Juliet, Naked: London Calling, Washed-Up Rock Star Emailing

Rose Byrne and Ethan Hawke in "Juliet, Naked"

If High Fidelity was a lovingly critical look at the maniacal behaviors of fandom—the all-consuming need to know as much as possible about popular artists, and to lord your superior tastes and knowledge over other worshippers of your ilk—Juliet, Naked is about the crippling consequences of artistry itself. Adapted, like High Fidelity, from a novel by Nick Hornby, it stars Ethan Hawke as Tucker Crowe, a has-been musician who a quarter-century ago released a beloved alt-rock album and then suddenly vanished from the public eye. Now he lives in his ex-wife’s garage in Upstate New York, barely knows four of the five children he fathered via four different women, and shuffles through grocery stores looking for cereal and gardening supplies. He’s like the ghost of Jeff Buckley crossed with the Dude from The Big Lebowski, if the Dude still collected royalty checks.

If that sounds like the recipe for a punishing study of squandered talent, never fear. Directed by TV veteran Jesse Peretz (Nurse Jackie, Girls) from a script by Evgenia Peretz (the director’s sister), Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins, Juliet, Naked is a spry and largely delightful romantic comedy, a welcome summer breeze of warm humor and enveloping gentleness. It’s more of a curio than a landmark, which means it’s unlikely to be pored over for decades by the collectors and fanatics who populate Hornby’s works. But its disarming lightness should not be mistaken for insubstantiality. There’s craft in telling a story that’s decidedly pleasurable but doesn’t churn its sweetness into froth. Read More

Puzzle: Falling to Pieces, and Putting Them Together

Kelly Macdonald searches for meaning in "Puzzle"

In one of the few lyrical stretches of Puzzle, Marc Turtletaub’s sensitive and sad new drama, Agnes (the perpetually unappreciated Kelly Macdonald) rides a New York subway car while a blind man stands in the center and sings “Ave Maria” in a plaintive falsetto. Not long after, Agnes is served tea by a woman named Maria, and she points out the oddity that the namesake of Schubert’s piece is now providing her with a beverage. Her tea-drinking companion is unmoved, dismissing the parallel as an act of mere randomness that carries no cosmic significance. Agnes remains unconvinced: “It has to mean something.”

Does it, though? Given the sheer size of the universe, I’m inclined to agree with her partner and hesitate to ascribe any meaning to such an apparent coincidence. But it’s hard to blame Agnes, seeing as her own, private search for meaning is the animating force behind Puzzle, a movie about a seemingly stock figure who suddenly resolves to discover more of herself, and of the world. It’s also hard not to turn the question around and aim it at Puzzle itself. This is an unusually gentle and well-observed film, with a peculiar attention to its central characters and their rhythmic dynamics, but what does it really mean? Read More

Crazy Rich Asians: Headed East with Prince Charming, But the Queen’s Got Claws

Awkwafina, Nico Santos, and Constance Wu in "Crazy Rich Asians"

There are no princesses with skin as white as snow in Crazy Rich Asians, but it’s a modern fairy tale all the same. Thoroughly clichéd yet undeniably crowd-pleasing, this cheery adaptation of Kevin Kwan’s best-selling novel by no means rewrites the rom-com playbook, but it does flesh out its pages with vivacity and color. Just as there can be wisdom in convention, there can be pleasure in familiarity, and there’s something strangely satisfying about seeing this movie hit all of the requisite beats—the quirky friends, the manufactured crises, the playful montages, the happily-ever-after resolution (oops!)—with energy and enthusiasm. It’s fun to watch, even if you’ve seen it all before.

Except, of course, that you haven’t, not quite. That’s because Crazy Rich Asians is the rarest of Hollywood studio releases: a movie made of Asians, by Asians, and for (though by no means exclusively for) Asians. This long-overdue development may inspire consternation as well as celebration—to quote a different (and of course whiter) member of the genre, “What took you so long?”—but in the spirit of the film’s plucky optimism, I’ll choose to see the good, and to hope that its commercial success may at long last portend increased diversity in American cinemas, both in front of and behind the camera. But while I’m very happy that Crazy Rich Asians exists, I can’t entirely ignore its flaws or exalt it as a model of the form. In other words, it is great that this movie was made; that it was made does not make it a great movie. Read More

BlacKkKlansman: For the Boys in Blue, Black Man Dons White Robe

John David Washington goes undercover in Spike Lee's "BlacKkKlansman"

During an interlude of rare tranquility in BlacKkKlansman, undercover detective Ron Stallworth (John David Washington) and his sorta-girlfriend, Patrice (Laura Harrier, from Spider-Man: Homecoming), stroll through a serene wooded area, highlighted by a bubbling stream and colorful foliage. They’re talking, as fledgling lovers tend to do, about their favorite films, and Ron asks Patrice whether she prefers Super Fly or Shaft. Patrice, the president of the Black Student Union at Colorado College, is adamant. “Shaft,” she answers decisively, explaining that she has no use for something like Super Fly, which perpetuates the stereotype of black men as pimps and thugs. Taken aback by the severity of her criticism, Ron urges Patrice to relax. After all, he says in protest, “it’s just a movie!”

That sort of dismissive, laissez-faire hand-waving—the fallacious notion that art should simply be absorbed rather than analyzed, contextualized, and debated—has never and will never apply to the motion pictures of Spike Lee. For more than three decades now, the director has made all manner of “joints”—war epics and crime thrillers, sweeping period biopics and intimate family dramas, good movies and bad ones—but all of them share a purpose that goes beyond entertainment (though they are often entertaining). Lee is one of America’s most proudly political filmmakers, using his work not just to provide audiences with a few hours of diverting pleasure but to educate, instigate, preach, and rattle. BlacKkKlansman, which tells the story of Ron’s infiltration of the Ku Klux Klan in 1972 Colorado, fits squarely within this lineage. It is by turns a suspenseful police procedural, a powerful piece of agitprop, and a ferocious indictment of a reeling nation that, in its maker’s view, continues to neglect and suppress its black citizenry. It is not just a movie. Read More

Eighth Grade: Welcome to Hell. Don’t Forget Your Zit Cream.

Elsie Fisher in the piercing coming-of-age film "Eighth Grade"

Kayla, the heroine of the skin-crawling dramedy Eighth Grade, is a perfectly normal 14-year-old girl, which is another way of saying that her life is a complete disaster. She is anxious, awkward, and prone to extremities of emotion, mood swinging violently from euphoria to despair. As you watch this graceful and lovely movie, the directorial debut of the comedian Bo Burnham, you will feel compelled to envelop Kayla with affection, to promise her that everything will be OK. Of course, if you actually did that, she would likely shrink away from you and squeal in embarrassment. The only people more annoying than the kids who make Kayla miserable are the adults who try to make her feel better.

In a certain sense, Eighth Grade is a horror movie, given how it evokes memories of adolescence with ruthless clarity; you cannot experience Kayla’s tribulations without recalling the heightened agonies of your own youth. Yet one of Burnham’s smart storytelling choices is to avoid ladling on the trauma too heavily. This film is not an after-school special about bullying or self-esteem, nor is it a nauseating tale of social and sexual misadventure in the vein of Welcome to the Dollhouse. It is instead a measured, compassionate look at one teenager’s particular struggles as she suffers through one final week of middle school. Read More