Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game (2023)

Direction: Austin Bragg, Meredith Bragg
Country: USA 

Considered a game of chance in the 1970’s, pinball was banned for 35 years in New York. Roger Sharpe was the man who managed to overturn that drastic measure when he moved to the city with the intent of becoming a writer. This true story is at the center of the Bragg Brothers’ biopic Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game.

Active since the mid 2000’s, the pair of directors finally make their debut feature with a biographical comedy that, following traditional narrative procedures, gains momentum with enchanting well-written dialogues and a smart structure. It’s also romantic in its own way, and an optimistic confection, sometimes frothy, sometimes exceptional, that feels like it might have sprung from the era it portrays. 

Creatively told, the story acquires a dazzling motion while purposely exaggerating the documentary within the film versus the facts, realistically expressed by Mr. Sharpe of our days (Dennis Boutsikaris). The young Sharpe, owner of a peculiar mustache and vivid manners, is played by Mike Faist (West Side Story, 2021), who makes a wonderful pair with Crystal Reed (Teen Wolf: The Movie, 2023), the love of his life. 

The Braggs inject a few drops of acid into what would be a simple story, turning it somewhat cartoonish but seductively amusing. Pinball won’t be among your standard biopics but rather a favorably low-key portrait whose well-oiled mechanisms intend to divert as much as inform.

Causeway (2022)

Direction: Lila Neugebauer
Country: USA

Causeway is a regular drama film with some good qualities and bad angles. The film, directed by Lila Neugebauer - in her debut feature - and written by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, develops modestly with steady tones. This is not a drama of big twists but rather a delicate take on post-traumatic reconstruction and a warmhearted depiction of true friendship and support. Even if one spots a bit of ambition here, there are several aspects that didn’t gel.

The two leading actors, Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games, 2012; Silver Linings Playbook, 2012) and Brian Tyree Henry (If Beale Street Could Talk, 2018; Windows, 2018), may play two broken souls we believe exist, but the script brushes off the struggles involved with recovering from a serious brain injury. There's a pivotal scene between Lynsey (Lawrence), an engineer in the U.S. Army Corps who returned severely injured from Afghanistan, and James (Henry), an automotive mechanic devastated by a tragic accident and guilt, that attempts a dramatic climax that didn’t land. Although their unlikely friendship is positive, the traumas and family predicaments never found a deeper resonance to leave a mark.

And that’s the problem with Causeway; it advances casually and lightly for the sake of entertainment, and you kind of know what is coming at every single turn.

Babylon (2022)

Direction: Damien Chazelle
Country: USA 

Suffused in eccentricity and delusional grandeur, Babylon is a product of writer-director Damien Chazelle’s creativity. The film, working both as a love letter to cinema and a fierce disapproval of its excesses, is the result of 15 years of research, conveying an unrefined, buffoonish vision of the transition from silent to sound film in the late ’20s. 

Shot in anamorphic format (35 mm), this technically stunning exertion boasts a curious, rambunctious point of departure, but Chazelle's intentions and energy slowly rots along the way, taking the audience to exhaustion well before the end. The director of Whiplash (2014) and La La Land (2016) is more interested in shocking than providing a finely structured story. His complacent Hollywood pastiche flirts with sparkling euphoria and wild scenarios, taking good advantage of feverish jazz music and staging intensity. But if the surface shines here and there, then the interior borders the grotesque. 

Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie and the charismatic Diego Calva are not responsible for the failure of a movie that competes and loses against the sweetness and elegance of Spielberg’s The Fabelmans. It’s also a weirder and more mundane beast than Ostlund’s ostentatious satire The Triangle of Sadness (a rival for the best puking moments); and a less clever, more pompous option than Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood. There’s nothing personal or profound in this messy imagination of the early movies; it’s just a spectacle reduced to tics and gimmicks.

The Woman King (2022)

Direction: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Country: USA 

Between the historical African ballad and the feminist epic, The Woman King advances unspectacularly academic, annoyingly predictable, and blatantly contrived. The basic and uninteresting screenplay by Dana Stevens drove me away, making the proceedings misfire in its archetypes as quick as they attempt to connect. 

A bit more tension, characterization, and drama were required, while the unassertive directorial approach of Gina Prince-Bythewood (Beyond the Light, 2014; The Old Guard, 2020) makes it less impactant than it should. Viola Davis (The Help, 2011; Fences, 2016), in the role of General Nanisca - leader of the Agojie, the all-female group of warriors of the African kingdom of Dahomey - still conveys appreciated bravery, but the film is hermetic to its political and historic consideration, being reduced to a mediocre effort with the delicate topic of slavery at the front and an ineffective twist as an attribute.

