Hollywood generally dismisses Labor Day Weekend as a dead zone—a dumping ground for thinly marketed fare that studios forgot to release in January. In its history, the holiday has hosted exactly one smash hit (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), while only two other films (The Equalizer 3 and Rob Zombie’s Halloween remake) have ever topped $20M for the Friday-Sunday window. This year was no different—the highest-grossing new release was By Any Means, which pulled in just $7.5M, and which I skipped on account of it starring Mark Wahlberg—but the September slate nonetheless provided a range of odd and diverse pictures. Only one is, y’know, good, but two others are at least worth seeing, and all four are conceptually worthwhile.
Onslaught. The only thing worse than the screenplay in Onslaught is the hairstyling. Adria Arjona, one of the most desirable women in the world, is afflicted with a tangled mane, suggesting that her survivalist heroine devoted all of her budget turning her mobile home into a roving armory and thus can’t afford a comb. Drew Starkey, the handsome actor who has recently engaged in steamy on-screen romances with both Daniel Craig (in Queer) and Anya Taylor-Joy (on TV’s Lucky), sports a blond mohawk that he appears to have trimmed with a cleaver. And Dan Stevens, who embodied aesthetic male perfection in I’m Your Man, is fitted with a frightening bald cap framed by tufts of white follicles. The movie places a handful of ordinary citizens in a nightmarish situation, desperate for deliverance, but what they truly need is less a savior than a barber.
In the abstract, Onslaught represents a sensible course correction for Adam Wingard, the once-promising director whose most recent efforts were the passable Godzilla vs. Kong and its dreary follow-up, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. Those blockbuster productions carried the stigma of a filmmaker burdened by commercial interference and creative exhaustion. This new movie, again written by Simon Barrett (he and Wingard share a story credit), is structured as a leaner, spikier genre exercise reminiscent of Wingard’s prior successes: the deliciously nasty home-invasion thriller You’re Next, and the terrific actioner The Guest, which starred Stevens as a charismatic drifter who proved to be an invulnerable psychopath. In fact, Onslaught is arguably a spiritual sequel to The Guest, taking place in the same heightened universe of desert expanses, shadowy bureaucrats, and remorseless killers.
Yeah, well, this ain’t The Guest. Wingard’s style here could charitably be described as brute force, but he has entirely squandered the cagey instincts that previously made him such a talented craftsman. Onslaught’s plot is simple: Three brutal ex-soldiers, the subject of cruel experiments overseen by Stevens’ sadistic doctor, break out of their remote facility and begin slaughtering everyone in sight. Their bloodlust soon brings them to a trailer park populated by unremarkable Janes and Joes, including Arjona’s tough-as-nails former sniper. Mayhem ensues.
Again, on paper, this is fine. It’s the execution where Onslaught falters, and badly. Wingard’s set pieces are neither suspenseful nor imaginative, instead just operating as endless streams of gunfire and bloodletting. He still has a decent eye—there are striking shots of his heavies framed against a smoke-blue night sky, equidistant from one another and looming with unspoken menace—but his choreography is lazy and repetitive. There’s a brilliant scene in You’re Next where a panicked hostage resolves to sprint to safety, only for her to unwittingly run headlong into an invisible, neck-high piece of razor wire. Here, a dude bolts from his trailer to his car, then quickly gets pulverized by a thug who smashes through the windshield. It’s all so tedious.
Wingard’s work plainly demonstrates an affinity for The Terminator (Michael Biehn briefly shows up here), but that sci-fi classic had an actual story to tell, along with characters who possessed real personality. (Technically, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-100 had zero personality on account of not being a person at all, but the actor’s unmistakable screen presence turned that ostensible void into an exhilarating asset.) The combatants in Onslaught are mere ciphers—pawns sacrificed on the altar of incoherent excess. (The less said about Arjona’s clunky, black-and-white backstory, the better.) It’s a movie that mistakes clamor for excitement, archness for wit, and extremity for ingenuity. Put a bullet in its head and move on. Grade: D+
The Sun Never Sets. Movies rarely expend energy displaying the workings of a happy, healthy relationship, as smooth functionality is anathema to dramatic conflict. The assumption is that watching people get together is more engrossing than watching them be together, which is why so many romantic comedies end with a first kiss. This means that writers tend to strew impediments to domestic bliss, no matter how dubious or artificial. And this cinematic norm is how you end up with a strange concoction like The Sun Never Sets, a movie that’s both resolutely grounded and utterly absurd. (Officially, Labor Day was its second weekend; it premiered in a single theater in August.)
