The United States vs. Billie Holiday (2021)

Direction: Lee Daniels
Country: USA

Unfortunately, Lee Daniels’ new directorial effort, The United States vs. Billie Holiday, is not as captivating as it was the groundbreaking vocal style of the jazz diva that it brings front and center. Based on Johann Hari’s 2015 book Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, the film, set in the 1940's, dramatizes with fictional manipulation the continuous efforts by the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to imprison Billie Holiday, a long-time heroin addict. In response, the singer discomposes her persecutors every time she sings the forbidden "Strange Fruit", a tragic song that protests the lynching of Black Americans.

Daniels, who earned considerable attention in the past with Precious (2009) and The Butler (2013), decided to play gracefully but forgot to dig the emotional side deep enough. While the color-saturated Harlem atmospheres load the visuals with a stylized contemporary feel, the stuttering, episodic pace and disorganized structure stain a messy narrative that complicates what should be simple. The dissonant fictionalized romance between Holiday and the undercover FBN agent turned admirer, Jimmy Fletcher (Trevante Rhodes), doesn’t attenuate the predicaments found in Suzan-Lori Parks' plot, squandering one last opportunity to pull the story above average waters.

Despite the positive performance from R&B singer Andra Day in her first major role, the film tells Holiday’s story with the wrong notes. It’s disappointing when we think how fluid, resonant and evocative this biopic could have been if appropriately and honestly built.

I Care a Lot (2021)

Direction: J Blakeson
Country: USA / UK

British filmmaker J Blakeson (The Disappearance of Alice Creed, 2009) has in I Care a Lot an imperfect yet sufficiently inspired dark comedy thriller mounted with propulsive intensity and satiric push. The most accomplished aspect in his third feature is the way he molded up the characters, while the story keeps contracting with fatuous exaggeration and expanding with some thrilling action.

Rosamund Pike (Gone Girl, 2014; Pride & Prejudice, 2005) will be remembered for her role here as Marla Grayson, an unscrupulous, avid lawyer whose scheme consists in becoming a legal guardian of wealthy elders living on their own, under the pretext that they cannot take care of themselves anymore. After confiding them to an assisted living facility with no contact with the external world, she’s in the position to make huge amounts of money by selling their house and assets. 

When Marla is informed about Jennifer Peterson (Dianne Wiest), a rich woman giving signs of dementia and with no family at all, she immediately starts to celebrate with her partner/assistant Fran (Eiza González). However, this apparently solitary woman has a stable connection with the Russian mafia and its leader, Roman Lunyov (Peter Dinklage). Since the detestable, fearless Marla refuses to play fair, a cat-and-mouse game begins between her and the gangster. 

Persuasive for more than a third of its length, I Care a Lot stumbles in a few overdone scenes that, with the proper dedication from Blakeson, would have lead to a better outcome. Still, the film is a fun watch, moving stylishly and pulling out a couple of inflammatory twists. Sometimes, antagonistic disputes have no solution in sight. Hence, if you can’t beat them, join them.

Supernova (2021)

Direction: Harry Macqueen
Country: UK

Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci star in Harry Macqueen’s Supernova as lifelong gay partners, whose lives take a gradual painful change after an early manifestation of dementia affecting one of them.

As Tusker (Tucci), a writer, sees a considerable increase in his dementia symptoms, Sam (Firth), his 20-year partner, proposes a road trip across England with final stop at Lake District to reunite with relatives. Naturally, Sam wants to spend every minute left with Tusker, but his deep concern and anguish toward the situation leads to an inability to fully enjoy every moment. So much that Tusker feels like he’s being mourned while still alive. 

Things get really complex when suicide comes to the table. More than anything, Tusker wants to be remembered for the person he was and not for the one he’s about become.

Although the intimate story aches empathy, the film’s less than favorable results are compromised by the super controlled proceedings. The tone is ponderous, the dialogue not so ripe, and the pace reveals a torpor that hampers this drama from going beyond the expected. 

