Varda by Agnes (2019)

Direction: Agnès Varda
Country: France

In addition to an insightful posthumous documentary, Varda by Agnès is a compelling self-portrait of a singular filmmaker, photographer, and visual artist.

Agnès Varda, who passed away last March at the age 90, explains her points of view to a small crowd in a theater, complementing the verbal elucidation of her artistic processes with still photographs, archival footage and film excerpts. With genuine charisma and clarity, she remarks the triptych principle that always followed her work: inspiration, creation, and sharing. 

As an important figure of the French New Wave and a feminist visionary with progressive ideas, Varda makes a retrospective of her work, focusing on unforgettable fictional films such as Cléo From 5 to 7, Vagabond, Le Bonheur, and Jacquot de Nantes, as well as highly regarded documentaries like The Gleaners and I, The Beaches of Agnes (another mandatory autobiographical essay), and Faces Places, a recent activist endeavor made in collaboration with French photographer and street artist JR. 

This is a dignified farewell to a compulsively creative artist with a keen eye to capture the things of our world and the brain to produce relevant art from many different sources. If you’re already a fan, you’ll have guaranteed good time; if not, this might impel you to start digging Varda’s world.

Bacurau (2019)

Direction: Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles
Country: Brazil

Acclaimed cineaste Kleber Mendonça Filho, the mastermind behind treasures such as Neighboring Sounds (2012) and Aquarium (2016) and one of the most important representatives of modern Brazilian cinema, teams up with co-writer/director Juliano Dornelles in Bacurau, a wildly entertaining and psychedelic Western crammed with snappy dialogue, permanent tension, and often brash, brutal situations.

The title of the film refers to the fictional remote village planted in a parched rural area of Northeast Brazil, whose small yet united population follows organized strategies to fight a bunch of American psychopaths led by the ruthless German-born Michael (Udo Kier). This group of invaders is secretly backed up by a greedy politician, Tony Junior (Thardelly Lima), who had fallen in disgrace in Bacurau.  

I should say that the characters are underexplored, but the fusion of gory Western a-la Jodorowsky, violent and witty thriller in the line of Tarantino, and poignant drama with a strong message of resistance to social issues, is enough to enjoy this fun ride from start to finish. Notwithstanding, two characters stand out: Domingas (Sonia Braga), a reliable, if bitter, doctor who becomes virulent under the effect of alcohol, and Lunga (Silvero Pereira), a ferocious warrior who promptly returns to the town where he grew up to protect its people from the evil foreigners.

Less offbeat and more fabricated than Filho’s previous directorial efforts, Bacurau still thrums with puzzlement and energy, relying on delicious and often mysterious details to succeed - the town’s disappearance from all maps, a drone with the shape of a vintage UFO patrolling the skies, a police car inexplicably abandoned, a puzzling deadly sport whose practice expands beyond the local, a bullet-holed water truck, and the capacity of response from a village that instantly morphs from lively active to ghostly to sanguinary. All of this comes bolstered with a tasteful soundtrack and an invulnerable belief in the power of the collective, which, in a way, serves as encouragement for the people to rebuff today's tyrannical Brazilian politics.

Dark Waters (2019)

Direction: Todd Haynes
Country: USA

Todd Haynes, who has built a name for himself with dignified dramas such as Far From Heaven (2002), I’m Not There (2007), Safe (1995), and Carol (2015), turns his eyes to a legal and environmental investigative story in Dark Waters, a non-fiction tale in the line of Erin Brockovich. The script, written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan (State of Play; World War Z), was based on a 2016 article published in the New York Times Magazine, informing about the 20-year battle of corporate defense attorney turned environmental activist Robert Bilott against the giant chemical corporation DuPont. The irresponsible men behind the cited company were accused of poisoning the drinking water of Parkersburg, West Virginia, with noxious chemicals.

Outraged with DuPont’s shadowy schemes to hide the truth from the Government, Bilott refuses to give up disclosing a sea of dishonesty, negligence, and corruption, even if that means to jeopardize his stable career, his relationship with his wife (Anne Hathaway), and his own life.

