Sylvie's Love (2020)

Direction: Eugene Ashe
Country: USA

Tessa Thompson (Dear White People; Thor: Ragnarok) and former NFL player Nnamdi Asomugha (Crown Heights), who also co-produced, star in Sylvie’s Love, a romantic tale that, transpiring passion and charm in its initial phase, becomes nearly strangled by melodramatic pressures just when both the emotional maturity and professional responsibilities of the characters emerge. 

Director Eugene Ashe directs with warmth from a script he wrote, in which a jazz musician, Robert (Asomugha), falls in love with his boss' daughter, Sylvie (Thompson). The inconvenience, though, is that Sylvie is engaged to a well-positioned man. After a five-year separation, they run into each other again, abandoning themselves to the fickle wind of destiny and deciding to work diligently against difficulties. Still, all the domestic conflicts are exclusively depicted as emotional by avoiding any sort of verbal confrontation. This maintains a lightness in the storytelling that, refusing to take the magic of love out of the air, doesn’t always cause a profound impression. 

With all the schmaltzy deceptions arriving by the end, Sylvie’s Love may still find its place in the hearts of those looking for undemanding romantic dramas.

Soul (2020)

Direction: Pete Docter
Country: USA

Gifted writer/director Pete Docter has been a stalwart in the animation genre, gifting us with delightful features such as Monsters Inc. (2001), Up (2009), and Inside Out (2015). His latest gem, Soul, is another superbly crafted and keenly felt computer-animated spectacle that hypnotizes and captivates in its visual, sonic and emotional forms.

This time the story centers in a jazz pianist, Joe Gardner (Jamie Foxx), who refuses a full-time job with all the benefits as a teacher to follow his dream of gigging. His opportunity arrives when he is hired to join the celebrated saxophonist Dorothea Williams (Angela Bassett) in her residence at the Half Note (a recognizable illustration of the iconic NY venue The Village Vanguard). Unfortunately, on the day he was supposed to debut with the group, he has an accident while walking on the busy streets of New York. While in a state between life and death, his soul appears at the gates of the Great Beyond, but he will try to return to his body with the help of the unsettled, cynical Soul 22 (Tina Fey).

The film is about finding your own spark among all the troubles of having to live on Earth. Soulful in every aspect, the story is also a love letter to New York, warmly depicting its beauty and bustling activity - rats dragging pizza slices, people eating heros, characteristic barber shops, peculiar subway stations… it’s easy to grow deeply fond of a film that manages to keep things at the peak without ever descending to the valley.

Whereas the original music of the metaphysical sequences was composed by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, both from Nine Inch Nails, the New York scenes had in pianist Jon Baptiste an original creator. 

Clever observations and funny lines deliciously intertwine in a eye-grabbing work of art that is both spiritually rich and terrestrially encouraging.

Shirley (2020)

Direction: Josephine Deker
Country: USA

The biographical drama Shirley often takes the form of a psychological thriller as it depicts a particular period in the life of American horror fiction writer Shirley Jackson. The talented director Josephine Deker (Madeline’s Madeline) works from a script by Sarah Gubbins, who, for her part, adapted Susan Scarf Merrell’s 2014 novel.

With riveting central performances by Elizabeth Moss, Odessa Young and Michael Stuhlbarg, the film plays like a slick tale with moral implications. Moreover, it can be considered a brilliantly insidious character study with the virtue of unpredictability. 

Sporting a cast of expertly played characters, the film exposes a frenetic sensibility that hooks you in, especially due to Moss, who steals the show as the emotionally vulnerable title character. She and her husband - the unfaithful, bohemian and opportunistic professor Stanley Hyman (Stuhlbarg) - agree to host an ambitious young couple, Fred (Logan Lerman) and Rose Nemser (Young) at their home in Bennington, Vermont. This occurs at a time when Shirley is utterly depressed as she struggles with writer’s block and a bout of agoraphobia. An unremitting pressure affects all the characters and you witness the tension spreading like a wildfire in dried land. However, what was abusive becomes sensuous and provocative. Is there truth behind the actions or just a mere playground for writing?