Macqueen (Hinterland, 2014) takes a crack at avoiding unnecessary sentimentality, which is understandable, but a tale of this nature requires to pull out a touching stimulus of any kind not to get diluted in pure banality. If only the narrative were as gripping as Tucci’s performance, the film would have offered that stellar explosion that the title suggests. Instead, it just scintillates with an irregular cadence until the lights go completely off and we simply forget it.

Little Fish (2021)

Direction: Chad Hartigan
Country: USA / Canada

Four years after the positive comedy/drama Morris From America, director Chad Hartigan turns his gaze toward a pandemic-related romantic drama that is neither persuasive nor involving. Written by the Romanian-born Mattson Tomlin from a short story by Aja Gabel, Little Fish stars Olivia Cooke and Jack O’Connell in the central roles. They are a young couple facing a memory-loss virus that has been affecting lives with damaging consequences.

When Emma (Cooke), a vet, realizes that her beloved photographer husband, Jude (O’Connell), is revealing amnesiac symptoms, she enrolls him in a clinical trial in a desperate attempt to have his full memory back. Their friends, Ben (Raúl Castillo) and Sam (Soko), are going through similar difficulties, but aggravated by uncontrolled episodes of violence.

The idea behind this depressing story is indeed promising, bolstered by undeniable connotations with the present times, but its materialization on the screen is not devoid of flaws and weaknesses. Thinly layered with recollections of the past, the story lingers on a loopy pathos that totally melts into a puddle of uncertainty and melancholy rather than groping for meaning. With that said, it passes the sensation that the only concern is the past, not the present or the future.

The tension created out of an underlying fear is deeply suggestive but not enough to spare us from a frustrating cinematic experience in the end.

Zappa (2020)

Direction: Alex Winter
Country: USA

This documentary about the American rock star Frank Zappa is moderately fluid as well as competently organized and edited, but don’t expect much insight about the compositions and the music itself. Above all, one catches wind of the peculiar personality and activism of a perfectionist workaholic whose complex ideas had never stopped coming in torrents. 

His unusual approach and love for unorthodox music (Edgard Varèse, Igor Stravinsky) established high standards for the other musicians to perform, a stunning fact considering that he was a self-taught composer and instrumentalist. The constant financial struggle never dissuaded him from doing his own thing, rather making him the first artist to go completely independent as he was only interested in quality work, not commercial success.

Controversial enough, Zappa was a prominent figure in the defense of musicians’ rights against censorship and was idolized in Czechoslovakia, where he was appointed Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism by president Vaclav Havel.

The film, directed by Alex Winter (The Panama Papers), is jam-packed with information and stressed to the limit, but a closer look at the course of events makes us conclude that a trim would not be viable without jeopardizing the outcome. The unflashy exposition includes appearances of people who were close to him - his wife Gail Zappa and musical collaborators Mike Keneally, Steve Vai, Alice Cooper, Ian and Ruth Underwood among them - and ends with Zappa’s memorable last concert with the Frankfurt-based Ensemble Modern, an orchestral collaboration immortalized with the album The Yellow Shark in 1993. 

Zappa fans won’t want to miss this.

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Direction: Shaka King
Country: USA

This dramatization of the events that led to the killing of the 21-year-old Black Panther Party chairman of the Illinois chapter, Fred Hampton, in 1969, is mounted with a contextual insight that expedites the viewer’s understanding of the ideologically complex politics behind every act.

Moved by Che Guevara’s slogan ‘words are beautiful but action is supreme’, Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya) aims to take care of Chicago by making a pact with the black gang The Crowns. What he’s unaware of is that former carjacker Bill O’Neal (Lakeith Stanfield), a man he trusts and even promoted to security captain of the party, is an infiltrated FBI informer sent by the mundane agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons) to frame him. Comparing the Panthers to the KKK, the latter states that both groups have the ability to sow hatred and inspire terror.

On occasion, the film vacillates in terms of energy, but then we find spots where everything gets vibrant and trenchant again. The two indissiociable sides of the movement are clearly outlined - the activism against racial oppression and the armed wing as a response to unjust conditions and deliberate aggressions. 

Through key passages, the second-time director Shaka King reveals the grievous inner wounds and scars of the black fighters as well as the hatred and domination of the white hunters, adding a layer of poignancy on the topic of American racism. The final minutes include excerpts of a revelatory interview given by O’Neal in 1989 with the public TV series Eyes on the Prize.