The Pale Blue Eye (2023)

Direction: Scott Cooper
Country: USA 

Based on Louis Bayard's novel, The Pale Blue Eye is an austere mystery thriller shrouded in gothic mist. It's written and directed by Scott Cooper and stars Christian Bale (American Hustle; The Dark Knight; The Fighter) in the role of inspector Augustus Landor - a widowed, alcoholic and tortured veteran assigned to investigate a sordid murder case in the US Military Academy, and Harry Melling (known for several Harry Potter installments) as the morbid young cadet and future writer/poet Edgar Allen Poe. This is the third time that Cooper directs the incredibly adaptable Bale, following Out of the Furnace (2013) and Hostiles (2017). 

With the gloomy mise-en-scene and wintry atmosphere making it even colder, the film, set at the West Point in 1830 New York, tells a macabre story that oozes mysticism and blood. However, if its first part is solid and entertaining, the second is wobbly, marked by a descending curve in the script until crashing in an arguable final twist. 

Although not producing real brilliance, the systematized gothic tones and oppressive heaviness produce a quietly gripping surface. It’s a visually wow-inducing whodunit - with cinematography by Cooper’s regular Masanobu Takayanagi - that feels dour and slow at times.

White Noise (2023)

Direction: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA 

In White Noise, Oscar-winning writer-director Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, 2012; Marriage Story, 2019) probes a different style, attempting to charm with adventure, crime thriller, and family comedy. The outcome of his first-ever adaptation is too theoretical and uneven to subsist. With Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name in mind, and showcasing an excellent pair of actors like Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, Baumbach couldn’t quite handle the odd material. The course of events is perhaps excessively elaborated and the dramatic stakes feel rather low.  

The story, set in the 1980s, focuses on the Gladneys and how they react to a hazardous cloud of deadly chemicals, the fear of death (who thought of Woody Allen?), and the physical and psychological effects of an experimental drug not listed in the pharmacies. Jack (Driver) is a Nazism expert and professor who enjoys knotty chatting with his Elvis-devotee fellow, Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle); Babette (Gerwig), who normally reveals and confides, is visibly depressed as she goes through a difficult phase marked by insecurity and obscurity.

With its derivative style and witless plot-twists, the film aspires to be grandiose, comprehensive, and clever but falls flat. Baumbach quickly loses control of his film and often struggles to keep the story afloat, leaving us on the sidelines. White Noise is a disjointed and deliberately delirious monument, whose ambition is overburdened with messed-up ideas and genres, and whose required excitement becomes a tricky thing to pull off. In the end, this offbeat journey has no discernible point, and the only thing one can enjoy is the actors’ qualified performances.

Glass Onion (2022)

Direction: Rian Johnson
Country: USA

Referencing a song of The Beatles, Glass Onion is the anticipated sequel to the well-received mystery film Knives Out (2019). The latter, without being brilliant, happens to be better than what it is offered now by the writer-director Rian Johnson, whose directorial peak occurred in 2012 with the ingenious Looper. 

Daniel Craig reprises his role as the low-key detective Benoit Blanc, who travels to the private Greek island of tech billionaire Miles Born (Edward Norton) to unravel a silly mystery involving five of his colorful, wealthy friends. 

Slackened by a low flow of energy, the film is reduced to a series of diffused circumstances that just want to prove how eccentric these characters are. It's not hard to find your way around, but the film offers no clever touches and there’s nothing really new. Occasionally, the dialogues proliferate across the general monotony with moderate invigoration, especially when hitting celebrities, but this drawn-out crime episode lacks the investigative depth required to surpass superficiality. 

Linearly plotted, Glass Onion is stunningly unfunny and desperately wacky; a barely coherent mess moved by a silly game with no thrills and no real mystery. The resolution of the puzzle is simply vomited without a gradual crescendo, making this second Knives Out installment a flat response to what was demanded by the fans of the original.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022)

Direction: Guillermo Del Toro
Country: USA

Carlo Collodi’s world-famous novel, Pinocchio, has been subjected to many versions lately. After Roberto Benigni had directed and starred in the abominable version of 2002, it was Matteo Garrone who attempted the feat with triumphant results in 2019 (curiously, the film also starred Benigni as Geppetto). 2022 brought us two opposite Pinocchios: a failed live-action remake by Robert Zemeckis, and an enjoyable, lush-looking stop-motion animated film by Guillermo Del Toro, who co-directed with the debutant Mark Gustafson.