Gorgeously shot, with a dazzling camera work and a tone that ranges from disconcerting to subversive, the film is still very much recommended, even when, in its final third, subtle oscillations in intensity and flow are detected. In the end, there's no ambiguity to be found, just pure madness and deception.

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (2020)

Direction: George C. Wolfe
Country: USA

Set in 1927 Chicago, this fictional story co-produced by Denzel Washington and directed by George C. Wolfe, imagines an eventful one-day recording session in the life of the real mother of the blues, Ma Rainey (1886-1939), one of the earliest African-American professional blues singers to record.

Actor turned screenwriter Ruben Santiago-Hudson drew from August Wilson’s stage play of the same name with satisfactory results but never detaching completely from its theatrical roots. 

The film deserves accolade for its accomplished period details, ongoing energetic dynamics, effective editing and powerhouse performances from Viola Davis (Fences; The Help) as the mercurial blues singer, and the late Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther; 42) in his last role as the confrontational, hot-tempered yet deeply hurt horn player Levee Green. An uneasy tension firstly pervades among the black musicians - even when mixed with a few funny lines - and then expands to the racial oppression, which is when things get really serious. 

The characters reveal to be meaningful as they express ingrained thoughts and narrate disturbing stories, both personal and unconfirmed. Almost in counterpoint, the film swings unabashedly at the sound of jazz while capturing the atmosphere of that specific time.

Trauma, mistrust, anger, commercial exploitation and music form an explosive cocktail whose tragic outcome makes us think deeply about who ends up paying the price for the white supremacy that always reigned in America.

The Kid Detective (2020)

Direction: Evan Morgan
Country: Canada

The Kid Detective, an imperfect yet better-than-expected mystery film with an offbeat central character, is the feature debut of its writer/director Evan Morgan. 

The story, set in the small town of Willowbrook, follows Abe Applebaum (Adam Brody), once considered a prodigious kid detective as he boasts more than 200 cases solved. Now, at 31, he has his own office but lost most of his confidence after an unsolved abduction. Abe still loves cryptic crime puzzles but has been struggling with addiction lately. This factor not only gave him a bad reputation but also made him sloppy in appearance. Clients don’t abound anymore and his junkie, goth-looking secretary has often to remind him to come to work. The one to change all that is the young Caroline (Sophie Nélisse), who hires him to find out who brutally murdered her boyfriend. This is Abe's biggest and most dangerous case, which makes him super focused again, even aggressive when he has to.

Perhaps too easygoing, the film never quite transcends the sum of its parts. There are a number of awkward moments that feel way off the mark, but the wry humor and the groovy flow of things make it a watchable experience.The well-orchestrated jazzy score by Jay McCarroll contributes heavily to the private eye spirit.

Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

Direction: Eliza Hittman
Country: USA

Having gut-wrenching performances by newcomers Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder as its pillar of strength, Never Rarely Sometimes Always is a poignantly portrayed chronicle about the undesired pregnancy of a teenage girl that not for one second feels forced. American writer/director Eliza Hittman has been getting recognition worldwide with coming-of-age dramas set in New York - It Felt Like Love (2013) and Beach Rats (2017) - but this latest release, a sure-footed look into female adolescence, sexuality and abortion, is now my favorite of her short filmography. 

The vulnerable Autumn (Flanigan), 17, spends her time studying, working in a supermarket and occasionally performing as a singer/songwriter in a rural Pennsylvania town. After weeks waiting for her period, a pregnancy test confirms the worst scenario, forcing her to leave the state to have a medically safe abortion in a New York clinic. The only person who’s aware of her condition is her cousin, Skylar (Ryder), who willingly accompanies her. But what should have taken one single day, lasts three due to bureaucratic requirements. Out of money and with no safe place to stay, the girls will have to depend on strangers if they want to, at least, have a meal.

The drama feels grippingly real. There’s an emotionally devastating scene in which Autumn, visibly overwhelmed, answers a very personal test about her relationships. This is a key point in the film, which, revealing some grim realities, stays with us long after the credits roll. Directorial sensitivity and narrative focus remain fundamental elements of the quality work that Hittman has been developing.

