Elvis (2022)

Direction: Baz Luhrmann
Country: USA 

Elvis, a lush-looking, fast-paced but full-of-holes biographical drama about the king of rock and roll, Elvis Presley, leaves one feeling modestly entertained but disappointed all the same because there isn't enough to catch us with our guard down. The life of Elvis Presley (Austin Butler) - from childhood to stardom to his tragic death - is pictured with decorative panache, seen through the prism of the relationship with his evasive manager, Colonel Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), a persuasive scoundrel who made sure to profit enough at the cost of his client’s talent.

Directed and co-scripted by Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, 2001; The Great Gatsby, 2013), this biopic uses a hybrid approach with dislocated visuals and questionable musical mash-ups. As a director of excesses, Luhrmann’s signature style was expected to bring something new but doesn’t really score here. He rather depicts the musician’s trajectory as a fairground attraction, diminishing any possible greatness and cranking up the gaudy theatrics unnecessarily. In addition to the flamboyance that glazes at the surface, the film suffers from a certain artificiality that removes emotional heft. We sense that something is not right.

The only reason to see it is Tom Hanks. At first you won’t believe your eyes, seeing him buried under prosthetic facial work. His performance is so appropriate, contrasting with that one of Austin Butler, who never convinces as the title character. Assuming the form of an elaborate crowd-pleaser, Elvis is a missed opportunity to depict the iconic singer’s life with sober-mindedness. 

Finch (2021)

Direction: Miguel Sapochnik
Country: USA 

A dying engineer (Tom Hanks as the title character), a spirited robot (Caleb Landry Jones) and a sympathetic dog make the peculiar team at the center of Finch, an average post-apocalyptic sci-fi road trip that straddles between pitiful dramatics and comedic manners. 

Repo Man-director Miguel Sapochnik crafted the film with the help of some striking imagery and sterling effects, and his screenwriters - Ivor Powell (also producer, who worked with Ridley Scott) and Craig Luck - even got the robot right, with a sharp tongue, funny movements and often risky initiative. However, the core of the story is too flimsy and the result a tad predictable. 

As one of the few survivors of a cataclysmic solar phenomenon, Finch Weinberg doesn’t trust people at all, preferring the company of his faithful dog, Goodyear. He roves about in desolated places, where the temperature and the level of radiation are extremely high, to get the supplies that will keep them alive -  superstorms can last weeks when they hit. But Finch becomes sicker everyday that passes. He needs someone to take care of the dog when he’s gone, so he creates a robot, who calls himself Jeff, for that task. Teaching this metallic fellow the ways of the world and making that he and Goodyear become buddies are his next challenges.

A lot of data is missing from the powerless script. Many questions are kept unanswered; many situations are unexplained; and we get the impression that this film only wants its audience pleased at all times. Despite the sweetness and affection demonstrated in the relationships, the film lacks twists and - just like the chatty robot - feels artificial.

News of the World (2021)

Direction: Paul Greengrass
Country: USA

Adapted from Paulette Jiles' 2016 novel of the same name, News of the World is a satisfying Western with a dramatic expansion and a few exciting shootouts that will keep you interested. The film reunites the English writer/director Paul Greengrass, widely recognized by a number of historical, criminal and politically motivated fact-based thrillers (Bloody Sunday, 2002; United 93, 2006; Captain Phillips, 2013) as well as some espionage fiction (three installments of the Bourne action series), and the celebrated American actor Tom Hanks.

After playing Captain Richard Phillips with zeal, the latter impersonates another Captain here - Jefferson Kyle Kidd, a Civil War veteran who left his wife in San Antonio to read the freshest news from town to town. In a Texas village, he bumps into a 10-year-old double orphan girl, Johanna (Helena Zengel), who lost her German parents and then the Kiowa family who raised her. Kidd promises to take her to her only living relatives, an aunt and an uncle, who live in a remote place in Castroville. Along the way, he finds greedy outlaws, exploiters and racists, but also some good souls that, even not preventing startling incidents, will help him to accomplish the task.

