Review: 'Fantasy Life' puts a law-school dropout among Martha Vineyard's idle rich, from a new director who isn't there yet but shows promise

I wasn’t bowled over by “Fantasy Life,” a New York-set comedy-drama in which actor Matthew Shear makes his writing and directing debut, but Shear shows enough promise as a storyteller that I want to keep an eye on what he does next.

Shear plays Sam, a law-school dropout who has been fired from a job at a big law firm. He goes to his therapist, Fred (Judd Hirsch), to talk out his sense of failure, and Fred responds with a job offer. Fred and his wife, Helen (Andrea Martin), who’s also Fred’s receptionist, have a son, David (Alessandro Nivola), who needs a live-in babysitter. With few other job prospects, Sam accepts. 

David, we learn, is a bass player who’s been offered a chance to tour Australia with a big-name headlining musician. David’s wife, Dianne (Amanda Peet), is a former actress who — for reasons of motherhood and depression — hasn’t had a role in a decade. 

Sam takes the job tending to David and Dianne’s three daughters, ages 6, 8 and 11, and even moves into a basement room when the family spends the summer on Martha’s Vineyard. Everyone seems cool with this arrangement, except for Dianne’s suspicious father, Lenny (Bob Balaban). But Dianne’s comfort level is challenged when Sam starts falling for her.

Shear has attracted a solid cast, and it’s a joy to see old pros like Hirsch, Martin, Balaban and Jessica Harper deployed as David and Dianne’s parents. It’s also a delight to see Peet, who hasn’t had a meaty movie role like this in a decade, give a standout performance as a woman who loves her children but is learning that they don’t fulfill her as much as she had hoped. 

“Fantasy Life” shows Shear feels comfortable in this atmosphere of idle rich folks summering at the Vineyard, among people who are oblivious to how their wealth insulates them from real-world problems. Shear doesn’t have any particularly probing observations about this world, but one senses he only needs one or two more movies under his belt to get there.

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‘Fantasy Life’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, April 3, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Rated R for language, some sexual references and brief drug use. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' finds the key that unlocks the excitement and fun of Nintendo's franchise.

After a faltering first step with “The Super Mario Bros. Movie,” which was a cringe-inducing example of putting commercial product over storytelling, video game giant Nintendo and animation house Illumination Entertainment have found their way with “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie,” a sequel that’s more enjoyable if not any more coherent than its predecessor.

Directors Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic, and writer Matthew Fogel — all returning from the 2023 movie — jump right into the action, with a prologue that introduces the magical princess Rosalina (voiced by Brie Larson), caretaker of many baby stars. Rosalina faces down a robot monster piloted by Bowser Jr. (voiced by Benny Safdie), the evil son of the franchise’s villain Bowser (voiced by Jack Black), who was imprisoned in the first movie. 

Bowser Jr. has the triple goal of freeing his dad, plotting the universe’s destruction, and doing so in a way that will make Pops proud. Come for the colorful mayhem, stay for the Freudian psychology — not just the father-son dynamic of the Bowser family, but also some gentle sibling rivalry for Mario (voiced by Chris Pratt) and Luigi (voiced by Charlie Day), and some abandonment issues for Princess Peach (voiced by Anya-Taylor Joy).

Peach learns that Bowser Jr. has kidnapped Rosalina, and springs to action to leave the Mushroom Kingdom with her sidekick Toad (voiced by Keegan-Michael Key) to rescue her. Mario and Luigi, with their new dinosaur friend Yoshi (voiced by Donald Glover, not that you could tell), are put in charge of the Mushroom Kingdom, but an attack by Bowser Jr. puts them on a parallel path as Peach.

All the characters end up on various planets, modeled after the orbs that represent the game levels in “Super Mario Galaxy.” There also are cameos by other characters in the Mario universe, as well as a couple other Nintendo franchises. I won’t spoil any of the surprises here, though diehard Mario fans have already heard about a couple creatures who show up on the journey.