First Cow (2020)

Direction: Kelly Reichardt
Country: USA

The illustrious helmer Kelly Reichardt drew inspiration from Jonathan Raymond’s novel The Half Life, to deliver a multi-ethnic rural ballad titled First Cow. This is not the first time Reichardt works with Raymond. The Oregon-based writer is her regular collaborator, also credited for the screenplays of Old Joy (2006), Wendy and Lucy (2008), Meek’s Cutoff (2010) and Night Moves (2013).

Here, Reichardt's slow-burning style is loaded with lush, impeccably framed images where the magnificent use of light creates beautiful tonal contrasts. 

With John Magaro and Orion Lee in the leading roles, the film, set in the 1820’s Oregon, centers in the friendship and artful practices of two men, Cookie Figowitz (Magaro), a quiet traveler and excellent cook, and King-Lu (Lee), a sympathetic Chinese immigrant on the run. Both men have dreams of their own and seek opportunities to thrive in the Oregon Territory, which seems to have been the right choice when they start improving their finances by selling daily batches of homemade oily biscuits. The problem is that their secret ingredient, cow milk, is stolen from Chief Factor (Toby Jones), a wealthy Englishman who has a property in the settlement and owns the only cow milk in the whole region.

Evoking the old Western style, this is subtle, intimate cinema devised with pinpoint accuracy, disarming minimalism and arthouse proneness. A wisely crafted ode to friendship that is also an engrossing survival tale. It’s possible that the finale, abrupt as it is, may frustrate some viewers, but Reichardt’s sharp lens hypnotizes all the way through, influencing the mood and defining the surroundings with a legitimate purpose.

Beastie Boys Story (2020)

Direction: Spike Jonze
Country: USA

This is an atypical documentary about the hardcore NYC band Beastie Boys - made famous for merging punk rock and hip-hop in an explosive way - directed by Spike Jonze. The latter's extensive filmography has been filled with inventive fictional accounts such as Being John Malkovich (1999), Adaptation (2002) and Her (2013), as well as short music videos for Bjork, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., and many other artists coming from all kinds of genres.

In front of an audience, with a huge screen behind them displaying archive footage, photographs and music clips, Michael Diamond (a.k.a. Mike D) and Adam Horovitz (Ad-Rock) share the stage of the King’s Theatre in Brooklyn to tell their story and how they became obsessed with rap after hearing Run DMC. 

The irreverence and insolence of the trio, both found in concert and in real life, are acknowledged by these, now mature, rock stars, who admit that their biggest goal was always to make each other laugh. They talk about their influences, the momentary tiredness of touring, the constant necessity of change, triumphs and disappointments in the music business, and the painful loss of the third Beastie Boy, Adam Yauch (MCA), in 2012 to cancer.

Informative but feeling somewhat ‘naked’ in its step-by-step narrative, the film has its most interesting moments when the personalities of the members are explored through a recaptured past immersed in controversy and attitude. The musical moments should be more abundant, and it’s easy to guess that the film might become insipid if you’re not a fan of the band. Otherwise, expect a fun, nostalgic ride to the idiosyncratic world of the Beasties. No sabotage allowed.

The Whistlers (2020)

Direction: Corneliu Porumboiu
Country: Romania

In his latest release, writer/director Corneliu Porumboiu probes the neo-noir crime thriller genre with unremarkable results. The Whistlers stars Vlad Ivanov (4 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days) as Cristi, a secretive and corrupt cop who works on the side for the Romanian mafia.

As a solitary money hunter, he tries to deviate the attention of his greedy boss, Magda (Rodica Lazar), at the same time that protects Gilda (Catrinel Marlon), a femme fatale turned into the woman of his dreams. An agreement with the latter will take him to La Gomera in the Canary Islands to learn the whistling language known as silbo gomero.

Although never confusing in tone and not relying on any type of show-off, I wish the film was wilder and with less cerebral maneuvers. The script is rife with superficialities, wobbly in the details and sparse in thrills, whereas the execution is permanently cold but maintaining an artificial pose of cleverness. Occasionally the actors make it look entertaining, but for most of the time, it feels predictable due to an overwhelming dearth of surprises.