Although occasionally bumpy, it’s not my plan to discourage you from watching the film. To a degree, it employs the same stereotyped good and bad characters of the Western genre, but extends its views with the topics of loss and abandonment.

The main issue I’ve found here has to do with the predictability of the story, while the goodhearted central character, who always does the right thing even if he has to reverse its primary decisions, becomes the strongest inspirational factor. More surprises and conflicts would have taken it to more enjoyable places, though.

A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019)

Direction: Marielle Heller
Country: USA

A flattering, good-natured crowd-pleaser, A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood has the heart in the right place, but doesn’t avoid some trivial sentimentality along the way. The film reconstructs the episodes involving real-life journalist Tom Junod and the popular children’s television presenter Fred Rogers. The former, portrayed by Matthew Rhys, sees his name changed to Lloyd Vogel in the film, while the versatile Tom Hanks fits perfectly in the role of Rogers, emulating his one-of-a-kind demeanor, in particular when shooting for the preschool program Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, a television landmark from the 60’s. The film was inspired on Junod’s article “Can You Say… Hero?”, published in Esquire in 1998. Micah Fitzerman-Blue and Noah Harpster co-wrote the script to be handled by director Marielle Heller (The Diary of a Teenage Girl; Can You Ever Forgive Me?). 

Lloyd got hurt in the feelings and lives an angry life. His estranged father, Jerry (Chris Cooper), became the reason of his frustration since he left home when he was just a kid and his mother was dying of cancer. While keeping rejecting Jerry’s attempts to reconnect, Lloyd earns a reputation as a bitter, contemptuous writer. To his surprise, he is assigned a challenging profile of Mr. Rogers, a shockingly affable human being who overwhelms him every time he talks about anger management, emotional control, forgiveness, toleration, and how to generally deal with feelings. It’s excused to say that the interviewer becomes the interviewee, with Mr. Rogers dodging the questions to focus on the sensitive aspects that most unnerve the journalist.

Heller brings intense close-ups into her attentive filmmaking methods, delivering a heart-rendering tribute to a man of generosity that, although singular, struggles with a somewhat overempathetic posture varnished with a beatific gloss. Sometimes flowing like a dream, the film is perhaps too ambitious in its aims, sermonizing more than harmonizing. It’s worth seeing for the positive messages and Hanks' notable performance.

The Post (2018)

Directed by Steven Spielberg
Country: USA

"The Post", a well-depicted journalistic drama based on true events, marks the awaited return of Steven Spielberg to direction, and stars the fantastic duo Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep as the main protagonists.
Written by Liz Hannah and Josh Singer (“Spotlight”), the story is a reconstruction of the 1971 battle between Richard Nixon’s government and the respected American journalists of the Washington Post and New York Times, who decided to publish the Pentagon papers that disclose the embarrassing truth behind the Vietnam War. The facts had been concealed from the public for thirty years.

The marvelous Ms. Streep embodies Katherine Graham, the first female newspaper owner and publisher, who has the power of decision when in possession of such incriminatory documents. On one hand, as a person of contacts, she has a few friends in the government that would be implicated in the political scandal, plus the possibility of losing everything her family had built if the major investors withdraw their money; on the other hand, she faces the responsibility of defending press freedom and ensure the true mission of an independent newspaper.

Persuaded by her tenacious editor-in-chief Ben Bradlee (Hanks), who got his hard-working team sorting through four thousand unnumbered pages, Katherine, with tears in her eyes and a flickering voice, will have to make the most difficult decision of her life. Pressures and tension are everywhere, from battles for information and revelation of sources to Supreme Court’s deliberations. 

Besides tremendously elucidative, “The Post” is detailed but not boring, triumphant but not ostentatious, disciplined but not tacky. Still, it lacks that emotional knockout punch that other major journalistic films such as “Spotlight” and “All The President’s Men” can brag to have delivered. Hence, if the moments of indecision and resolve are the working organs that make this body of work function correctly, then Meryl Street is both its heart and soul.

Although better in the message than in the art of entertaining, this conspiracy disentanglement is pure respect for freedom and an ode to righteousness.