Thriller

Malignant, The Card Counter, and Movies Going All-In

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Oscar Isaac in The Card Counter; Annabelle Wallis in Malignant

Last Sunday, the critic Walter Chaw tweeted that, because more than 90% of the new movies he watches are “pretty much the same”, he’s more likely to appreciate a film that “just cocks an arm and swings for all it’s worth”. I might quibble with the mathematical accuracy of his first statement, but despite the mixed metaphor, I’m inclined to agree with his second; even when they fail, ambitious movies tend to be more memorable than their cautious counterparts. Chaw presumably had a specific picture in mind, but this past weekend provided multiple titles that refused to play by multiplex rules. One is far better than the other, but both succeed in upending expectations and carving out their own atypical territory.

At the outset—and, in fact, for the majority of its running time—James Wan’s Malignant isn’t especially novel. Despite stemming from a nominally original screenplay by Akela Cooper, it’s another haunted-house chiller that would fit snugly inside the Conjuring cinematic universe that Wan created back in 2013. Its heroine, Madison (Annabelle Wallis, best known to me as Grace on Peaky Blinders), is plagued by visions of a malevolent spirit called Gabriel, one of those shadowy creatures who’s never quite in focus but who looks a bit like the skeleton-masked bank robbers from The Town, only blacker and nastier. In addition to somehow speaking through electronic devices like a demonic Siri, Gabriel seems to be a burgeoning serial killer, and Madison—in an arresting manipulation of the image—periodically finds her mind transported to the sites of his murders, forced to watch his grisly wet work like a helpless, paralyzed bystander. Read More

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Original Screenplay Weekend! On Annette, Reminiscence, and the Night House

Jeremy BeckFeatures, Reviews
Rebecca Hall in The Night House; Rebecca Ferguson and Hugh Jackman in Reminiscence; Adam Driver in Annette

Some original screenplays are more original than others. Last week, for example, I reviewed Disney’s Free Guy, a jumbled, weirdly fascinating action comedy that prides itself on not being based on any existing intellectual property, then spins an entire film from references to (and rip-offs of) other intellectual properties. I was happy to see Free Guy perform well (it’s now spawning a sequel, naturally), if only because I want studios to keep making original movies. As if by magic, this past weekend featured the release of three such pictures, a veritable bonanza of novel #content. (Technically there were four, but I failed to make time for Martin Campbell’s The Protégé.) None is a perfect film—in fact, all three have considerable problems—but my disappointment is tempered by my enthusiasm for their very existence. I didn’t love any of these movies, but I did love that I was able to watch them.

Of the trio, The Night House is the most conventional, which isn’t to say it’s typical. Directed by David Bruckner from a script by Ben Collins and Luke Piotrowski, it’s a ruminative ghost story that’s less interested in freaking you out than pulling you in. Its heroine, a high school English teacher named Beth (a fantastic Rebecca Hall), isn’t just the frightened resident of a haunted house; she’s also a little bit scary herself. An early scene, in which she calmly shames a grade-grubbing parent into stunned silence, reveals her capacity for blunt anger, while a night out with colleagues quickly turns into an unhappy hour where busybodies tiptoe around a powder keg. Read More

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Old: Time Isn’t On Their Lakeside

Jeremy BeckReviews
Thomasin McKenzie and Alex Wolff in Old

The great twist of M. Night Shyamalan’s career is that his movies aren’t really about twists. Sure, a number of his films indulge in third-act rug-pulls that invariably induce gasps, hoots, or groans. But the thing about endings is that, while they tend to stick in our brains, they rarely make or break a picture. The Sixth Sense features one of the most memorable reveals of all time, but it wouldn’t be nearly as meaningful (or as memorable, for that matter) if it weren’t preceded by a delicate story that unfolds with such elegance and detail. And even if you scoffed at the conclusion of The Village, your momentary derision shouldn’t invalidate its haunting, excruciatingly suspenseful depiction of a frightened young woman attempting to navigate the world. So when I tell you that the ending of Old, Shyamalan’s latest feature-length puzzle box, doesn’t really matter, I’m not implying that it doesn’t carry any element of surprise; I’m simply expressing a judgment that this movie’s soft, not-entirely-unpredictable destination is less important than its silky, enveloping journey.