The World To Come (2021)

Direction: Mona Fastvold
Country: USA

Norwegian-born Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come presents a bold, revolutionary love story between two women living in a frontier rural farm in 1950’s upstate New York. Following a screenplay by Ron Hansen (The Assassination of Jessie James by the Coward Robert Ford) and Jim Shepard (And Then I Go), the director approaches the subject - the self-educated Abigail (Katherine Waterston) - with poetic expression as she narrates her diary entries and clear-cut inner thoughts. 

Her burdensome, solitary life - she and her hardworking husband Dryer (Casey Affleck) recently lost a child to diphtheria - is suddenly struck by joy and astonishment when the confident and gracious Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) moves to the neighboring farm with her unsympathetic and insensitive husband, Finney (Christopher Abbott in his second collaboration with the director after performing in her 2014 debut feature The Sleepwalker). 

These courageous women have wasted a lot of time living an unhappy life. Certain of that fact, they resolve to spend every possible minute with each other, defying their husbands and the conservative norms of the time. 

Unlike Portrait of a Lady on Fire, this romantic period drama was not taken to a higher level due to its awfully familiar tones. Fastvold seems happy with just unpacking complex feelings and creating a mild uneasiness that lurks in the bucolic landscape. The pace, deliberately languid, is complemented with a glowing, well-composed cinematography, but the tension slowly fades away, leaving an illusive dreaminess floating in the air that is not completely cut and dried to me. I wish I could have liked this film more than I did.

Dear Comrades (2021)

Direction: Andrey Konchalovskiy
Country: Russia

Intensified by the stunning black-and-white cinematography of Andrey Naydenov, the historical Russian drama Dear Comrades is a fascinating, if disturbing account of the Novocherkassk massacre in 1962, when unarmed protesters were killed by the Soviet army and KGB snipers. The adroit filmmaker Andrey Konchalovskiy (The Postman’s White Night, 2014; Paradise, 2017) co-wrote it with his collaborator of recent years, Elena Kiseleva. 

The protagonist of this cruel tale is Lyuda Syomina (Julia Vysotskaya in her sixth collaboration with Konchalovskiy), a single mother and  inflexible communist who works for the Regional Committee Secretary, Loginov (Vladislav Komarov). As a well-positioned member of the party, Lyuda gets the best goods available, even when the country is sunk in an economical crisis, recently aggravated by a steep increase in prices and considerable cuts in wages. In her view, this is just a temporary hardship. But when the small industrial town goes fully on strike and a pacific protest takes place, a violent retaliation is commanded by the leaders. Her primary concern automatically shifts to her daughter, Svetka (Yuliya Burova), who works in a factory and was among the instigators.

The film compellingly builds the spirit of the time, addressing the intimidating blockades, the fear of an imaginary anti-Soviet movement rooted in America, sly intelligence maneuvers, the blood spilling of innocent workers and demonstrators, and an abhorrent attempt to wipe out any vestige related with a crime perpetrated by the Russian government against their own people.

Fanatic ideology can totally dehumanize and that’s what the film shows, speaking volumes about the indifference of officials who navigate morally murky waters just to prove loyalty to a shattered party.

Carried out in a flowing visual manner, Dear Comrades is both cold and moving.

Pieces of a Woman (2021)

Direction: Kornél Mundruczó
Country: Canada / USA

In Pieces of a Woman, Hungarian director Kornél Mundruczó examines the grieving process of a couple who lost their child at birth. The screenplay came from the pen of Kata Wéber, who had collaborated with the director in his previous two efforts, White God (2014) and Jupiter’s Moon (2017). It was based on the stage play of the same name by Mundruczó and Wéber, inspired by their personal experience with respect to the loss of an infant.

The expecting Martha Weiss (Vanessa Kirby) and her recovered alcoholic partner Sean Carson (Shia LaBeouf) lead a happy life together. They agree to a home birth. The midwife initially hired for the task gets stuck in another labor and is replaced at the last minute by Eva Woodward (Molly Parker), who makes every possible effort to assure that the procedure goes fast and smooth. Unfortunately, she was helpless to save the baby from cardiac arrest. 