Mark Ruffalo brings the persistent attorney into being, but his performance, along with the rest of the cast, is colorless. Moreover, the film’s points are made obvious in an early phase, with the story dragging for an entire hour with monotonous dialogue. Although I found myself interested in the topic itself, the film fatigues in consequence of the heavy pace and lack of surprise. Dark Waters wasn't as twisty as it promised at the outset, a fact aggravated with a constant incapacity to depart from the conventional. 

Maybe due to the nature of the story, Haynes opted for a more mainstream approach in the filmmaking and storytelling. It was never gratifying.

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.

Pain and Glory (2019)

Direction: Pedro Almodovar
Country: Spain

Pain and Glory is a stunning, confessional statement by the fabulous Spanish auteur Pedro Almodovar, who, at the age of 70, unveils his personal demons on the screen with respectable maturity. His story is strong, filled with weighty childhood memories, painful experiences, and unresolved relationships, all of them factors conducive to corporal pains, soul afflictions, and creative blockages.

Antonio Banderas is Salvador Mallo, a once successful filmmaker now confined to a life of reclusion in Madrid due to a restrictive aching spine, intrinsic asthma, panic and anxiety, and a multitude of other ailments, both physical and psychological. 

Emotionally insecure and under the effect of anxiolytics, Salvador often revives his childhood in his long naps, picturing episodes of the small village in Valencia where he lived in the 60’s. Most of those episodes involve his late mother, Jacinta (Penélope Cruz), and Eduardo (César Vicente), the first man he was attracted to at the age of nine. Curiously, some expressions of the young Salvador, performed by Asier Flores, reminded me of the protagonist of Cinema Paradiso, also called Salvatore. Evocation or coincidence?

At the same time that memories keep emerging from his subconscious, Salvador reconnects with the actor Alberto Crespo (Asier Etxeandia), with whom he fell out 32 years before. The latter had become as torpid as the director, and they both seal their fresh association with heroin. Addiction knocks on Salvador’s door, but an incidental visit from a former lover, Federico (Leonardo Sbaraglia), helps him put life in perspective.

We hadn’t seen an Almodovar so lucid and passionate for so long, in what is an earnest examination of himself. Pain and Glory is affectionately crafted with courage and intimacy, being nourished by Banderas’ focused performance in order to triumph. Emotionally, we feel we are stepping on familiar Almodovar ground, but there’s a new breeze in his storytelling and a functional plasticity in his filmmaking style that makes this film rising above any of his recent works. In the end, hope and confidence illuminate both Salvador and Almodovar, which is something to be delighted for. 

The Irishman (2019)

Direction: Martin Scorsese
Country: USA

Who, other than Martin Scorsese, would be able to direct a grandiose epic movie about the mob with such authenticity? The Irishman, his new engrossing gangster classic, is crammed with virtuosic actors with a vast experience in portraying roles connected to the organized crime. Robert De Niro and an unusually quiet Joe Pesci team up again under Scorsese’s guidance, 24 years after Casino and 29 after Goodfellas. Al Pacino joins them here to play a key role, and together, even functioning in a more restrained mode, they show they still have it. The film, hoisted by a sharp perspective of the Mafia statutes back in the 50’s, was penned by the awarded screenwriter Steven Zaillian (Schindler's List; Gangs of New York), in a compelling adaptation of Charles Brandt’s 2004 book I Heard You Paint Houses.

The narrative scuttles back and forth in time, telling how the Philadelphian truck driver and meat delivery guy Frank Sheeran (De Niro) gradually becomes an important figure in the Cosa Nostra criminal society after establishing solid friendships with the high-ranked mafioso Russell Bufalino (Pesci) and the powerful union labor leader Jimmy Hoffa (Pacino). Frank’s loyalty to the organization is put to a test when he is ordered to kill the ambitious, stubborn and difficult Hoffa, to whom he became very close.

Scenes of violent killings, tense meetings, and complicated negotiations take turns, oftentimes with a sardonic humor hooked up. Aging alone, Frank realizes that his old pals and family are gone and nothing good has left from his criminal life to be remembered. And that’s where the guilt bites hard. Deep down, he would like to be a better man than he actually is.