I’d still encourage you to go into Old as cold as possible, not only as a matter of principle but also because its very premise essentially constitutes a spoiler. Even here, though, foreknowledge can’t tarnish the pleasure in how Shyamalan gradually unveils his brain-teasing conceit. To wit: Roughly half an hour into the film, two vacationing children—six-year-old Trent (Nolan River) and 11-year-old Maddox (Alexa Swinton)—find themselves conversing pleasantly with fellow travelers, a married couple named Patricia (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Jarin (Ken Leung). The camera, operated by the invaluable Mike Gioulakis, is fixed solely on the adults, with the kids sitting behind the frame. The mood is cheerful, but as Jarin plays the friendly game of guessing the youths’ ages (“I’m pretty good at this”), an invisible tension begins to grip the screen, an unspoken frisson of strangeness. Jarin turns his eyes to Maddox, still off screen, and appraises her figure: “I’d say you’re about 15,” he estimates, as Trevor Gureckis’ score starts to quietly throb. We hear giggles from the still-unseen youngsters, who promptly inform Jarin that they are, in fact, 6 and 11. As Jarin’s expression slips from amusement to bafflement, the camera finally (finally!) rotates back toward Maddox and Trent, and we see that they’re now a good five years older than they’d been a few minutes ago, and are being played by entirely different actors. Read More

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Zola: All That Twitters, Newly Told

Jeremy BeckReviews
Riley Keough and Taylour Paige in Zola

Almost Famous may have immortalized the trope of passengers giddily belting out a classic pop song, but Zola, the indecently entertaining new film from Janicza Bravo, revives the conceit and reinvests it with a distinctly modern sensibility. In an early scene that finds four strivers cruising south from Detroit to Tampa, a young man cues up Migos’ “Hannah Montana” and starts enthusiastically bobbing along to the beat. At first he seems foolish (in no small part because he’s played by Nicholas Braun, aka Cousin Greg from Succession), but before long his gusto infects his fellow travelers, who join him in a rambunctious display of lip-synching and tongue-wagging. The mood is jubilant but also performative, the gesticulators constantly posing for pics and racking up the likes on Instagram. It’s a celebration that’s simultaneously authentic and synthetic.

This preoccupation with digital gratification—a mingling of heedless joy and self-conscious artistry—doesn’t belong exclusively to the characters; it’s embedded in the movie’s very DNA. Zola was born from Twitter, specifically a viral 148-tweet thread from A’Ziah “Zola” King, who in October 2015 tapped out on her phone an emoji-laced saga of vice, mayhem, and betrayal. (The reporter David Kushner quickly turned it into an article for Rolling Stone.) A sprawling collection of 140-character missives may seem like bare bones for a feature film, but one of the lessons of the technological age is that art can come from anywhere. And Zola, as brought to the screen by Bravo and co-writer Jeremy O. Harris, is a proudly contemporary picture that also draws from classic cinematic influences. As the saying goes, all you need to make a movie is a girl, a gun, and a smartphone to orchestrate your illicit prostitution scheme. Read More

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A Quiet Place Part II: Hush Growing Children, Don’t Lose Your Nerve

Jeremy BeckReviews
Emily Blunt in A Quiet Place Part II

The traffic light works. That’s how we know, even before the appearance of a freighted title card (“Day 1”), that the opening scene takes place during the era has become colloquially known, during our collective struggle with COVID-19, as the Before Times. (Remember, even movies that were made before the pandemic are totally still about the pandemic.) So even though the small town’s main square seems oddly deserted, the signal’s automatic flickering from green to yellow to red instantly communicates an attitude of relative safety. Yet at the same time, the introduction’s formal composition—the smoothness of the camera, the emptiness of the streets, the chaotic footage glimpsed on a news broadcast—articulates an undeniable sense of Damoclean danger. The apocalypse may not have arrived yet, but it’s surely on the way.

This expertly staged opening sequence, which builds from needling anxiety to clammy tension before erupting into all-out mayhem, confirms John Krasinski’s considerable skill as a director. He’s only made a handful of features, but here he again evinces a talent for conveying information and atmosphere through canny visual details. When he supplies a simple shot of a timid boy wincing in panic as a fastball buzzes past him during a Little League game, he isn’t watching a sport; he’s defining a character. Read More

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