Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Racing to the End, and Backpedaling from the Middle

Jeremy BeckReviews
The band is together one last time in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker"

Helmets matter in Star Wars. The Walt Disney Company knows this; The Mandalorian, the flagship series of Disney’s new streaming service, begins each episode with a retrofitted logo, a montage of recognizable head coverings from our favorite faraway galaxy. J.J. Abrams knows it too. So when an early scene in The Rise of Skywalker, the ninth and (supposedly) last entry in the Star Wars saga, features Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) donning a re-forged black mask—the same mask that he destroyed in a fit of pique one film ago—it is impossible to miss the metaphor. Every modern franchise production must to some extent honor the loyalty of its patrons, but The Rise of Skywalker exhibits a peculiar brand of fan service. It appears designed to cater not to Star Wars enthusiasts at large, but to the small and vocal sect of devotees who adored the seventh episode, Abrams’ The Force Awakens, yet who simultaneously despised its follow-up, Rian Johnson’s The Last Jedi. If Johnson wielded spunk and irreverence to blow the franchise template to bits, Abrams deploys nostalgia and traditionalism to put the pieces back together.

This is not all too easy. Just as that reconstructed helmet still shows visible cracks, The Rise of Skywalker is a seamy and uneven movie, laboring to bring the saga to a stirring close while also frantically course-correcting toward a more conventional version of the Star Wars mythos. Rather than boldly exploring new worlds (whoops, sorry, wrong franchise), it retreats inward, taking refuge in the safe and familiar. This is disappointing, but it is far from devastating. Abrams’ narrative choices may border on cowardly, but he remains a skillful supplier of big-budget imagery and exciting conflict. That he lacks Johnson’s daring and imagination has not precluded him from making another boisterous adventure, with moments of glorious spectacle. Read More

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Richard Jewell: A Bomb Detonates, and a Life Explodes

Jeremy BeckReviews
Paul Walter Hauser in Clint Eastwood's "Richard Jewell"

Even when they aren’t appearing in Westerns or war films, Clint Eastwood’s heroes routinely find themselves under siege. Earlier in his everlasting late period, in movies like Invictus and J. Edgar, Eastwood’s principals operated from inside the government, attempting to impose order and decency on a cruel and lawless world. Lately, however, The System itself has become Eastwood’s chief antagonist, a daunting power intent on smearing the names and ruining the lives of good men. In Sully, a skilled and noble pilot found himself the target of a biased and insidious bureaucratic inquiry. Now comes Richard Jewell, which dramatizes the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing and its aftermath, when the country collectively decided—based on hunches rather than evidence—that the doughy security guard who thwarted the attack was in fact the man who perpetrated it.

This material—an innocent man, railroaded!—is catnip for Eastwood, which means it plays to his worst instincts. Yet while Richard Jewell is clumsy and dubious, it is also fleet and colorful, featuring some of the director’s most relaxed and immersive filmmaking in years. It would be terrible if it weren’t so enjoyable. Read More

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Marriage Story: Till Life and Lawyers Do Us Part

Jeremy BeckReviews
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson in "Marriage Story"

Marriage Story opens with a pair of sweet, complementary monologues. First, Charlie (Adam Driver) tells us what he loves about his wife, Nicole (Scarlett Johansson), who then follows with a parallel recitation of what she admires about her husband. Both ruminations are full of affectionate detail and cute peccadilloes: how she leaves cabinets open, how he devours food, how they both play Monopoly like cutthroats. They’re the kind of quotidian observations that can only be amassed through the act of sharing a life, and they’re redolent with warmth and appreciation. Which makes it all the more shocking when these adoring speeches are revealed to be exercises suggested by a mediator, therapeutic assignments designed to mitigate the inevitable pain of their looming divorce.

Well, maybe not shocking, given who’s behind the camera. Even if you have no knowledge of the plot of Marriage Story—which chronicles the life cycle of Nicole and Charlie’s separation over 137 excruciating, beautiful minutes— so long as you’re aware that it was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, you’ll hardly be surprised by this sudden swerve into gloom. America’s poet laureate of marital and familial discord, Baumbach has devoted his career to exploring relationships—not just between couples, but also between parents and children, siblings, and friends—with a tricky combination of brutal honesty and wry comedy. Marriage Story is no exception; this is a film of lacerating insight and raw emotion. But it is also perhaps his most tender, least showy work (though Frances Ha may want a word). As ever, Baumbach refuses to sentimentalize his characters, but here he regards them with unprecedented empathy. In examining how two people break apart, he creates a sensation of togetherness. Read More

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The Irishman: And I Think It’s Gonna Be a Long, Long Crime

Jeremy BeckReviews
Robert De Niro and Al Pacino in Martin Scorsese's "The Irishman"

In one of the most memorable scenes in Goodfellas, Joe Pesci’s character triumphantly arrives for a celebration in his honor, only to realize that he’s just walked into his own death. It’s a devastating rug-pull that presages the film’s slow bend from buoyant mafioso hangout joint to brittle human tragedy. The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s sweeping, lurching, ultimately moving new crime epic, is a bit like that scene writ large, but framed from a different perspective. It’s about the triggerman in that cold and empty room, and the paralyzing loneliness he suffers. Rather than focusing on the cathartic thrill of violence, this sprawling movie draws its power from aftermath—from what happens after the bullets leave the gun and the bodies hit the floor.

A solemn study of aging (and de-aging!), The Irishman announces itself as a monumental work, both in terms of its grand scope (Netflix’s tagline: “A lot can happen in a lifetime”) and its much-publicized 210-minute running time. Ambition is nothing new for Scorsese, and neither are gangsters. But while its bildungsroman arc and its fan-favorite cast inevitably recall Goodfellas and Casino, the director isn’t repeating himself here; instead, he’s reflecting. If anything, the mob movie that The Irishman most evokes is The Godfather Part II, given the way it refracts a career of savagery and crime through a prism of melancholy and loss. Read More

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Knives Out: Murder Most Foul, Movie-Making Most Divine

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ana de Armas and Daniel Craig in Rian Johnson's "Knives Out"

There are a great many significant clues in Knives Out—a pair of blood-spattered sneakers, a set of muddy footprints, a deadly syringe—but what may be its most meaningful artifact has little to do with its labyrinthine plot. I’m speaking of the Panasonic pop-up VCR, the ancient device whose grainy security footage may hold critical information, if the investigators can just extract the damn tape from the machine. A relic from an earlier era when Betamax was still a contender and consumers had to select between EP and SP, the Panasonic’s presence would seem to brand this film as a throwback, a nostalgic hymn to cinema’s halcyon days, when mid-budget studio productions ruled the day and superheroes were relegated to the pages of the comic book.

To be sure, Knives Out is laden with analog pleasures: sudden rack focuses; portentous musical cues; dizzying flashbacks; Chris Evans in knitted sweaters. (OK, that last one might not be old-fashioned, but its appeal is certainly timeless.) Yet it would be a mistake to pigeonhole this bracing new movie, which was written and directed with vigor and wit by Rian Johnson, as an homage to the pictures of yesteryear or as a critique of the contemporary multiplex. Knives Out is too energetic, too entertaining, too celebratory—too much damn fun—to be scolding. And while it may carry a certain classical sensibility, it is also distinctly modern, with an impish tone that couldn’t possibly be deemed traditional. They say they don’t make ’em like they used to, but I’m not sure they ever made them quite like this. Read More

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