By all accounts, Wendy (Dakota Fanning) and Jack (Jake Johnson) are happily in love. Sure, he has two young children from his now-defunct marriage (Anna Konkle has a nice part as his empathetic ex-wife), but they adore Wendy, and the affection is mutual. She is also besotted with Jack, not least because—as his flashy Rolex signals—his career in wealth management has afforded them a swanky lifestyle in Anchorage and its titular splendor. But Jack, who has no interest in expanding his family, frets that Wendy might someday want kids of her own, and he worries that she’ll grow to resent him and regret their attachment. He thus instructs her, to her bafflement and horror, to take some time to herself and explore other relationships—not because he wants to break up with her, but because he needs her to be super-sure that he’s what she really wants.
If this irrational edict sounds familiar, you might be thinking of the dreadful subplot on Sports Night, when Felicity Huffman demanded that Peter Krause spend six months dating other women before they could finally consummate their long-simmering attraction. (Unbelievably, Ted Lasso is currently recycling the same deranged contrivance.) The premise of The Sun Never Sets is rock-stupid, and its narrative trajectory is thoroughly predictable. Dazed by Jack’s stubborn insistence on her own independence, Wendy runs into an old flame, Chuck (Cory Michael Smith)—a rugged pilot whose earthy demeanor presents an intriguing divergence from Jack’s moneyed polish—and they quickly reignite their latent chemistry. Learning of this development, Jack’s supposedly selfless concern curdles into seething jealousy. What follows is a jagged love triangle full of fights, betrayals, disappointments, and a perpetual flood of hurt feelings.
The Sun Never Sets is the work of Joe Swanberg, the mumblecore pioneer who here operates with a welcome baseline of visual professionalism. (Coincidentally, he had a small role in You’re Next.) The Alaskan locations look beautiful, providing a pointed contrast to the ugliness of the characters. Fanning imbues her heroine with a bristling volatility, but while Wendy isn’t wholly blameless in this disaster, she also seems caught between two dudes who are constantly battling for the title of Absolute Worst. Chuck, despite (or because of?) his natural good looks, is a complete asshole, alternately possessive and dismissive. For his part, Jack might be a true sociopath, repeatedly manipulating Wendy while crying foul whenever she exhibits the slightest degree of agency; Johnson, one of American media’s most preternaturally nice guys, warps his inherent charisma with disturbing ease and conviction.
Maybe watching three unpleasant people ping their misery back and forth isn’t your idea of fun, but while The Sun Never Sets is ludicrous on a macro scale, its scene-to-scene dynamics are persuasive and absorbing. Swanberg’s dialogue is natural, and Fanning and Johnson bring such emotional credibility to their roles that the characters’ actions feel realistically messy rather than programmatically scripted (which, to be clear, they very much are). The movie is also blessed with detailed grace notes, like how Jack has a knack for baseball trivia or how Wendy makes an artisanal crib for her best friend. (Another example: Wendy works construction. When’s the last time you watched an American picture where the female lead worked construction?) The result is a dramedy that holds your attention, even if it makes you hesitant to commit. Grade: B-
Fall 2: Deadpoint. The first Fall succeeded as an entertaining genre exercise that smuggled how-did-they-film-that? grandeur inside a survival story of appealing simplicity. Its follow-up, Deadpoint, conforms to the usual sequel playbook, attempting to mimic the stomach-churning acrophobia of the original while also (ahem) elevating it with greater intensity and complexity. Its most obvious adjustment is directional: No longer content with climbing straight up a vertiginous tower, the adventurers here move both vertically and horizontally, scaling an ominous mountain and then scurrying along a perilous cliffside, clambering onto protruding planks of wood which appear, shall we say, not entirely stable.
Again written by Jonathan Frank and Scott Mann, with Michael and Peter Spierig (Predestination) replacing Mann in the director’s chair, Deadpoint centers on Jax (Harriet Slater), the sister of Shiloh (Virginia Gardner), the intrepid daredevil who died so ghoulishly in the first film. Some chintzy camcorder flashbacks inform us that, whereas Shiloh was enviably fearless, Jax is diffident and tentative. But when Luce (Arsema Thomas), an old pal of Shiloh, shows up at Jax’s house to pay tribute—in a caustic barb at influencer culture, Shiloh’s acolytes have dubbed themselves “Fallowers”—Luce urges the grieving Jax to honor her sibling’s memory and accompany her as she traverses Thailand’s notorious Mount Kwan, with its precipice known as The Devil’s Elbow. That Jax eventually acquiesces is far from the most implausible moment in the movie.
But Deadpoint isn’t concerned with realism, at least not the dramatic kind. (This is the type of picture where someone sees the word “Icarus” inscribed in a diary and muses aloud, “I wonder what that means.”) Its main interest is the physical mechanics of Jax and Luce’s labor: the clipping of safety harnesses, the grasping of handholds, the increasingly hazardous task of placing one foot in front of the other. The movie’s best and most agonizing sequence is an extended passage where its two nervy women find themselves marooned on a sliver of rock, their only potential salvation a backpack perched a dozen slippery rungs away. The Spierigs’ filmmaking here isn’t revolutionary, but they use clean sightlines and steady framing to convey the magnitude of the characters’ predicament, making you hold your breath with every leap, clutch, and (of course) fall.