The relationship of the couple deteriorates considerably after the incident and the rupture seems inevitable. To worsen the scenario, Martha’s tenacious and manipulative mother, Elizabeth (Ellen Burstyn), insists that Eva should be prosecuted for criminal negligence, reasoning that finding a culprit would substantially ease suffering.

Following an uncluttered narrative, the film alternates solid and crumbling moments, but never loses sight of a resolution. What makes Pieces of a Woman satisfying is the quality of the performances, which emphasizes the authenticity of the inner struggles and relationships alike. Despite of a gradual loss of strength and inspiration as it moves further away from that agonizing 24-minute take labor scene, the outcome is still powerful. And it’s not a comfortable seat, let me tell you.

The Dig (2021)

Direction: Simon Stone
Country: UK

This second directorial effort from Simon Stone, a British actor turned director, is set in Suffolk, England, on the eve of WWII. Investing more than anything in its characters, the powerfully performed The Dig was adapted with satisfactory results by Moira Buffini (Jane Eyre, 2011; Byzantium, 2012) from the 2007 novel of the same name by John Preston. Carey Mulligan and Ralph Fiennes lead a soberly efficient cast, playing Edith Pretty, a landowner with an interest in archeology, and Basil Brown, an experienced excavator, respectively. 

After discovering an Anglo-Saxon ship and other valuable relics buried for centuries in the Sutton Hoo, both will learn to deal with the tactless and domineering C.W. Philips (Ken Stott), a Cambridge archeologist who likes to have his own way.

Navigating the story’s period is easy since it was depicted with attention to detail, benefitting from the formidably composed images captured by the lens of Mike Eley (The Selfish Giant, 2013; Marley, 2012; and a few Roger Mitchell films). As a tolerable subplot, there’s this ruined marriage between the avid-for-love Peggy (Lily James) and the closeted gay Stuart Piggott (Ben Chaplin), two members of Philips team, who finally put an end in their relationship as their romantic interests are redirected.

Unfolding methodically with no ambiguities, the storytelling flows with interest but never reaches a climax per se as a consequence of scarce suspenseful moments. Instead, it burns with a constant flame that, never eradicating enjoyment, emits a light that never expands with novelty or surprise.

The Night (2021)

Direction: Kourosh Ahari
Country: USA

The third feature from Iranian director Kourosh Ahari, The Night, is a psychological thriller impregnated with ghosts that slowly plunges the viewer into its nightmarish scenario. The story, written by Ahari and Milad Jarmooz, lives uniquely from the mood and plays with something that no one is indifferent nowadays - being trapped with no control at all from a particularly unpleasant situation. 

In this case, an Iranian man (Shahab Hosseini, a regular in Asghar Farhadi’s films) living in the US for some time becomes prisoner of ghostly forces in a Los Angeles hotel together with his recently arrived wife (Niousha Noor) and baby daughter. The energy that surrounds them is adverse, starting with a displaced man (Elester Latham) who repeats unintelligible phrases, a sinister receptionist (George Maguire) who disturbs with his conversation, graceless presences as well as baffling disappearances and pranks. Heavily contributing to the atmosphere, the details do matter in the development of the story, but they also convey a sense of messiness in the way they are mounted. 

The visuals, not being particularly artful, are adequate, while the symbology linked to some sort of curse along with the necessity to extract the hidden truth from the Naderi family, play key factors here. Still, the film results more formulaic than twisted, and the minimally unsettling situations that occur in a blink of an eye are powerless to prevent it from sinking into the shadows of oblivion.  

As a curiosity, this is the first American-made film to receive permission to be screened in Iran since 1979. 

The White Tiger (2021)

Direction: Ramin Bahrani
Country: India / USA

A successful and confident Indian entrepreneur named Balram Halwai (Adarsh Gourav in his first leading role) tells his own story, describing step by step how he transitioned from darkness to light. Born to a lower-caste family in Laxmangarh, India, Balram is cautiously ambitious when he decides to move to Delhi and become the driver of The Stork (Mahesh Manjrekar), the former landlord of his poor hometown.