Corruption, double crosses and criminal schemes have been the essence of Porumboiu’s filmography, yet The Whistlers, playing a more crowd-pleasing and less ambitious formula, never reaches the mordacity and intelligence of 12:08 East of Bucharest (2006), Police Adjective (2009) and The Treasure (2015). I was unimpressed except for the whistling language itself.

Babyteeth (2020)

Direction: Shannon Murphy
Country: Australia

Orchestrated with bittersweet notes, this fine Australian coming-of-age drama also takes romance to interesting levels of satisfaction. In her feature debut, director Shannon Murphy materializes an ultra-sensitive stage play, written by Rita Kalnejais, without falling into a typical tearjerker. And that's because the story can be utterly sad and maniacally offbeat at the same time. There’s some weird, comedic tones that make the heavier moments feel almost worry-free, and then there’s the talented cast enhancing what was already a well constructed course of events.

Eliza Scanlier (Little Women) is Milla, a terminally ill teenager who falls in love for the first time. However, the homeless boy she brings home, Moses (Toby Wallace), is a salvageable drug addict with a good heart. Milla’s parents - the emotionally unstable Anna (Essie Davis) and her psychiatrist husband Henry (Ben Mendelsohn) - are visibly disturbed with the situation but, little by little, concede this whim to their dying child. All characters have their burden, and the film becomes as moody and volatile as they can be. Hence, its emotional ebbs and flows keep us immersed in a flux of tension and release that pays off.

Avoiding to cut through superficial surfaces of distress, Mrs. Murphy builds a tale of implacable clarity. Babyteeth isn’t perfect, but it feels real, even in moments of chaos.

Tesla (2020)

Direction: Michael Almereyda
Country: USA

In recent times, American director Michael Almereyda has been increasing significantly his group of admirers with curious films such as Experimenter (2015) and Marjorie Prime (2017).  However, he unsuccessfully attempts to inject chunks of modernity (e.g. a laptop, a cell phone, roller-skates and modern pop songs weren’t suppose to appear in a reconstruction of the late 1800s) in Tesla, a dismal biographical account of the Serbian-American inventor who majorly contributed to the development of the AC electricity supply system. 

Although not technically exhaustive, the film drags for several periods of time while building up a husky atmosphere with a slightly tense score and lifeless visuals. 

Played without brilliance by Ethan Hawke, the humorless and low-profile Tesla is seen disputing electrical theories with his former employer Thomas Edison (Kyle MacLachlan), bashfully flirting with Anne Morgan (Eve Hewson) - the film’s narrator and the daughter of his powerful financier, J.P. Morgan (Donnie Keshawarz) - and bewitching the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt (Rebecca Dayan).

The film also takes time to address the issues found in the very first execution by electric chair. However, if the pace needed intensification, then the low budget certainly hampered Almereyda to shot the film in 35mm as it was planned. Still, the worst moment of the film coincides with Tesla’s cheap interpretation of Tears For Fears’ "Everybody Wants to Rule the World", a smashing hit from the 1980's.

Like Tesla, perhaps Almereyda wanted to look ahead. Yet, this loosely adapted biopic never goes in the right direction with its unstylish retro-modern hybridity.

Synchronic (2020)

Direction: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorhead
Country: USA

I was never a big fan of the presumptuous, convoluted and gimmicky stories presented by the team of American filmmakers/producers Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead (Resolution; Spring; The Endless). Their fourth feature, Synchronic, is the most accessible thus far, but despite the creators' attempts to engulf us in the mystery, it remains frustratingly limited, especially plot-wise. As usual, Benson wrote the script while Moorhead took responsibility for the cinematography.