Clocking in at three and a half hours, The Irishman feels painfully real, adding new stimulus to a crowded genre where only true experts can succeed. Scorsese and this mind-blowing cast are all about perfection.

Marriage Story (2019)

Direction: Noah Baumbach
Country: USA

What makes Marriage Story so remarkable is the incredible capacity to balance a variety of moods with intimacy and candidness. The film is not just a showcase for Noah Baumbach’s competent writing, direction, and storytelling, but also for the gripping performances by Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver.

The narrative starts off with the married couple and protagonists, Nicole (Johansson), a talented actress, and Charlie (Driver), a rising theater director, telling us what they like about each other. Despite the still constructive feelings and words of praise written down for a marital mediator, it becomes quite clear over time that the divorce is an irreversible decision for Nicole. However, what could have been an amiable procedure if kept between them, becomes a costly, hostile, and inglorious coast-to-coast legal battle led by aggressive lawyers - formidably portrayed by Laura Dern and Ray Liotta.

Amidst all the susceptibility and suffering created by the situation itself, there are witty scenes, some involving Nicole’s family members - her mother Sandra (Julie Hagerty) and sister Cassie (Merritt Wever) - and a particularly awkward one marked by blood and deadpan humor. Everything works perfectly, except the redundant musical episodes, the only aspect I would discard.

Sporting that pungent emotional punch we seek to experience in a study of a decaying marriage, the film fulfilled my expectations and the audiences certainly won’t forget how heartbreaking a separation can be. Marriage Story is among the best of 2019.

The Nightingale (2019)

Direction: Jennifer Kent
Country: Australia / USA / Canada

The Nightingale is an intoxicating, brutally violent revenge tale written and directed by Jennifer Kent, a respected auteur whose knack for taut pieces is instantly confirmed. She first earned the world’s attention in 2014 with her first feature, The Babadook, embarking now on a feverish odyssey marked by rape, murder, racism, sexism, and human contempt.

The story is set in 1825 in Australia’s Van Diemen’s Land, a British penal colony, where Clare Carroll (Aisling Franciosi), a convicted Irish woman at the service of the British unit in charge, is sexually abused by the ravenous Lieutenant Hawkins (Sam Claflin), who repeats the action with further devastating consequences after being informed that his superior, finding moral indiscretions in his behavior, do not intend to recommend him for the rank of captain.

While Hawkins and the nasty Sargent Ruse (Damon Herriman) feast on their prey, Clare’s family is exterminated in front of her eyes. The images are harrowing and you'll likely feel absolutely deplorable with all the ruefulness and the ugliness of the acts.

Shaken by indignation and humiliation, Clare resolves to chase Hawkins, Ruse, and private Jago (Harry Greenwood) to the dangerous bush-ridden paths that take to Launceston. She wouldn’t have the chance to find them if not guided by Billy (Baykali Ganambarr), an expert Aboriginal tracker whose life is also marked by deprival and loss. The two forge a strong bond motivated by common misery and indignation, as well as an urgent sense of justice.

At some point along the route, Clare has a relapse and becomes fragile again, suddenly dominated by fear. This is utterly frustrating, especially when the two vile officers sexually assault a native mother that had crossed Ruse’s way. Billy, with a good help from the good spirits, is the only person she can trust to finish off the mission.

Already stamped as one of the toughest movies of the year to watch, The Nightingale is a dark thriller that, in addition to the valid script and qualified performances, relies on the naturalistic visuals to succeed.

Ford v Ferrari (2019)

Direction: James Mangold
Country: USA

Versatile director James Mangold has directed two biographic dramas, namely Girl, Interrupted (1999) and Walk The Line (2005), which chronicles the lives of author Susanna Kaysen and singer-songwriter Johnny Cash, respectively. His new flick, Ford v Ferrari, is also a biopic, yet this time addressing car sports racing and centering on the skillful British engineer and driver Ken Miles, the true hero behind the Ford Motor Company triplet victory at the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans race. That same year, he also conquered Daytona with distinction.

