just to kill Diesel’s Dominic Toretto, whom he blames for his father’s death, but to make him suffer by going after everyone who means anything to him.

Dante starts his work in Rome, where Dom’s cohorts Roman (Gibson), Tej (Bridges), Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel) and Han (Kang) have a mission to heist some high-tech doohickey. The details don’t matter, because it’s a trap set by Dante to release a giant bomb headed for the Vatican, and putting the blame on Dom’s crew in the process. 

Soon, Dom and his “family” are on the outs with The Agency, the shadowy U.S. spy organization with whom they have worked previously. The Agency’s leader, Mr. Nobody (Kurt Russell in previous installments) is nowhere to be found, and the new boss, Aimes (Alan Ritchson), is cutting them no slack. The only person in The Agency on Dom’s side is Mr. Nobody’s daughter, Tess (played by Brie Larson, who’s new to the franchise).

Dom gets separated from his “family” (the word gets used a lot here), and several threads run in parallel — often with members of the crew having to make uneasy alliances with former villains. Dom’s wife, Letty Ortiz (Michelle Rodriguez), ends up in an Agency black site alongside Cipher (Charlize Theron), the baddie from “Fate of the Furious.” Roman’s group goes to London, and faces Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) — who thought he had killed Han after the end credits of “Fast & Furious 6.” And the previous movie’s villain, Dom’s younger brother Jakob (John Cena), now on the side of good, has the most important task of all: Protecting Dom’s son, Little Brian (Leo Abelo Perry).

Director Louis Leterrier (“Now You See Me,” “The Transporter”) takes over the franchise from Justin Lin (who shares screenwriting credit here with Dan Mazeau), and keeps many of the series’ traditions. There are exotic locales (Rome, Rio, London and Portugal are mentioned here). There are moments where everything stops dead to explain the backstory from nine previous movies. There is one street-racing scene, featuring many young women in booty shorts leaning over the cars. There are villains turned heroes, and good guys turned villains. There is the return of a character we had long thought dead — which happened previously with both Letty and Han. There are mentions of Mia’s husband and Dom’s best friend Brian, alive in the canon even though the actor, Paul Walker, died nearly 10 years ago. And there is Dom’s Dodge Charger, defying laws of traffic, gravity and physics.

There are small joys sprinkled through the film. Rita Moreno classes up the opening scenes as Dom’s grandmother. Helen Mirren does the same, as Shaw’s mum, for exactly one scene. And I would watch an entire movie built around Daniela Melchoir’s character, a Rio street racer with a connection to Dom.

What’s missing from “Fast X,” after all the excitement of cars speeding, helicopters crashing and fireballs expanding, is an ending. The filmmakers have said “Fast X” will be the start of a story arc that will wrap up this 22-year-old franchise — but it will likely be a trilogy. That means we have to wait to see how this movie’s cliffhangers get resolved. My guess is they’ll pick the most preposterous option available.

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‘Faxt X’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 19, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, language and some suggestive material. Running time: 141 minutes.

Review: 'Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3' puts the humor, and the heartbreak, back into the Marvel franchise

Is James Gunn the only person left in Hollywood who remembers that comic-book movies are supposed to be, you know, fun?

The thing about comic-book movies lately — especially those in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — is that they’ve become overstuffed with ancillary characters and random computer-generated action, not stories so much as vehicles to keep the franchise going to the next one. 

Look at the schedule fillers of “Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania” or “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — and, if I’m being honest, “Thor: Love and Thunder” and “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” and the last two “Spider-Man” movies were good, but it’s been four years since “Avengers: Endgame,” the last time the MCU was really firing on all cylinders. (Oh, I forgot about “Eternals” — but so did you.)

Gunn is back as writer and director for the third full-fledged trip with the Guardians of the Galaxy, the ragtag, foul-mouthed, regularly bickering heroes of the cosmos — and it’s great getting the gang back together, even though it’s strongly hinted that camaraderie has a sell-by date.

We find Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), aka Star-Lord, drowning his sorrows over the Thanos-caused death of his beloved Gamora (Zoe Saldaña) — and having trouble reconciling that an alternate-timeline Gamora is alive and well, hanging out with Quill’s old friends, the Ravagers, without any memory of their romance.