I rather disliked “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” when it came out three years ago. I placed most of the fault at Nintendo’s inability to give its corporate mascot a distinctive personality, in fear of offending players who put their own spin on Mario with every game. This movie’s Mario gets to show some spunk and soul, even with a bland non-presence as Chris Pratt voicing him. More importantly, Mario’s part of an ensemble here, and other characters — particularly Peach, Rosalina, and one figure whose presence I won’t divulge — get their turns to shine. 

Here, the action and animation are lively, the story speeds by at a jaunty pace, and the jokes — most of them inside jokes — are absurd enough to be funny for most ages. I enjoyed more of what “The Super Mario Galaxy Movie” delivers than I expected to, and I think Nintendo fans will be delighted. 

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‘The Super Mario Galaxy Movie’

★★★

Opens Wednesday, April 1, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action, mild violence and rude humor. Running time: 98 minutes.

Review: 'They Will Kill You' is generous with its cartoonish bloodshed, in service to a one-note action scenario

I have to appreciate the absurd amount of spurting blood and flesh-chopping mayhem Russian director Kirill Sokolov packs into his first Hollywood feature, the comic gorefest “They Will Kill You” — even if the script and pacing became a bit monotonous.

The movie’s central relationship is between Asia (Zazie Beetz) and her younger sister, Maria (played by Myha’la as an adult). In the prologue, they’re trying to escape a sadistic stepfather (Darron Meyer). Asia succeeds, but leaves Maria behind.

Ten years later, we find Asia finding work at The Virgil, a dark and foreboding residential hotel in Manhattan. The boss, Lilith (Patricia Arquette), lets her in, then locks the door behind them. In the script, Sokolov and co-writer Alex Litvak (“Predators”) drop broad hints that the rich clientele — including a beauty guru, Sharon (Heather Graham), and somebody named Kevin (Tom Felton) — are more than they appear. 

The same could be said for Asia, who we quickly learn is a prison-hardened fighter with one thing on her mind: Rescuing Maria, who’s trapped here as part of The Virgil’s service staff. Then come two surprises: Maria isn’t that eager to leave, and the residents — including Lilith and her handyman husband, Ray (Paterson Joseph) — have made a pact with the devil to attain immortality.

The important part is that Asia must fight her way out of several floors of The Virgil, and does so using a shotgun, a machete, a flaming ax, and whatever other destructive objects are at hand. Sokolov seems to find inspiration in everything from “Oldboy” to “Kill Bill” to “From Dusk Till Dawn” — but he’s not quite clever enough to bring his own distinctive style to the battle scenes.

There are other wasted opportunities in “They Will Kill You,” like reducing the usually alluring Graham to a special effect for the movie’s back half, and giving a good scenery-chewer like Felton little to work with. Everyone gets subsumed in the grimy, fetid atmosphere of The Virgil and Sokolov’s dimly lit horror show.

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‘They Will Kill You’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 27, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for strong bloody violence, gore, language and brief sexual content/nudity. Running time: 94 minutes.

Review: 'A Magnificent Life' shows the life of a French literary lion, sweetly rendered in animation by 'Triplets of Belleville's' master

The French animator Sylvain Chomet has become something of a legend in certain film circles, off the strength of his 2003 masterpiece “The Triplets of Belleville” and his 2010 Jacques Tati-inspired “The Illusionist” — so it makes sense that his first movie in more than a decade, “A Magnificent Life,” is a fond biopic of another French film icon, Marcel Pagnol.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Pagnol was a playwright and poet whose plays were popular in Paris in the late 1920s and early 1930s — and he switched to film just as the talkies were developing. He built a studio in his home town of Marseilles, which lasted until the Nazis invaded France and he refused to make movies for them. After the war, he mostly wrote novels that were semi-autobiographical works, including “My Father’s Glory,” “My Mother’s Castle” and his masterpieces, “Jean de Florette” and “Manon of the Spring.”

That last paragraph is the condensed, Wikipedia version of Pagnol’s history. As devised by Chomet, who adapted Pagnol’s memoirs for the script, the story becomes a lovely tribute to the art of memory.

Chomet’s framing device has an aged Pagnol (voiced in English by Matthew Gravelle) rushes to make a deadline for a serialized memoir he’s promised to write for Elle magazine. As he writes, he’s joined by his constant companion: Marcel, the spirit of himself as a child.