This half-psychedelic sci-fi thriller revolves around two paramedics and best friends - Steve (Anthony Mackie) and Dennis (Jamie Dornan) - who start feeling depressed, not just with what’s going on in their personal lives, but also while working night shifts. The reason is a new synthetic drug, Synchronic, which is doing a lot of damage. Its consumers whether get severely harmed or vanish without a trace. Following the mysterious disappearance of Dennis’ teenage daughter, Brianna (Ally Ioannides), Steven decides to investigate further by exposing himself to the drug. He finds that Synchronic is a time-travel pill that can give you a 7-minute regression to an indistinct point in time but can also trap you in there forever. In any case, physical pain is real.

Few scenes come off as entertaining, and the experience becomes even more nonsensical if we think about the geographical factor of the experience - the location you are when the drug kicks in determines to where you will travel.

This new Benson/Moorhead oddity depicts friendship, courage and sacrifice, but feels contrived at every move. In the end, I mourned a dog, turning my back to all the other unremarkable characters.

Mank (2020)

Direction: David Fincher
Country: USA

Mank recreates the dispute over the writing credits of the 1941 masterpiece Citizen Kane. The adversaries in this contend are director Orson Welles and screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz. The film, shot in classic black-and-white and evoking Hollywood in the 1930s, is not only about the friction between these two talents but rather a biographical drama centered in the polemic, washed up and alcoholic Mankiewicz (shortened Mank), brilliantly portrayed by Gary Oldman (Darkest Hour; Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy). 

After a car accident, the plain-spoken Mank is taken to a house to recover from the injuries. Rushed by an avid Orson Welles to write something in 60 days for him to direct, he is put under the care of a nurse and a self-assured British typewriter, Rita (Lily Collins), who, in the course of time, gets to better understand his weaknesses and strengths. Through flashbacks, Mank reinforces his discontentment with the hypocrisy and games of interest lived in the movie industry, recalling several situations with the friend-turned-foe actress Marion Davies (Amanda Seyfried), his younger brother - the director Joseph L. Mankiewicz (Tom Pelphrey), the MGM boss Louis B. Mayer (Arliss Howard), and the newspaper publisher and influential businessman William Hearst (Charles Dance), whose life story inspired the writings of Citizen Kane.

Directing for the first time in six years, David Fincher (Seven; The Game; Fight Club) works from a screenplay by his late father, Jack Fincher. The film, also working as a homage to the latter, can be considerably dense and cathartic at times, with many characters and subtle lines that may not be obvious to the common viewer. Yet, it still exudes an untiring energy all the way through. Against all and everything, Mank refused to change the script that earned him an Oscar, and more than that, he didn’t give up from the recognition he deserved. His frankness is remembered in this well-acted biographical drama, which, even not as bold as other Fincher’s films, is stylish and passionately crafted.

Palm Springs (2020)

Direction: Max Barbakow
Country: USA

First-time director Max Barbakow teams up with screenwriter Andy Siara, and the result is a low-impact romantic comedy with fantasy. 

During a Palm Springs wedding, the easygoing Nyles (Andy Samberg) hooks up with Sarah (Cristin Milioti), the dissatisfied sister of the bride. He ends up fleeing the place when chased by Roy (J.K. Simmons), a relentless man who keeps trying to murder him for quite some time. The reasons aren’t immediately obvious, but Nyles involuntarily drags Sarah into a secret cave that concedes them immortality in exchange of getting them stuck in a perpetual time loop. They just have to live the same day over and over again, the best they can. However, pain and suffering are real.

The idea of behaving like crazy with no rules and no guilt is attractive, prompting myriad possibilities for the plot. However, Barbakow and Siara squandered the chance of turning this comedy into something more than just a pair of laughs. As the time passes, the humor whether becomes more infrequent or descends into a basic level. If this is not enough, the nuanced repetitions grow a bit tedious. 

Despite of a promising start, Palm Springs runs out of inspiration, settling down in a thousand unremarkable ‘wake ups’ that lead to nowhere.

The Truth (2020)

Direction: Hirokazu Koreeda
Country: France

The first film to be released outside Japan from acclaimed director Hirokazu Koreeda (Nobody Knows; Shoplifters) is a simple, focused and engrossing drama perfectly suitable to the French reality. Based on a short story by Ken Liu, The Truth preserves the family topic (Koreeda’s favorite) well intact. The filmmaker works on this mature cinematic canvas with realism, probing in an effective way the ambivalent feelings that arise from a complex mother/daughter relationship. 