Quill can’t wallow in self-pity for long, because something serious has happened to Rocket, the Guardian’s cantankerous small mammal who doesn’t like being called a raccoon. Some of our minor villains — primarily Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki), the high priestess of the Sovereign, with whom the Guardians tangled in “Vol. 2,” and her super-powered creation Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) — launch an attack on the Guardians’ HQ, and in the melee, a kill switch in Rocket’s heart is primed.

It’s up to Quill and the team — monster-sized Drax (Dave Bautista), surly android Nebula (Karen Gillan), telekinetic Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and human-sized plant Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) — to dig into Rocket’s origins, to find the code to deactivate the kill switch and save his life.

Gunn sets off the flashback machine, to show us Rocket’s backstory as a raccoon pup given bionic enhancements and other doodads. Here’s where we meet the movie’s main big bad, a megalomaniacal scientist called the High Evolutionary — played by a genuine Shakespearean actor, Chukwudi Iwuji, who classes up the proceedings with his performance. 

The Guardians’ journey goes through some entertaining turns, from a biotech firm’s space station of a corporate headquarters to a counter-Earth that’s surprisingly suburban. The most ferocious action set piece is a battle in a giant corridor, which looks like the hallway fight in “Oldboy” redone as a rotating 360-degree computer-aided single take.

Now there’s nothing surprising about the way Gunn melds action with snarky humor — it’s the backbone of the “Guardians” franchise and the two “Suicide Squad” movies he’s made for DC/Warner Bros. What is surprising is how much heart and soul he wrings out of this frenetic story, particularly in the telling of Rocket’s tragic history. Give some credit to the visual effects team, and to Bradley Cooper’s vocal performance, which adds some world-weary heartache to Rocket’s cynical default setting.

Everything in “Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3” hints that this is our group’s last ride together, and that’s OK because it’s such an enjoyable ride. The saddest part for MCU fans is the happiest for comic-book movies in general, because Gunn is moving over as co-leader of Warner Bros.’ reboot of the DC universe — and it will be fascinating to see what he can do with a goody-goody like Superman.

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‘Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 5, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, strong language, suggestive/drug references and thematic elements. Running time: 150 minutes.

Review: 'Wild Life' captures the beauty of Chile's national parks, and the spirit of the loving couple who worked to create them

In synopsis, the documentary “Wild Life” is a tale of an American businessman reinventing himself as a global conservationist — but, at heart, it’s a love story between two people who loved each other as much as they loved the land they aimed to preserve.

Husband-and-wife directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin — who have worked together on “Meru,” “The Rescue” and the Oscar-winning “Free Solo” — profile the lives of another couple, Doug and Kris Tompkins. It’s made clear early on that Doug died in 2015 in a freak accident, and he’s seen entirely through archival footage, and in the observations his widow, Kris, and their friends tell the camera.

Doug Tompkins made his fortune through clothing — co-founding, with his first wife, Susie Buell, the apparel companies The North Face and Esprit. Meanwhile, Kris, a former ski racer, got a job with rock climber and equipment maker Yvon Chouinard — which led to her moving up the ranks in Chouinard’s new company, Patagonia, and ultimately becoming CEO.

Doug left the corporate world and moved to Chile, buying a farm and other parcels, with the goal of giving that land to the Chilean government to become a national park. The Chilean government and the locals were suspicious of Doug. The country’s economy was geared toward mining, logging and other extractive industries, so the idea of setting aside land and not doing anything with it sounded odd. Besides, Doug was an American, and Chileans have a well-earned distrust of the United States, as the country that backed the dictator Augusto Pinochet’s coup in 1973. (Off topic: How much longer does Satan have to wait for Henry Kissinger to die already?) 

Doug asking Kris to come to Chile, as the movie describes it, was essentially their third date. In 1993, they married, and devoted their lives to each other and to conserving wild lands in Chile and Argentina. It’s a cause that Kris continues to pursue, more than seven years after Doug’s death — though, as she tells it during one of the movie’s most gut-wrenching passages, that decision to carry on wasn’t an easy one.

Vásárhelyi and Chin specialize in capturing human stories in incredible vistas, and “Wild Life” doesn’t disappoint on that score. Watching the movie may prompt some adventurous eco-tourists to visit Chile and Argentina, to see if it’s as beautiful and wild as it looks on the screen. The rest of us can enjoy the view through this wonderful film, and through Kris Tompkins’ unconquerable spirit.