The stubborn, super-energized wooden boy (voice by Gregory Mann) disobeys his unconsolable father, Geppetto (David Bradley), and skips school, ending up in a carnival show ran by the exploitative and authoritarian puppet-master, Count Volpe (Christoph Waltz). The story, set in the fascist Italy of the ‘30s, is narrated by Sebastian J. Cricket (Ewan McGregor), who looks after the living puppet, and also includes other interesting characters like Spazzatura (Cate Blanchett), a devilish monkey turned Pinocchio’s unlikely friend, and the sisters Wood Sprite and Death (Tilda Swinton).

The magical and moving approach of Del Toro gives the title character a fresh meaning in a delightful story that, filled with perils, joys, sorrows, and compassion, works as a life lesson. The musical aspect (entrusted to French composer Alexandre Desplat) didn’t match the technically stunning visuals, but this fable comes with enough humor, poetry, and grimness to justify the director’s childhood obsession. Extra dark tones contribute a personal touch to the least faithful rendition of Collodi’s tale.

She Said (2022)

Direction: Maria Schrader
Country: USA

Maria Schrader’s investigative drama, She Said, tells the important true story that exposed the system protecting abusers in the industry of cinema. The screenplay by Rebecca Lenkiewicz was based on the book by New York Times' reporters Megan Twohey and Jodi Kantor, played here by the talented Carey Mulligan (An Education, 2009; Never Let Me Go, 2010) and Zoe Kazan (Ruby Sparks, 2012; The Big Sick, 2017), respectively. The actress/activist Ashley Judd (Ruby in Paradise, 1993; De-Lovely, 2004) plays herself as one of the victims who first came forward to denounce the Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein as a sex offender.

Smartly structured, if lengthy, the film keeps the tension simmering but leaves us wanting something more in the end. Unlike the work of the journalists, this film feels almost unfinished due to repetition; all the twists and turns feel the same. Less inspired than Nina Wu (2019) and The Assistant (2019) - two other fictional dramas pertaining to the same subject - She Said is, however, the first film to openly mention Weinstein, who was accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than 80 women - actresses, models, assistants, and collaborators.

The film depicts the meticulous collection of information, and the very long work of persuasion of the journalists to encourage the victims to speak out. The investigation, which helped to launch the #MeToo movement, is far from being a great gesture of cinema, lacking a bit of air and dramaturgy. It’s no Spotlight (2015) for sure, and gets too sentimental in spots. As a film, She Said declines to aim for anything other than the factual narrative, doing it with a mix of courage and relative panache.

Bones and All (2022)

Direction: Luca Guadagnino
Country: USA 

Bones and All, the first English-language film from Italian filmmaker Luca Guadagnino, was filmed in the US and feels very American. The story, set in the 80s, is an adaptation of the 2015 novel by Camille DeAngelis, and reconnects the director with the actor Timothée Chalamet and the screenwriter David Kajganich, after Call Me by Your Name (2017) and Suspiria (2018), respectively. Contrarily, the young actress Taylor Russell (Waves, 2019) and the celebrated actor Mark Rylance (Bridge of Spies, 2015; The Outfit, 2022) work with Guadagnino for the very first time here. 

It’s hard to resist a good cannibal movie, and this one has daring moments and poetic attempts. As a tone poem of dangers and transgressions, the film retains the romantic and melancholic density of the director’s signature, focusing on the unspoken complicity between a couple of drifting young cannibals who have to deal with a lonely, cunning, and more experienced “eater”. 

The emotion surfaces tardily in a film that intermingles drama, teen romance, and gory horror. Filming with paradoxical gentleness, Guadagnino captures his ravenous characters with assurance, but the mix of styles is not always winning. Even when working outside the typical genre conventions with occasional reference to films from the canon, the film lacks the spark that would set fire to such a carnivorous road trip.

This horror doesn’t bite to the bone and should only work for those willing to accept the tenets of Guadagnino’s doomed cannibalism and dark romance. In my eyes, the ultimate success of this experience comes from Rylance’s creepy performance, and not so much from the cannibal teens.