Fabienne Dangeville (the majestic Catherine Deneuve), a far-famed actress just released her memoir. For this reason, her daughter, Lumir (the natural Juliette Binoche), a scriptwriter living in New York, arrives with her American husband, Hank (Ethan Hawke), a minor actor with a drinking problem, and their daughter, Charlotte (Clémentine Grenier). In the meantime, Fabienne accepted to participate in a sci-fi film in which she acts alongside the trendy young actress Manon Lenoir (Manon Clavel). The film is also about a mother and a daughter, whose wounds need to be healed. In the meantime, Lumir gets shocked with the book’s inaccuracies.

Vanity, coldness and even abandonment are treated with candor by Koreeda, who is normally more interested in conciliate than to set apart. His peaceful tones and introspective ways find some beautiful, tender moments by the end. At that point, the film releases all the tension to hold a glimmer of optimism and forgiveness. This French experience might not have the strength of many of Koreeda’s domestic dramas, but there’s still a lot to appreciate here.

The Painted Bird (2020)

Direction: Vaclav Marhoul
Country: Czech Republic

The Painted Bird gets my prize for best cinematography 2020, a feat by Vladimír Smutny. Yet, this bleak war tale is also one of the most difficult watchings I’ve experienced, depicting the agonizing hell lived by a young Jewish boy forced to endure abuse in its physical, sexual and mental forms. Czech director Vaclav Marhoul (Tobruk) adapts Jerzy Kosinski’s novel of the same with rawness and spunk, making prevail all the desolation, creeds, alienation, atrocities and indecency described in the book. 

In the midst of WWII, the young Joska (Petr Kotlár) goes to live with an aunt in a remote village in Eastern Europe while his parents attempt to escape the Nazis. After her death, the boy becomes a victim of agonizing incidents that will take his innocence away. At the outset, he is considered a demon and a vampire by an ignorant rural community and sold to an esoteric woman; he then witnesses the wrath of a jealous man; joins a drunk bird catcher; is sexually abused by a religious man and a nymphomaniac, and falls into hands of the Nazis and the Red Army alike.

I know... it’s like having all the torments in the world, scene after scene, in a single flick. And what bothers me most here, is that Marhoul seems to take a strange pleasure in shocking us with sickening, detailed scenes. While some images are too painful to describe, others can be beautiful in its horror - like when the boy is attacked by a group of ravenous crows - or even touching, like the memorable finale.

Even touting a repulsive spectacle for most of its duration, the film, immaculately acted, oozes an aching sadness expressed through precise camera shots that often recall the work of masters Andrei Tarkovsky, Larisa Shepitko and Bela Tarr. Definitely not for the fainthearted.

Rifkin's Festival (2020)

Direction: Woody Allen
Country: USA / Spain / Italy

Wallace Shawn, who stunned in Louis Malle’s 1981 masterpiece My Dinner With Andre, stars in Woody Allen’s Rifkin’s Festival, a comedy where there are incantations and personal supplications to be found. By comparison with Allen's recent work, I must admit this one presents something more to pull it slightly above the average. But that doesn't mean it's free of clichéd situations. 

The story is set in the Spanish city of San Sebastian during its film festival, and follows Mort Rifkin (Shawn in his sixth collaboration with Allen), a failed writer and pleased film teacher who is ignored by his wife, Sue (Gina Gershon), as she obsesses with a pretentious, narcissistic French filmmaker (Louis Garrel). The lonely Mort is assaulted by weird dreams, a wide range of anxieties and imaginary conversations with family and people from his past. His inner fears take the expression of uncomfortable chest pains that, all of a sudden, go away after he sees Doctor Jo Rojas (Elena Anaya).

Allen paints both dreams and flashbacks in black-and-white as well as some fragmented recreations of European classics - his homage to Bergman, Godard, Truffaut, Fellini, and Buñuel - which are artfully wrung into the plot. There can be little doubt that certain plot points don’t add up to a story that is very much Allen’s. Yet, he sort of gets away with this melting pot of contemporary and classic cinema that plays as inoffensive as warm-hearted.