That child hangs around as Pagnol leaves Marseilles with his wife, Sophie, trading in the respectable life his father demanded of him for a cramped, freezing garret in Paris. He befriends artists and actors — “hussies and degenerates,” Sophie calls them — and starts writing his plays. Within a couple of years, he becomes a success, but at the cost of his marriage. 

Through the episodes of Pagnol’s life, people come and go — and the ones who go via the grave join the spirit of the young Marcel. This parade of spirits becomes a metaphor for Pagnol’s work, in which his memories are never far away, a constant source of inspiration for his storytelling.

Another interesting conceit Chomet deploys in “A Magnificent Life” is that any time we see one of Pagnol’s movies on a screen, it’s actual footage rather than animated versions. It’s a clever, and poignant, way to connect the reality of Pagnol’s life with the charmingly fanciful animated version we get from Chomet. 

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‘A Magnificent Life’

★★★

Opens Friday, March 27, at the AMC West Jordan 12. Rated PG-13 for language, smoking, some suggestive material and brief violent content. Running time: 91 minutes. 

Review: 'Project Hail Mary' is science-fiction done right, with tactile effects and the boundless charms of Ryan Gosling as a reluctant spaceman

For a movie set in the future and on a ship in outer space, there’s something gloriously retro in the craftsmanship of “Project Hail Mary" — from the movie-star charm of Ryan Gosling in the leading role to the tactical creation of his not-human traveling companion — that makes it sort of magical.

When we meet Gosling’s character, Ryland Grace, he’s waking up to the mental fog of cryogenic suspension. It takes him some time to remember who he is, why he’s on a spaceship, and where he’s headed to. He also figures out, quickly, that the two astronauts who were supposed to run the ship died while in deep sleep.

The script by Drew Goddard, once again adapting a novel by Andy Weir (they had the same job titles in “The Martian”), toggles from Ryland’s solitary situation to some time shortly before that, back on Earth. Ryland was a high school science teacher, but he used to be something else: A scientist whose theories of life outside of Earth got him expelled from the scientific community. Now, a stern German scientist, Eva Stratt (played by Sandra Hüller, from “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Influence”), needs his outside-the-mainstream take on things — because the sun is dying, and Earth’s best minds have about 30 years to figure out why.

Weir’s scientific explanations here, as in “The Martian,” sound super-intelligent and confidently correct, no matter how outlandish they might be. Eva tells Ryland that there’s a plan, to send Earth scientists to a distant star, which is the only one that isn’t getting consumed by whatever’s dimming the sun. Figure out why that star isn’t fading, send the information by probe back to Earth, and pray a fix can be done in time. That’s the “Hail Mary” of the title.

What Ryland, alone in space, soon discovers when he gets to the star is that he’s not alone out there. Another space traveler, a creature who looks like he was made from rocks, has come to this star for the same reason Ryland is there — to see what this star has that his home star doesn’t. 

The meat of “Project Hail Mary" is the interaction between Gosling’s Ryland and this rock creature, which he names “Rocky” — and is voiced and manipulated by puppeteer James Ortiz. The two have to learn how to translate each other’s language, work together in ships of different atmospheres, and unlock the mystery of the star that represents both home worlds’ best chance to survive.

Directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller have a weird movie pedigree, having directed “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs,” “The Lego Movie” and the “21 Jump Street” action comedies — as well as producing the “Spider-Verse” movies. They masterfully dispense information, as the narrative shifts from Ryland and Rocky in space to Ryland and Eva back on Earth, so we learn what we learn at the moment we need to know it. They also create a future that feels real, in large part because it’s shown more with physical effects than computer animation. 

There is one spectacular special effect deployed in “Project Hail Mary,” and that’s the charisma and easygoing humor of Ryan Gosling in the lead role. There are parts of the movie where, like Robert Redford in “All Is Lost” or Matt Damon in “The Martian,” Gosling has to carry the load by himself. The fact that he does so effortlessly is an indication of what an old-school movie star can do. 

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‘Project Hail Mary'

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for some thematic material and suggestive references. Running time: 156 minutes.