Although doing financially better than everyone else in his family, he remains a servant tied to tradition, being often mistreated and humiliated by his employer. However, the latter’s son, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao), who embraces progressive ideas due to the influence of his New York-raised wife Pinky (Priyanka Chopra), picks him as his own chauffeur. Lucky him! Yet, an unexpected and traumatic incident involving the aforementioned couple takes him to uncomfortable places.

Under the attentive direction of Iranian-American Ramin Bahrani (Chop Shop, 2007; Goodbye Solo, 2018; 99 Homes, 2014), who based himself on Arvind Adiga’s 2008 novel of the same name, The White Tiger is assembled with intelligence, humor and horror. It works on several levels, challenging us to think about the submissiveness and enslavement of people from these lower castes, who have to figure out the best way to survive, as well as the supremacy and abusive behavior of those in the higher castes, which in this particular case is aggravated by bribery. The moral concerns haven’t stop here since the means employed by Balram to achieve success also come to the table.

With strong acting and vivid narration, The White Tiger provides a darkly triumphant on-screen experience.

A White, White Day (2020)

Direction: Hlynur Palmason
Country: Iceland

The second feature from writer/director Hlynur Palmason (Winter Brothers, 2017) is a grim tale of grief, jealousy and anger set in a remote Icelandic town and centered on the unpredictable Ingimundur (Ingvar Sigurdsson), an off duty cop who, after losing his wife to a fatal car accident, becomes obsessed in finding more about the local man he suspects to have had an affair with her.   

Unable to properly mourn his loss, Ingimundur is examined and evaluated by a psychiatrist. Having said that, if we take his impulsive actions and confrontational gestures as examples, and mix them with a strong sense of pride and an uncontrolled rage, it’s easy to conclude that he’s far from being ok and might even pose a danger to others. Things will get even tenser to viewers after they realize that Salka (Ída Mekkín Hlynsdóttir), his eight-year-old granddaughter, becomes unnecessarily exposed to his irrationality. The thought of a child being scared and traumatized like this made me look at Ingimundur with loathing.

The committed acting from Sigurdsson, whose disarming demeanors can quickly swell from hushed to howling, is the main reason why this impressively mounted film works so well. Moreover, the awesome visuals are fine-tuned to the profoundly stirring if occasionally infuriating story.

Being as much harrowing as entertaining, A White, White Day will likely be considered thought-provoking for the ones interested in an atypically disturbing character study.

House of Hummingbird (2020)

Direction: Bora Kim
Country: South Korea

Bora Kim writes and directs her first feature film, House of Hummingbird, with observant precision without ever losing sight of the main character’s feelings. Yet, the story, based on her own childhood memories and experiences, is told with agonizing restraint, becoming a little overlong while presenting a whole not quite equal to some of its parts.

In 1994 Seoul, 14-year-old Eun-hee (Ji-hu Park) tries to figure ways to repair the quotidian struggles that push her down as the environment at home is frequently stressful and both her friendships and amorous relationships marked by disappointment. There’s also a corrigible health problem and an impeding pressure for the grades that would take her to the coveted Seoul University. Feeling no support, she finally finds the attention she deserves when a perceptive new teacher, Yong-ji (Sae-byeok Kim), shows availability, giving her a rare chance to open up. 

Ms. Kim refuses to play the melodrama and deserves an extra point for that, but the film lacks that emotional punch in the story and nuance in the characters that would have grabbed me in a different way. The most praiseworthy aspect here is Park’s assured performance, which helps to put an honest touch in the proceedings. While attempting to find her own space, Eun-hee is not afraid to give a step forward and probe alternative directions that could bring her less suffering. And that, by itself, is laudable.

About Endlessness (2020)

Direction: Roy Andersson
Country: Sweden

The singularity of Roy Andersson’s works has been casting a spell on viewers since the early 1970’s. Acclaimed works such as A Swedish Love Story (1970), Songs From the Second Floor (2000), You The Living (2007) and A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (2014) have now the company of About Endlessness, his latest meditation on the human nature, which tells more about life than you might think.