Till (2022)

Direction: Chinonye Chukwu
Country: USA 

The true story of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was lynched for racial reasons in Mississippi in the 1950s, is told with a disturbing edge in this thoughtful and fully explanatory biographic drama directed, executive produced and co-written by Chinonye Chukwu (Clemency, 2019). The work, classic to the core, also underlines the important step given for the civil rights movement and black community as the racial hatred was exposed like never before. 

Simply told with limited theatrics, Till is effectively dramatic without achieving the state of masterpiece. It’s worth seeing, if only to soak up the positive presence of Danielle Deadwyler, who plays Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, with intrepidity. Getting both press and public attention, she resolutely seeks for justice to make the two white murderers pay for their horrendous crime.

Although it doesn’t always avoid the pitfalls of filmed theatre, the film retains all the drama's thematic force, being bolstered by some good supporting roles and carrying uncomfortable feelings and heavy emotion. 

The Nigerian-born director is totally committed to her subject, but I’m convinced that the power of the film doesn’t totally match the power of the message.

The Fabelmans (2022)

Direction: Steven Spielberg
Country: USA 

The Fabelmans, a notably sharp semi-autobiographical drama mounted with proficiency, evokes Steven Spielberg’s youth years, dwelling in his great-to-watch family dynamics and early passion for cinema. Spielberg's declaration of love for the seventh art is sincere, funny and tender, with some magical moments that will easily conquer the viewers’ heart. 

Never in the same vein of his previous works, Spielberg shows how versatile he is, a fact confirmed through his alter ego, Sammy Fabelman (Gabriel LaBelle acts with class and gravitas), who makes low-budget westerns, WWII battles, and homemade movies with the same acuity. We follow him with amusement from age seven to 18, a specific life period that starts in New Jersey, passes by Phoenix, Arizona, and ends in California. Observant, Sammy captures a secret within the family that confounds, hurts and scares.

After the disappointing and unnecessary remake of West Side Story, it’s good to see master Spielberg back in business with an intimate, personal chronicle that is as much endearing as it is eye-popping. The melancholic grace of the image is superb and benefits from the obvious pleasure of staging, while the story itself - another successful collaboration with playwright/screenwriter Tony Kushner (Lincoln, 2012; Munich, 2005) - contains real finds, intense moments of happiness, and painful struggles proper from the adolescence.

The Fabelmans is forged with a developed sense of narrative, harmonious composition, and an unblemished command of the actors, with my favorite episode occurring in the final minutes, when the young filmmaker meets the renowned director John Ford (impeccably impersonated by David Lynch) at CBS Studios. Spielberg hasn’t lost sight of the engaging, practical nature of his style, and benefits from the excellent performances of LaBelle, Paul Dano and Michelle Williams.

Armageddon Time (2022)

Direction: James Gray
Country: USA 

Armageddon Time is a simple coming-of-age tale that addresses venomous social injustices and overwhelming gaps in the American society. Even tamer than director James Gray’s previous New York stories - We Own the Night (2017) and Two Lovers (2018) - and dealing with a finale that is not particularly surprising, the film, set in 1981 Queens, is definitely marked by enough evocative power. It’s an entertaining, down-to-earth vehicle that, holding nothing back, is more focused in honesty than in any desire to impress. 

The film’s title may suggest another sci-fi incursion like Ad Astra (2019) or another plunge into adventure like The Lost City of Z (2016). Instead, Gray mounts a period drama film inspired by his own childhood experiences. The personification of himself at childhood comes as Paul Graff, a Jewish-American boy who wants to be an artist. Young actor Banks Repeta gives the character life, showcasing the struggle of a kid against racial discrimination in the family and at school, a fact that is further intensified when he is caught smoking weed in the school’s bathroom with his rebellious black friend, Johnny Davis (Jaylin Webb).

Uncomfortable and disoriented, he deals with disillusionment with more boldness than fear, not thanks to his caring mother (Anne Hathaway) nor his volatile father (Jeremy Strong), but with the help of his beloved grandfather Aaron (Anthony Hopkins), whose wise advice he listens attentively. The idea that’s hard to fight, but one can never give in is taken by Paul with hope and fortitude. 

A careful stylization by cinematographer Darius Khondji, who had worked with the director in The Immigrant (2013), creates a particular tonality inspired by Marcel Proust’s classic In Search of Lost Time. Gray put his passion into staging his painfully vivid memoirs, creating a nuanced, delicate film with a strong anti-racist message.