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‘Wild Life’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 5, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated PG-13 for brief strong language. Running time: 93 minutes.

Review: Want a perfectly delightful coming-of-age story? Go to the source: 'Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.'

Most every coming-of-age story of the last half-century owes some debt of gratitude to Judy Blume’s 1970 young-adult novel “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” Now Blume’s book has finally hit the movie screen, and it’s an unequaled delight.

Set in 1970, the story centers on 11-year-old Margaret Simon (played by Abby Ryder Fortson), who returns from summer camp to learn from her parents, Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Herb (Benny Sadie), that they’re moving from their Brooklyn apartment to a house in New Jersey. Margaret fears losing touch with her friends, and especially with her grandmother, Herb’s mother, Sylvia (Kathy Bates).

Margaret tries to deal with her anxieties by praying. And because Margaret has been raised in a secular family — Herb is Jewish, Barbara was raised Christian — she doesn’t have an established method to pray. She just starts talking, introducing herself with the title phrase, “Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret.”

As soon as the family takes up residence in New Jersey, Margaret is visited by Nancy Wheeler (Elle Graham), a hyper-confident rich girl from up the street. Nancy invites Margaret to join a secret club, with two other 11-year-olds, Gretchen Potter (Katherine Kupferer) and Janie Loomis (Amari Price). In their club meetings, the girls talk about boys, whether to start wearing bras, and when they will get their first period. At every turn, Margaret is desperate to fit in, to be seen as “normal.”

Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig — who deftly handled slightly older coming-of-age travails in the 2016 comedy “Edge of Seventeen” — mines the humor from Margaret’s awkward and forthright approach to impending womanhood. The scenes where Margaret goes bra-shopping with her mom (“I can’t wait to take thing off,” Margaret declares on her first fitting) or nervously buys her first box of maxi pads are both funny and touching, as Blume’s discussion of such topics is as lively and honest as it was 50 years ago.

For all the discussion of boys and breasts, though, a good-sized piece of the story is a thoughtful examination of religion. Margaret tells her teacher, Mr. Benedict (Echo Kellum), that she doesn’t like religious holidays, because her family doesn’t celebrate them, so he suggests she turn the exploration of faith into a research project. This leads Margaret to attending temple with Sylvia — a thrill for any grandmother — and finding out the truth about why she’s never met her grandparents on her mother’s side.

This may be one of Rachel McAdams’ best performances, as she drills into Barbara’s stress trying to guide Margaret through puberty while also dealing with the changes in her life — in a subplot (not in the book) in which she deals with being a suburban homemaker.

But the movie would be nothing with Fortson as Margaret. Fortson (who played the pre-blip version of Paul Rudd’s daughter in the “Ant-Man” movies) comes off so naturally as a girl trying to comprehend these life-changing moments, and her big-hearted embrace of Margaret’s constantly curious spirit makes the movie’s big questions about faith and growing up feel as fresh and as challenging as when Blume first posed them.

As a former boy child, I admit that I felt a little jealous watching “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.” — because I feel kind of cheated. I never got the boy version of this book (I know Blume published it, “Then Again, Maybe I Won’t,” a year later), in part because my older brothers nudged me toward “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “The Lord of the Rings” and Robert Heinlein’s science fiction. My wish is that the current generation of girls, and boys, take the opportunity to meet Margaret, and learn about life along with her.

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‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.’

★★★★

Opens Friday, April 28, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving sexual education and some suggestive material. Running time: 105 minutes.

Review: 'Polite Society' mixes sisterly drama with martial-arts comedy for a brilliant wedding satire

Here are two genres I would never have thought to combine: A sisterly wedding jealousy drama and a raucous martial-arts comedy. But writer-director Nida Manzoor melds the two with hilarious and heart-warming results in “Polite Society.”

Ria Khan (Priya Kansara), at 17, has dreams of becoming a stuntwoman. She records YouTube videos of her practice sessions, but she’s yet to master the flying spin kick done by her role model, real-live stuntwoman Eunice Huthart (who doubled for Angelina Jolie on “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” and “Salt”).