Review: 'Mr. Nobody Against Putin' captures a teacher's journey down the slippery slope of authoritarianism, and shows us how to avoid the same march

We try to tell ourselves that when authoritarianism comes along, we’d recognize it. The Oscar-winning documentary “Mr. Noboy Against Putin” is a timely and chilling reminder that fascism won’t bang on the door, but slip past in the disguise of patriotism and “helping” the children.

Pavel Talankin, who goes by Pasha, teaches at the Karabash Primary School No. 1, in a small town in the Urals in Russia, a few hours’ drive east of Moscow. It’s a dreary place, best known for some of the worst pollution in the world, but for Pasha it’s still home and he loves it. He brings flowers to his mother, the librarian, and gives his students space to speak freely about whatever troubles them.

Pasha has two jobs at the school: He’s the event coordinator, which means he organizes Cake Day and other happenings; and he’s the school’s videographer. That second job takes on added importance in February 2022, when Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, begins what Russian media euphemistically calls “special military operations” — and the rest of the world calls the invasion of Ukraine.

Soon, all the schools in Russia are given a new directive, called “the new federal patriotic education policy.” Now, in addition to their daily math and reading lessons, the students must recite patriotic songs and speeches, and read poems about Russia’s “glorious victory” over Ukraine. And Pasha must dart from class to class, capturing it all on camera. He must then upload the footage to a federal database, to prove that the school is complying with the new directive. 

In Pasha’s video footage, we see teachers reading prepared scripts that tell of the “neo-Nazis” who dictate Ukrainian policy, or arguing that the French are paying exorbitant prices for a tank of gas because of their country’s support of Ukraine. Pasha’s camera also captures how some teachers are reading unenthusiastically from the government script, while others embrace the message and are happy to spout propaganda rather than deliver some hard facts.

After first opting to resign on principle, Pasha decides he should stay, to make a video record of everything that’s happening — and the slow, inexorable descent into full-blown fascist misinformation. The capper, in Pasha’s mind, is the day the Wagner Group, the mercenary military force Putin hired to fight in Ukraine, comes to school to give weapons demonstrations.

Pasha also captures his coworkers’ frustration with the changing rules, and his students’ growing despondency at both the lesson plans and the fact that friends and siblings are headed off to fight in Putin’s war — and, in many cases, not coming back.

The teacher, Pavel Talankin, shares directing credit with David Borenstein, a veteran of PBS and New York Times documentaries. The movie shows how they started working together, meeting via Instagram – and the fact that the two men don’t meet in person until the events of the film are over. The movie’s prologue shows Pasha getting ready to make a getaway out of Russia, when it becomes too dangerous to stay.

Talankin’s footage, and his to-the-camera confessionals from his tiny apartment, show the gradual descent toward authoritarian rule — from the rote learning to the crony system that rewards the government suck-up over the teacher the students actually like and respect. The movie also shows how exhausting it is for Pasha to keep up the pretense, to document events for us while pretending to document events for the government. It’s a harsh reminder of what our country could soon experience, if it isn’t there already.

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‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, at the Broadway Centre Cinemas (Salt Lake City). Not rated, but probably PG-13 for language and descriptions of war violence. Running time: 90 minutes; in Russian, with subtitles.

Review: 'The Pout-Pout Fish' is an amiable, colorful and completely unremarkable animated tale of a grumpy fish on a quest

The animated tale “The Pout-Pout Fish” tells of a grumpy fish on a quest near the coral reefs of Australia — and if it wasn’t for a certain Pixar film in a very similar setting, you might not notice how pedestrian this movie is. 

Based on a series of children’s books by Deborah Diesen, “The Pout-Pout Fish” starts with Mr. Fish, who is voiced by Nick Offerman, in the most on-the-nose voice casting since Lewis Black voiced anger in “Inside Out.” Mr. Fish swims through his town on the coral reef, looking glum day after day, despite the regular efforts of his neighbors to cheer him up.

One day, a little sea dragon named Pip (voiced by Nina Oyama) enters Mr. Fish’s house, thinking the shipwreck-looking abode is a junkyard, and starts rummaging around for supplies he can take back to his own home. In the ensuing argument between Mr. Fish and Pip, Mr. Fish’s house breaks apart and falls on top of Pip’s house. Now, suddenly, they’re both homeless.