Mulan (2020)

Direction: Niki Caro
Country: USA / Canada / Hong Kong

Since 2002, eclectic New Zealander writer/director Niki Caro has been struggling to reach the same level of accomplishment of Whale Rider, her sophomore feature film. After the passable dramas North Country (2005) and McFarland, USA (2015), and the expendable The Zookeeper’s Wife (2017), she returns with Mulan, a live-action adaptation of the 1998 animation feature of the same name by Tony Bancroft and Barry Cook. For this Disney-production, Caro engages in a simplistic tale, a sweet candy confection filled with a feminist prowess that, despite well-intended, favors style over substance.

Mulan (Yifei Liu) is a fearless girl who, disguised as a male warrior, undertakes an incredible journey as she joins the imperial army to save her aging father (veteran Tzi Ma) from the burden of war and potential death. The film also welcomes acclaimed Chinese-born Singaporean actress Gong Li as the witch Xianniang, and action star Jet Li as the Emperor of China.

The dazzling physical battles, captured under the supervision of cinematographer Mandy Walker (Tracks; Hidden Figures), are insufficient to overcome the petty humor (the stinky smell joke about the heroine is repetitive) and faint romance. What should have been edgy and thrilling turned into a disappointing routine. If nothing else, Mulan looks gorgeous.

Tenet (2020)

Direction: Christopher Nolan
Country: USA

Christopher Nolan’s Tenet gets off to an intriguing start when a loyal CIA agent, merely referred as The Protagonist (John David Washington), is recruited by an obscure organization to save the world from the hands of an abominable Russian oligarch, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh). A war world with calamitous consequences is about to happen, and in order to accomplish his time-travel mission, our hero will count on Sator’s aesthete wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), a hired handler, Neil (Robert Pattinson), and a fixer, Mahir (Himesh Patel).

The film, which took Nolan nearly two decades to develop and put together, has its thrilling moments but the plot is an intricate house of cards that proves too ambitious for its own good. The inverted time concept with occasional overlaps induces an intrinsic complexity that makes the story feel derivative and unexciting. Hence, the constant back and forth in time becomes fatiguing as the mission proceeds.

This is unmistakably Nolan in his love for highly layered tales and puzzling structures (remember Memento and Inception?), but this time he overstuffed the plot to the point of not making much sense out of it. Moreover, Ludwig Göransson’s (Black Panther; Creed) ominous score often feels intrusive while Washington's performance is not as sharp as in BlackKklansman.

We are told in the film that the word Tenet will open the right doors but also some wrong ones. Well, Nolan seemed to have open the wrong ones for this mediocre espionage sci-fi thriller.

The Witches (2020)

Direction: Robert Zemeckis
Country: USA

Robert Zemeckis, the director who gave us Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, fails to provide adequate entertainment with The Witches, a cinematic flop with serious issues imposing to any valid credentials in the categories of animated fantasy and horror comedy. Anne Hathaway as The Grand High Witch, and Octavia Spencer as a witch-sensitive grandma, star in a flabby adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1983 novel of the same name, which had been successfully tackled by Nicolas Roeg (Don’t Look Now; Walkabout) in 1990.

The script was penned by Zemeckis, Kenya Harris and Guillermo Del Toro (Pan’s Labyrinth; The Shape of Water), with the latter being also credited as a co-producer together with Alfonso Cuáron (Gravity; Roma). The narration is by Chris Rock. 

The promising beginning quickly morphed into a ridiculous fantasy - an authoritarian Hathaway floats and shouts annoyingly, witches evaporate in the air, kids are transformed into ludicrous mice… everything is so painfully boring. The competent photography by Don Burgess, who has been working intermittently with Zemeckis since Forrest Gump, is not enough to make us waste almost two hours of our time with this terrible mess. Zemeckis and his associates really overdid, losing the sense of focus. This isn’t a fun one to watch, and it’s not even weird enough to make me like it a little.