It’s hard to get her teachers, or her proper Pakistani parents, to take Ria’s stunt aspirations seriously — and her moves sometimes get her harassed by her school bully, Kovacs (Shona Babayemi). The one person who does believe in Ria is her older sister, Lena (Ritu Arya), an art-school dropout who’s been depressed lately about her lack of career success.

When their mom (Show Kapoor) takes the sisters to an Eid party thrown by the wealthy Shah family, it’s clear that the event is an effort to match up the Shah’s geneticist son, Salim (Akshay Khan), with a potential bride. Then Lena starts dating Salim, and Ria becomes suspicious of Salim and his imperious mother, Raheela (Nimra Bucha). When Lena and Salim get engaged, Ria decides it’s her mission to stop the wedding — using her martial-arts skills and the help of her school chums, Clara (Seraphina Beh) and Alba (Ella Bruccoleri).

Manzoor — who created the Peacock series “We Are Lady Parts,” about an all-female Muslim punk band — gets quite specific about the rituals and other details of England’s Pakistani immigrant community. But that doesn’t matter, because overbearing mothers of the groom and jealous sisters of the bride are universal constants. Manzoor deftly works the gap between heartfelt sisterly conflict and comedic high-kicking action, and it’s to the movie’s credit that you never know exactly how seriously to take what’s happening.

The lead performers are a delight. Arya, who’s familiar to fans of “The Umbrella Academy,” is charming as Lena, getting swept off her feet by the handsome Salim. And Kansara (who appeared in two episodes of “Bridgerton”) is a real discovery, a bundle of energy who delivers one-liners and karate kicks with equal power.

It’s easy to want to overpraise “Polite Society,” because of Kansara and Arya’s chemistry and the audacity of Manzoor’s storytelling. But I think it earns a place next to John Carpenter’s “Big Trouble in Little China” and Jackie Chan’s “The Legend of Drunken Master” as masterful blends of comedy and martial arts.

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‘Polite Society’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 28, in theaters. Rated PG-13 for strong language, violence, sexual material, and some partial nudity. Running time: 103 minutes.

Review: 'Showing Up' is a dry comedy about artists who stress themselves out in the name of making art

Anyone who knows an artist is going to identify greatly with the characters in writer-director Kelly Reichert’s latest movie, “Showing Up” — a sly comedy about the self-assigned hell that is the act of creation.

Michelle Williams stars as Lizzy, a sculptor living in Portland, Ore., and a week or so away from her next gallery show. So, naturally, she’s a bit of a wreck. Her biggest problem is that there’s no hot water in her apartment, and her landlady, Jo (Hong Chau), another sculptor, also has an exhibition coming up, and hasn’t had time to get the water heater fixed.

One night, Lizzy hears some noise in her bathroom, and discovers that her cat has attacked a pigeon that got inside. Lizzy tries to dispose of the injured bird with a broom and dustpan, dumping it out her window — only to learn the next morning that Jo found the pigeon and is nursing it back to health. The fact that Lizzy ends up babysitting the bird becomes a running gag in the movie.

As Lizzy labors to shape her sculptures, glaze them and get them in the kiln, Reichert and her writing partner Jonathan Raymond introduce us to her wider circle. There’s her mom, Jean (Maryann Plunkett), who runs the local art college, which is always a beehive of creative energy. We meet her dad, Bill (Judd Hirsch), a potter who has a random couple (played by Amanda Plummer and Matt Malloy) hanging out in his house. And, importantly, there’s her younger brother Sean (John Magaro), who is dealing with some big issues. (It’s never stated, but the suggestion is that Sean is on the autism spectrum.)

But the central relationship in “Showing Up” is between Lizzy and Jo, whose contrasting personalities — Lizzy is closed off and tightly wound, Jo is free-spirited and outgoing — are reflected in their art. Lizzy’s clay figures (made by Portland artist Cynthia Lahti) are small and detailed, while Jo’s fiber works (created by New York-based artist Michelle Segre) fill whole rooms and are bursting with color. 

Williams and Chau give a pair of perfectly meshed performances, playing two friends who respect each other’s process while sometimes getting frustrated at the other — and themselves, to be honest — for putting art before everything else. There’s never envy or competitiveness, though, because their styles are so different. It’s refreshing to watch a movie that centers on such a grown-up, intelligent relationship between female friends.

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‘Showing Up’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 28, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for brief graphic nudity. Running time: 107 minutes.