Mr. Fish wants to get to work rebuilding, but Pip has another idea. They have to find Shimmer (voiced by Jordin Sparks), the legendary and elusive rainbow fish who, the legend goes, can grant wishes. Mr. Fish starts looking for Shimmer, reluctantly taking Pip along for the trip. Also on the trail is Benji (voiced by Remy Hii), a cuttlefish who wants to use Shimmer’s wish (she can only give one at a time, we’re told) to help save the cuttlefish homeland from permanent darkness by encroaching kelp.

The journey sets Mr. Fish and Pip on encounters with stinging jellyfish, a wayward baby whale, and a trio of pink dolphins (all voiced by Amy Sedaris) who talk like characters from “Mean Girls.” None of this, as presented by director Ricard Cussó and co-director Rio Harrington, is exceptionally funny or exciting, but the movie glides from one episode to the next pleasantly if not memorably. 

I could imagine “The Pout-Pout Fish” as acceptable entertainment for little children, as it provides pleasant colors and an undemanding story with some nice life lessons about confidence and friendship. Anyone who’s seen a fair share of animation will likely get bored and want to go find Nemo.

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‘The Pout-Pout Fish’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 20, in theaters. Rated PG for mild action and rude humor. Running time: 91 minutes.

Review: 'Reminders of Him' centers on a grieving ex-con in a romantic weepie that never feels authentic

Fans of Colleen Hoover — the novelist who has turned generational trauma into airport-ready reading material, like “It Ends With Us” and “Regretting You” — will likely latch onto this new movie adaptation, the romantic weepie “Reminders of Him,” even as its many cliches don’t mix into anything cohesive.

Our heroine is Kenna Rowan (played by Maika Monroe), who’s back in her home town of Laramie, Wyoming, after six years in prison. She was sentenced to seven, for vehicular manslaughter, but got time off for good behavior. She gets a fleabag apartment and must secure a job to pay for the rent, which she manages to do only after a day of rejection. 

For a hard luck case, Kenna manages to luck into some beneficial situations. For example, she walks into a bar because it used to be a bookstore where she and her boyfriend, Scotty (played in flashbacks by Rudy Pankow), used to hang out. The bar’s owner is Ledger (Tyriq Withers), who was Scotty’s best friend growing up — but Kenna never met him during her and Scotty’s courtship. 

The second Kenna realizes the bar owner is Ledger, she gets out of there. We soon find out the reason why: Kenna went to prison because of her role in Scotty’s death. What’s more, Kenna was pregnant at the time, and has never seen her 5-year-old daughter, Diem (Zoe Kosovic), who lives with Scotty’s parents, Grace (Lauren Graham) and Patrick (Bradley Whitford). Ledger lives across the street from Diem’s grandparents, and is a surrogate uncle to her. And none of them want Kenna coming around, for fear she’ll try to take Diem away.

Kenna, though, is trying to do things the right way, earning her way back into society and, eventually, into custody of her daughter. That effort gets complicated, first by attempts to stay out of sight of Grace and Patrick — and, since this is a Colleen Hoover book, by romantic sparks with the hunky Ledger.

Director Vanessa Caswill — who directed some of the 2017 “Little Women” miniseries with Maya Hawke as Jo — understands the assignment. That’s to bring together characters who are broken, yet impossibly good-looking, for cathartic confrontations and and some safely PG-13 sex scenes. The problem is the script, by Hoover and co-writer Lauren Levine, which puts the actors in situations that only happen in bad movies that bear no resemblance to real life.

Withers is an appealing male lead, as he tries to give some weight to scenes where he’s asked mostly to take off his shirt. And Monroe, whose best-known credits are in horror (“It Follows,” “Watcher,” “Longlegs”), shows a bit of range as the tearful heroine in a romantic drama. Their charms carry “Reminders of Him” a bit farther than the material does, but not that far. 

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‘Reminders of Him’

★★1/2

Opens Friday, March 13, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG-13 for sexual content, strong language, drug content, some violent content, and brief partial nudity. Running time: 114 minutes.