A director can’t go wrong when picking Christian Bale for a role, and the actor couldn’t have been more passionate while playing a true sportsman with a tremendous gift to pilot a car at roaring speeds. Under the wing of visionary automotive designer/entrepreneur Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon), Miles demonstrates to have what’s necessary to defeat the untouchable leading team Ferrari. Still, the interpersonal tensions between Shelby and Leo Beebe (Josh Lucas), the obnoxious Ford senior vice-president, in addition to the lack of respect and consideration from CEO Henry Ford II (Tracy Letts), prevented him from having the deserved attention for the feat.

Not just accessible to car buffs, the film has its adrenaline-rushing moments, focusing firmly on the personalities of the ones involved. Yet, on the other hand, I found the car racing scenes way too repetitive and the script - written by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and Jason Keller - mounted with cheap formulaic attractions, including a dull brawl between Shelby and Miles with the latter's wife (Caitriona Balfe) as a spectator, and Mr. Ford’s tears of contentment and affliction after a high-speed ride.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Direction: Taika Waititi
Country: New Zealand / USA

Two years after the colorful superhero adventure that was Thor: Ragnarok, New Zealander director Taika Waititi demonstrates that his comedic voice (What We Do in the Shadows; Hunt for the Wilderpeople) is pretty intact in Jojo Rabbit, a rousing and zany satire set in the 1940’s Nazi Germany that is dividing filmgoers.

The plot centers on the 10-year-old Johannes Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) a.k.a. Jojo Rabbit, a little Nazi boy whose fanaticism for Hitler’s cause diminishes considerably after getting to know Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie), a Jewish refugee who was sheltered by his pacifist, self-assertive mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson).

When not filling his notebook with the Jews' common features and behaviors, Jojo is whether dialoguing with the silly, occasionally irascible imaginary figure of Adolf Hitler (Waititi himself), or training to go to war under the orders of the opaque one-eyed Captain K. (Sam Rockwell), the officer in charge of the Hitler youth group.

Nutty and mischievous, but also sweet and enchanting, Jojo Rabbit is pure fun and entertainment from minute one, which is clearly the only goal of the filmmaker. There are plenty of gags and laughable situations counterpointing the unfunny marks of war presented in some crushing scenes that no kid should ever have to witness or participate in.

It is exactly through the contrast between humor and poignancy, innocence and immorality, human values and an unacceptable iniquity, absurdity and seriousness that Waititi succeeds in his efforts to parody the Nazi doctrine. Who didn't think about Tarantino’s Glorious Basterds and Chaplin’s The Great Dictator?

Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019)

Direction: Richard Linklater
Country: USA

Comfortably enjoying his status of prodigious filmmaker and storyteller, Richard Linklater (Boyhood; Before Trilogy), stumbles terribly in Where’d You Go, Bernadette, a farcical comedy-drama that unlike its central character struggles to establish an immediate, strong connection with the viewer.

Adapted from the 2012 comedy novel of the same name, this flawed film never does justice to Maria Semple’s book, despite a few sympathetic moments that arise from the mighty presence of Cate Blanchett as the apparently dysfunctional, socially anxious Bernadette Fox.

Once a brilliant architect, this frequently impolite woman has exchanged L.A. for Seattle when she lost confidence in herself and stopped working for 20 years. She avoids people to the point of hiring a remote assistant in India for practically every basic need, but her brittle nerves start to attack hard again after she has promised to take her 15-year-old daughter, Bee (Emma Nelson), on a trip to Antarctica.

Besides all the thoughts of fear related to the trip, the relationship with her workaholic husband, Elgin (Billy Crudup), a Microsoft guru, gets more and more complicated in the sequence of an unjustified brawl with her neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig), an usurpation attempt from the Russian Mafia, and a problem with a prescription for seasickness medication. However, this tension between husband and wife never went beyond surface frictions, feeling more hypocrite than credible.

Despite the preliminary punchy spice, the film ended up almost flavorless due to a fabricated final section, or should I say confection, so idiotically portrayed that one may question if this is actually a Linklater film.

Toggling between self-commiseration and looking forward attitude, this dramedy turned nonsensical adventure fills each frame with an unconvincing euphoric reassurance. Its descendent trajectory in terms of engagement prevents it to succeed. One reason to see it? Blanchett!

