High Life: Entering the Void, High-Strung and Horny

Jeremy BeckReviews
Robert Pattinson in Claire Denis's "High Life".

The spaceship has a garden. Somewhere, amid the instrument panels and the spartan bunks and the anti-gravity suits, there is a verdant room full of plants, moss, and dirt. It’s as if the astronauts, saddened by the prospect of leaving Earth behind, insisted on bringing a bit of earth along with them.

This contrast—between the personal and the fantastical, between presence and absence, between flowering life and merciless death—is emblematic of High Life, Claire Denis’ strange, frustrating, beguiling new film. Part sci-fi thriller, part philosophical meditation, it is always challenging, often boring, and occasionally mesmerizing. Read More

Read more

The Aftermath: He’s a Good German. Or at Least, He’s Good-Looking.

Jeremy BeckReviews
Keira Knightley in "The Aftermath".

Quality acting may not be able to make a bad movie good, but it can certainly make a silly movie less silly, and more watchable. The Aftermath, James Kent’s sober and strenuous adaptation of Rhidian Brook’s novel, is in many ways unpersuasive, with clunkily conceived characters, overly decorous presentation, and dubious politics. But its performances, particularly those of Keira Knightley and Jason Clarke, are exemplars of craft and commitment. With elegance and poise, they take a soapy, soggy romance and lift it into the realm of juicy, entertaining melodrama.

This is nothing new for Knightley, who has made something of a career out of elevating prestige period pieces with her cut-glass precision and simmering feeling. Just last year, she applied her considerable talents to Colette, helping turn what appeared to be a stodgy biopic of feminine awakening into a bawdy, sexy romp. Unfortunately, The Aftermath lacks Colette’s sense of impish fun; nor does it move with the same directorial alacrity that Joe Wright brought to his excellent collaborations with Knightley (Pride & Prejudice, Atonement, Anna Karenina). It is instead decidedly tasteful, with a gentle score, a lacquered production design, and a profound fear of offending anyone. Read More

Read more

Shazam!: Lightning Crashes, a New Hero Rises

Jeremy BeckReviews
Zachary Levi in "Shazam!"

It’s been 14 years since Christopher Nolan made Batman Begins and changed superhero movies forever, ushering in an era of brooding protagonists, muted palettes, and weighty themes. Some of these solemn productions have been quite good, but in the wake of a glut of similarly aimed films that copied the darkness of the Nolan template but failed to capture its richness of character (to say nothing of the Briton’s spectacular execution), many comic-book fans have clamored for a return to lighter, more refreshing fare. Zooming into this void like a caped comet comes Shazam!, which may technically reside in the notoriously grim DC Extended Universe, but which really positions itself as just this sort of antidote, a bright and cheery corrective to the glum macho posturing of movies like Batman v Superman.

And if that’s all you care about, then this silly movie will surely satisfy you. Directed by David F. Sandberg from a screenplay by Henry Gayden, Shazam! is almost defiantly childish, and its goofball vibe can be disarming as well as irritating. But if you care about more than the film’s tonal blueprint—if, for example, you concern yourself with matters of writing, pacing, and action—then you are less likely to be amused. Shazam!’s commitment to lightness is laudable, but it seems to have confused being amiable with being, you know, good. Read More

Read more

Dumbo: What Big Fears You Have

Jeremy BeckReviews
Colin Farrell and kids in Tim Burton's "Dumbo"

Tim Burton’s Dumbo is a movie about a plucky band of misfits who struggle to reclaim their individuality and artistry while operating under the yoke of an oppressive, profit-driven machine. It is also a live-action remake of a 78-year-old animated landmark, the latest in the continuing assembly line of Walt Disney Studios productions designed to ruthlessly exploit nostalgia for its classic properties, and to churn that nostalgia into a merchandising bonanza. This contradiction is not subtle. When you buy a ticket to see Dumbo, you do not need to possess abnormally large ears to perceive the sound of Disney executives laughing on their merry way to the bank.

That this new Dumbo works as well as it does—that it periodically slips the shackles of dutiful blockbuster adaptation and acquires a frisson of genuine wonder and joy—is a testament to Burton’s showmanship and skill. Now 60 years old, the director rose to fame for his portraits of oddballs (usually portrayed by Michael Keaton or Johnny Depp), which he infused with exotic color and seductive angularity. Age may have blunted Burton’s sharp edges—his last few films, including the underrated Big Eyes, lacked the decisive personality of his early work—but he has remained a capable purveyor of strange spectacle. Here, he is the consummate ringmaster, dazzling you with one illusion after another in a feverish effort to conceal what lies behind the curtain. Read More

Read more

Us: Meeting the Enemy, and Looking in the Mirror

Jeremy BeckReviews
Lupita Nyong'o in "Us"

Jordan Peele’s Get Out was such a unique and exhilarating blend of images and ideas—a suspenseful horror movie with a pointed political message—that it was easy to tolerate its third-act slide into ordinariness. His follow-up, Us, is not quite as thematically bracing; it feels more like a superlative exemplar of nightmare cinema than a full-on reinvention of the form. But even if Us is more entertaining than extraordinary—and to be clear, it would be deeply unfair to demand that Peele’s encore be equally groundbreaking—it is in some ways a more impressive picture than Get Out, with superior visuals and more consistent follow-through. Minimizing sociopolitical allegory in favor of visceral dread, it finds Peele sharpening his focus and refining his technique. He’s less interested in making you look inward in self-reflection than in forcing you to shut your eyes in fear.

This isn’t to say that Us is altogether silent with respect to race and politics. Its vision of an unseen underclass—a toiling horde of perpetually neglected laborers, à la The Time Machine—isn’t all that far removed from Get Out’s conceit of white aristocrats bidding on black bodies. But the most striking overlap between the two films is their use of the same indelible image: a close-up of a central character’s face, eyes widening in dismay and filling with tears as they perceive the terror of what surrounds them. Read More

Read more