Gritty scenes like this might suggest that Deadpoint is a worthy follow-up to Fall, but zoom out, and the justification for the enterprise stumbles. Slater and Thomas are both physically credible, but neither receives a real character to play, and their flimsily drawn archetypes expose the screenplay’s patchiness. And while Frank and Mann are smart enough not to replicate the killer twist from the original, they compensate with a handful of predictable reveals that simply distract from the movie’s more primal exploits, like a white-knuckle, Temple of Doom-style trek across a rickety bridge. In parts, Fall 2 delivers a serious adrenaline rush; as a whole, it suffers from oxygen loss to the brain. Grade: C+
Finding Emily. Finding Emily is a romantic comedy that opens with the electronic blast of New Order’s “Blue Monday” before later sprinkling in covers of Joy Division and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. What I’m saying is, I liked it.
This doesn’t mean that this goofily charming movie, directed by Alicia MacDonald from a script by Rachel Hirons, avoids convention or cliché. To the contrary, it seems to actively embrace the genre’s stereotypes, or at least acknowledge their existence. You’ve heard of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl? So have this film’s characters, who quote the trope by name. That doesn’t make it meta, but its self-awareness is one of its many curious wrinkles.
The setup of Finding Emily—which technically came out the week before Labor Day, when I was busy watching three other features—is as silly as it is irresistible. Owen (Spike Fearn) is a boyish sound engineer working at the fictional Manchester City University, where he meets cute with a vivacious, spritely student (she’s literally dressed as a fairy, and is played by Sadie Soverall); they share a magical evening of drinking and dancing, but after she accidentally(?) mistypes her phone number, he has no way of contacting her. All he knows is her first name, which circuitously leads him to Emily Raine (Angourie Rice, graduating from portraying an overaged high school kid to an overaged college kid), a psychology major with flowing blond locks and pert-blue nail polish whose thesis just happens to involve the fallacy of romantic love. This new Emily resolves to help Owen locate his missing Emily, all the while illicitly studying him as the primary piece of data for her dissertation. Footnote to the class: You get no extra credit for guessing how the movie ends.
And yes, sure, Finding Emily traffics heavily in shopworn rom-com traditions. Owen and Emily both have a bestie—he a twerpy brother (Jack Riddiford), she a frazzled roommate (Cora Kirk)—who are on hand mostly to provide advice and express disappointment as dictated by the emotional needs of the screenplay. There are mix-ups and contrivances, with key information being withheld or misconstrued in order to maximize narrative chaos. There is even one of cinema’s greatest sins: a conversation where someone says, “I need to tell you something,” only to be interrupted by an external noise and then keep the precious secret to themself. (I am once again reminded of the miraculous scene from Sleeping with Other People when Alison Brie asks Jason Sudeikis, “Do you want to talk about it?” and he responds, “Yeah,” and then they actually talk about it.)
Yet despite its obviousness, Finding Emily operates with so much warmth and texture—is so stubbornly cute—that it avoids sinking into the quicksand of formula. Those aforementioned besties, for example, are responsible for two of the movie’s most jubilant scenes: a heartwarming moment in a car where Owen and his bro enthusiastically sing along to “Wordy Rappinghood,” and a touching reconciliation in Emily’s flat where she and her friend dance wildly to “Off Wiv Ya Headz.” More importantly, the leads exhibit a winning chemistry that feels genuine rather than obligatory. Fearn, with his delicate eyes and lilting accent, is a perfect beta male (plus a pretty good singer), and his puppy-dog sadness plays nicely against Rice’s more prickly intelligence. They aren’t the most natural match, which is part of what makes them great together. (Meanwhile, the scene where Owen finally reconnects with “Fairy Emily” is a marvel of sweaty expectations and clenched disappointment.)
Beyond that, Finding Emily nimbly updates its hoary traditions to the Zoomer age. There’s a delightful runner involving a campus podcast—note the producer’s disgust when mild profanity compels her to add a banal disclaimer—while Owen’s email-related fumbling inspires a torrent of hot takes within the social media industrial complex. MacDonald handles all of this bustle smoothly, and if the screenplay’s satirical depiction of collegiate “wokeness” is perhaps an easy target, it nonetheless regards its characters with affection. This movie does exactly what you expect. It also convinces you that you wouldn’t want it any other way. Grade: B
Jeremy Beck is the editor-in-chief of MovieManifesto. He watches more movies and television than he probably should.