The film, sketchy, simple and sublime, is structured with various vignettes - an envious man gets irritated because a former school mate doesn’t salute him; a priest who lost his faith keeps dreaming with his own crucifixion; two lovers fly over the city of Cologne in ruins; in a fish market, a jealous man slaps the woman he loves; a stressed out dentist abandons work as a patient screams with pain; in a coffee shop, a hopeful man asks all the present: ‘isn’t all this fantastic?’. 

These are some of the stories that the 77-year-old Swedish director prepared for us. They are made of encounters, lost people, uncomfortable waits, surrealism, nightmares, death, and trivial incidents. Attached to these elements we have feelings of regret, sadness, joy, resentment, anguish, all wrapped in a thin layer of sarcasm. It’s hard to imagine any other director depicting life and human nature this way, where there are parts of disarming sincerity counterbalanced by a nearly absurdist humor. 

The cascading imagery evokes deep feelings and some segments are deepened with classical and jazz music. It's a powerful film, equal parts defeatist and exultant.

Siberia (2020)

Direction: Abel Ferrara
Country: Italy / Germany / other

Populated by recollections, disturbing dreams, inner fears, symbology, conjuration and eroticism, Siberia, the second film of Abel Ferrara starring Willem Dafoe in 2020, fascinates with some scattered opaque scenes but ultimately disappoints. 

Dafoe is Clint, a man looking for his lost soul in a remote Siberian place where he used to go fishing with his late father. The film is brusquely edited, displaying a few bizarre scenes that are intertwined with ghostly appearances and inexplicable interactions, suggesting relationships that the movie only hints at. With the backdrop continually changing from the snowy desolation to the desert to the woods, the film throws in a great number of elements without revealing things clearly. It hides instead, merging visual bafflement and philosophical inquiry. Hence, it wouldn't really surprise me if some viewers found the results tactless, since Ferrara loses momentum in tacking countless details that become inconsequent and abominably tireless with the time.

Unlike the engrossing Tommaso, Ferrara’s previous work, Siberia is a dysfunctional film whose sweeping ambition falls short of consistent narrative moments and, according to that, is forced to deal with its monumental incapacity to create a cohesive whole. An artistic sabotage, I dare to say.

Another Round (2020)

Direction: Thomas Vinterberg
Country: Denmark

Another Round, the 13th feature from Danish director Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration, 1998; The Hunt, 2012), focuses on four disappointed high school teachers who decide to put in practice a debatable theory from Norwegian psychiatrist Finn Skårderud, which defends that men should maintain a certain amount of alcohol in their blood to improve relaxation and creativity. The idea came from Martin (Mads Mikkelsen), a History teacher, whose plan was forged under the sudden pressure of becoming a more motivating teacher at school as well as a better and more communicative husband at home. He is joined by fellow teachers Nikolaj (Magnus Millang), Tommy (Thomas Bo Larsen) and Peter (Lars Ranthe).

The positive results were pretty much immediate for all, and the usual lifeless classes and despondent mood were replaced by an inspirational approach and some propulsive emotions. The four then decide to raise the alcohol intake for a better performance and further analysis, but while the party time remains exciting, the unhinged disintegration that comes next is pretty ugly. 

Despite the consequences of this deliberate intoxication, the film is never downbeat, rather preferring to look ahead. It’s directly connected to alcoholism but it’s also about life itself and the emotional stagnation and frustration that may come from its routines. The ensemble cast is competent while the sober Vinterberg, who collaborated once more with Tobias Lindholm (A Highjacking, 2012; A War, 2015) in the script, grounds the action firmly in the fantastic camaraderie shared by the friends. The film was awarded distinctive prizes at the BFI London and San Sebastian film festivals.

The Personal History of David Copperfield (2020)

Direction: Armando Iannucci
Country: UK

Gifted Scottish director Armando Iannucci (In the Loop, 2009; The Death of Stalin, 2017) applies some nice chops and twists to the life of Charles Dicken’s famous character, David Copperfield, in his latest comedy starring Dev Patel, Tilda Swinton and Hugh Laurie.