Tár (2022)

Direction: Todd Field
Country: USA 

Earnestly told and entirely convincing, Tár is a masterstroke by Todd Field, a director always on the lookout to take the viewer into breathtaking emotional whirlwinds. Inactive since 2006 (after masterful dramas such as In the Bedroom and Little Children), Field will make people wondering if the film was actually inspired by real events, such is the precision of detail and exactitude of information - the film starts with a marvelous interview with the New Yorker’s journalist Adam Gopnik, in which we learn Tar’s considerations about time in music, interpretation and feelings.

Elegantly mounted, his tale of intrigue works like a thriller, presenting us an intelligent post-pandemic journey, whose protagonist - an interesting yet desensitized avant-garde female conductor seriously inspired by Gustav Mahler - exerts abuse of power, tricky manipulation and favoritism. It's bursting with brainy tension, machinations and emotional turmoils, grabbing us from start to finish. The main reason for the film success is Cate Blanchett, who delivers a rock-solid, high-class performance, illuminating every single shot with her acting prowess. For now, I couldn’t think of any other actress than her for the Oscars. 

Just like the music by Hildur Guðnadóttir, the cruel learning story penetrates our soul with entrancing captivation and ravishing violence. The overall story arc is realistically complemented with surgical dialogues and striking visual compositions in a timeless contemporary drama to be remembered for its immense qualities. One can finally rejoice with what have been missing from the movies these days: authenticity and intelligence.

The Good Nurse (2022)

Direction: Tobias Lindholm
Country: USA 

The thrillers of Danish director Tobias Lindholm got famous for their glows and agitation, but The Good Nurse, a harrowing true story abated by banality, doesn't hold up as well as you'd expect. Screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns worked from the 2013 true crime book by Charles Graeber. 

The film boasts Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne in the center roles. She is Amy Loughren, a proficient if tired nurse and single mother of two, who has been struggling with cardiomyopathy crisis. He is Charlie Cullen, a self-assured and helpful nurse who worked in nine hospitals over 16 years, leaving a trace of silent death behind him. When he arrives at the ICU of Parkfield Memorial Hospital in New Jersey, it was a huge relieve for Amy, who couldn’t guess her patients would be in danger. A mysterious death leads to an investigation by two relentless detectives (played by Nnamdi Asomugha and Noah Emmerich), leaving them stuck in a web of lies, cynicism and cover-ups. 

Rather than shocked or terrified, you follow the course of events fairly intrigued and sometimes amused. But this is not enough. This monotonous crime drama awkwardly and stiffly arrives at its revelations, managing little more than a gesture toward untying inextricable knots. It’s weak as a thriller and particularly disappointing following Lindholm's exceptional past work (A Hijacking, 2012; A War, 2015).

Quite simply: this is something you could read about in a few paragraphs, and the film fails to present any type of dilemma during its passionless narrative. Cullen’s character should have been better explored and details of his personal life revealed to help us gain some interest and overcome indifference.

Werewolf by Night (2022)

Direction: Michael Giacchino
Country: USA 

Score composer Michael Giacchino (Ratatouille, 2007; Star Trek, 2009) directs an arresting 50-minute television special that's often unsettling and adventurous. If you dig offbeat werewolf stories and arthouse films, then you’ll be begging for more. The teleplay by Heather Quinn and Peter Cameron is based on the Marvel Comics of the same name.

Jack Russell (Gael Garcia Bernal), a monster hunter doomed to be a werewolf, is summoned by Ulyses Bloodstone’s widow, Verussa (Harriet Sansom Harris), to compete against rivals - including the deceased’s estranged daughter Elsa Bloodstone (Laura Donnelly)  and the merciless Jovan (Kirk Thatcher) - in a mission to determined who will be the next leader in the crusade against the evil monsters. 

Thoroughly staged with unpredictable alliances and implacable attacks, Werewolf by Night is by turns violent and comedic. The option for black and white was appropriate, serving to enhance the imposing photography by Zoë White (The Handmaid’s Tale series, 2018-19). An atypical surprise that should be further developed to fully satisfy.

Amsterdam (2022)

Direction: David O. Russell
Country: USA 

Seven years after the dispensable Joy, writer-director-producer David O. Russell releases Amsterdam, assembling an impressive ensemble cast that nothing could do to make his period comedy thriller less underwhelming. The story is based on the Business Plot, a 1933 political conspiracy that intended to install a dictator in the place of the American president Franklin D. Roosevelt. The topic still applies to our days since constant threats to democracy hover over our heads for some time, but as a film, Amsterdam is a sketchy exercise where every move turns out mediocre, if not downright silly. It never feels authentic.