Over the course of this eccentrically mounted account, Copperfield (Patel) narrates his own life, from birth to the present day, going overboard with a couple imaginary characters as well as describing real relationships. We learn about the peculiarities in the character of his aunt Betsy (Swinton) and her fantastic, if childish, cousin Mr. Dick (Laurie); the fondness for the eternally indebted Mr. Micawber (Peter Capaldi); a momentary yet uncontrollable passion for Dora Spenlow (Morfydd Clark); and his real love for Agnes Wickfield (Rosalind Eleazar), a childhood friend. Those who read the novel  certainly remember the villains Uriah Heep (Ben Whishaw), a cunning and malicious law clerk, and Edward Murdstone (Darren Boyd), Copperfield’s cruel stepfather.

This comedic version of the novel comes imbued with cultural diversity as well as audacity in the details. The presence of Ms. Swinton is noticeable, but even more baffling is how she manages to steal the show whenever on the scene. In point of fact, what should be unwatchable becomes a mildly agreeable parody with a distinctive satirical treatment in the hands of this director. You'll likely forgive any obtuse idea and lopsided circumstance he might throw at you.

Even not reaching the levels of wit and absurdity offered in The Death of Stalin, this Copperfield keeps us thinking of Iannucci as a stalwart architect of the modern comedy genre. 

The Life Ahead (2020)

Direction: Edoardo Ponti
Country: Italy

Based on the 1975 novel The Life Before Us by French author Romain Gary, The Life Ahead is one of those sad cases where the execution fails to do justice to a potentially great story. While we bath in the competent cinematography of Angus Hudson, the tediousness associated to the clichés allowed by director Edoardo Ponti becomes the film’s worst enemy. Aggravating the scenario, the soundtrack is tacky, while the scenes, one after another, lack authenticity.

The story follows Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), a 12-year-old Senegalese orphan living in an Italian seaside town.  He's under the care of the aging Dr. Cohen (Renato Carpentieri), who entrusts him to the Jewish former prostitute Madame Rosa (the great Sophia Loren in her second collaboration with her son Ponti), a former prisoner in Auschwitz.

While the latter is giving occasional signs of dementia, Momo, recently expelled from school, works for a local drug dealer (Massimiliano Rossi). The anger mixed with the bad influences presumably make him a dangerous kid, but both Rosa’s friends - Lola (Abril Zamora), a former male boxing champ turned trans mother, and Hamil (Babak Karimi), a generous Muslim owner shop - see the contrary.

The performance of the young debutant actor has proved to be the most positive aspect of an unsatisfying tale where the energy peters out at a high speed, leaving you empty. Shamelessly manipulative, this formulaic debacle fails to offer something new; and even more important, something solid.

One Night in Miami (2021)

Direction: Regina King
Country: USA

Actress-turned-director Regina King (If Beale Street Could Talk, 2018) joins forces with screenwriter Kemp Powers, who adapted his own stage play of the same name, in order to dramatize a more-stressful-than-expected fictional meeting at the Hampton House Hotel in 1964 Florida between legendary boxer Cassius Clay, singer/songwriter Sam Cooke, NFL hero Jim Brown and civil rights activist Malcolm X. These characters are compellingly portrayed by Eli Goree, Leslie Odom Jr., Aldis Hodge and Kingsley Ben-Adir, respectively. 

Bolstered by thoughtful and insightful dialogue, One Night in Miami aims at the same racial problems that America still faces today. By combining in a simple episode biting wit, some high spirits, considerable tension and constructive verbal aggressiveness, the film is a talkfest that heads to important places without losing the focus on the subject. The religious topic comes tagged along, with Clay’s imminent transition to the Nation of Islam (after which he got the name Muhammad Ali) being shrouded in doubt.

Clay, who had won his first heavyweight boxing title that night, had been spiritually mentored by Malcolm, a responsible Muslim minister and family man who constantly fears for his life for defending racial equality in a divided and segregated America. The latter becomes front and center in the dramatic evolve of the story as he demands more from his three famous friends in the fight against the white oppressors. Furthermore, he announces his intention to leave the Nation of Islam to found his own organization, causing Clay to feel betrayed.

Anchored by powerful performances and rendered with both incisiveness and fluidity, this intelligently scripted film captivates our attention uninterruptedly. It comes at the right time, when the world needs equality, peace and understanding to move forward.