Working with the director for the third time (following the more successful American Hustle and The Fighter), Christan Bale is Burt Berendsen, a doctor scarred by the war who's not afraid to dive into experimental medicine. He and his former war buddy turned lawyer, Harold Woodman (John David Washington), will have to clear their name when accused of a crime they didn’t commit. For that matter, they have the help of nurse Valerie Voze (Margot Robbie) and a couple of spies (Mike Myers, Michael Shannon). 

Too busy crushing his excellent actors under the period mise-en-scène, Russell doesn’t seem to know how to make this story interesting, setting a trap for himself. Amsterdam completely collapses both as comedy and thriller, bogged down in apathy and prosaic temperance. The amazing actors, completely drowned in automatism and formal discipline, are unable to show off feelings. Besides protracted, the film remains too derivative, superficial, and humorless to produce an acceptable outcome.

To Leslie (2022)

Direction: Michael Morris
Country: USA 

To Leslie, the in-your-face first feature film by director Michael Morris, is based on true events, playing as a country ballad with a taste of whiskey and the venom of judgmental Christians. But it’s also tender and human in many ways.

Suffused with equal parts heaviness and compassion, this surprisingly unsparing drama explores the torments of the title character, an alcoholic single mother from Texas who ends up on the streets six years after winning the lottery. 

The film boasts substantial pleasures, largely on account of British actress Andrea Riseborough (Birdman, 2014; Oblivion, 2013), who, with authenticity, delivers a superlative, hard-to-forget performance. She’s strongly backed by actor/comedian Marc Maron as the kindhearted employer that gives her a chance to live again and regain a long lost self-confidence.

With demonstrative humanity, this is not the kind of trip you'll return to multiple times, but one that you look back on fondly.

The Cathedral (2022)

Direction: Ricky D’Ambrose
Country: USA 

In Ricky D’Ambrose’s third feature, The Cathedral, the life of Jesse Damrosch (Robert Levey II and William Bednar-Carter) and his parents - Richard (Brian d'Arcy James) and Lydia (Monica Barbaro) - expand to other members of the family via a sequential thread of fragmental portraits that compose a bigger picture. The singular, well interpreted story of the family spans two decades, and is presented with a retro look and consonant decor. 

Processed with botches of melancholy (there’s this sense of solitude, fear and bashfulness that shrouds the central character), the film is not exactly disarming but bestowed with just enough charm and pathos to make us interested. Hostilities, emotional pugnacity, unforgiveness, and cruelty evoke a wide spectrum of possible family issues that are immediately relatable. 

D’Ambrose’s style is less detailed and conversational than Richard Linklater's but more expeditious. The Cathedral is by no means incompetent; it's just almost pathologically elementary, floating with nostalgia and a few painful moments that could go even further in its narrative purpose. David Lowery (A Ghost Story, 2017; The Green Knight, 2021) is credited as executive producer.

Blonde (2022)

Direction: Andrew Dominik
Country: USA 

Adapted from Joyce Carol Oates' bestseller, Blonde turns the life of Marilyn Monroe into an endlessly disgusting tableau that Ana de Armas couldn’t save despite her charisma. 

In this fictional journey of real characters, Marilyn loses her mentally disturbed mother (Julianne Nicholson), spends the rest of her life searching for her unknown father, pays a high price to become a Hollywood celebrity, delves into a threesome relationship with Cass (Xavier Samuel) and Eddy (Evan Williams) - the sons of Charlie Chaplin and Edward G. Robinson, respectively - and has no luck in her marriages to baseball star Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and playwright/screenwriter Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody). She’s also mercilessly humiliated by president Kennedy (Caspar Phillipson).

Stylized both in color and black-and-white and probing mutable aspect ratios (for no apparent reason), the film is just pose with no essence found. It’s protracted and overdramatized with repetitive despondent tones that make it barely bearable.

The simulated biopic starts strong as a tense family drama, segueing into a dragging middle section before ending up in an uninspired delirium of damaging pregnancies and ‘daddy’ relationships marked by toxic masculinity. The direction of Andrew Dominik (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, 2007) has some flashes of inspiration but is not to die for, while the script portrays the star almost as a dumb, without penetrating the woman's heart.