Burning Cane (2019)

Direction: Phillip Youmans
Country: USA

For a drama written and directed by a 17-year-old, Burning Cane has plenty of genuine ambition, but that’s not everything. New Orleans-born African-American Phillip Youmans, even if occasionally reckless when wielding the handheld camera, shows proficiency in setting the mood that best allows him to express his vision on themes like faith, alcoholism, child negligence, domestic violence, and prevarication.

Set in rural Louisiana, the story is filled with strong, well-shaped characters that connect with one another, whether physically or mentally. The pivotal figure here is Helen (Karen Kaia Livers), a woman of faith who laments the family dog’s mange before cut up a chicken with a small kitchen axe while resting a cigarette on her lips. Her painful physical limitations are not what hurries her the most. It’s her alcoholic son, Daniel (Dominique McClellan), who got fired from work for arriving drunk and starting a fight. The latter’s hard-working wife, Sherry (Emyri Crutchfield), supports the family, and has no idea that Daniel, visibly sick and depressed, gives whiskey to their little only son, the silent Jeremiah (Braelyn Kelly), while looking after him.

Apart from this scenario, there’s Reverend Tillman (Wendell Pierce), whose speeches about materialism, the evil ways, and the necessity of building relationships of love are fervently eloquent. However, he undergoes a crisis of faith after his wife's death, and drowns himself in liquor. He often relies on Helen to help him getting home.

The young Youmans weaves an inextricable web, where the ugly aspects of this isolated American community distressingly emerge. However, the inexperience ended up spoiling what would have been a great debut if better ideas had flown to prevent an unsatisfactory, abrupt finale.

Led by note-perfect performances, Burning Cane presents two distinct halves with totally different weights. The downside of it is that the film decreases in fascination. Still recommended, though.

The Traitor (2019)

Direction: Marco Bellocchio
Country: Italy

The Traitor, an Italian mafia account based on the life of the powerful and wealthy Sicilian ‘soldier’ Tommaso Bruschetta, is told with invariable pace and mood. It does pretty much hold our attention in its initial phase, but it loses a bit of direction with the time, making us increasingly detached from the course of events.

Directed by veteran filmmaker Marco Bellocchio, whose career peaks are Fists in the Pocket (1965); Good Morning, Night (2003); and Vincere (2009), the film succeeds in the way that elucidates about the mafiosi pacts, breaches in honor, and the general criminal mechanisms adopted by the Cosa Nostra. It also makes a good point of view in showing how these mad dogs have all the comfort in prison and are treated with permissiveness by the justice and the state.

Unafraid, yet tired of the heroin war that opposes the old Palermo mafia and the new Corleone clan, Bruschetta (Pierfrancesco Favino), known as ‘boss of the two worlds’, became one of the first mafia informants in the mid 80's, after a frustrated attempt to lead a calm life in Brazil with his family. His arresting and torture in Rio de Janeiro and subsequent extradition to Italy caused him to attempt suicide, a fact reinforced by the news that his two eldest sons, Benedetto and Antonio, had been cruelly assassinated, likely by one of his trusted men.

His decision to expose the Sicilian mafia to the authorities caused severe damage in the organization, which saw 366 mafiosi being sent to jail. Bruschetta always defended he was a man of honor, claiming that his former associates were the true vile creatures.

The ridiculing courtroom episodes at the famous Maxi Trial unveiled a limitative script that is more interested in informing about the multiple connections of the man than stepping up the narrative side of things. It’s a film that never quite catches fire despite some creativity in the visual department and the frantic editing by Francesca Calvelli.

There’s no such thing as noble cause or respect for human life in the mafia. Apart from the inflexible judge Giovanni Falcone (Fausto Russo Alesi), The Traitor exclusively portrays men of brute insipidity, only partially digging the dark depths of mafia crime. This film wouldn’t have had a small amount of expressiveness if the performances weren’t so solid.

Eternal Winter (2019)

Direction: Attila Szász
Country: Hungary

A soviet labor camp in 1944 Ukraine becomes the glacial stage of excruciating episodes. Attila Szász’s Eternal Winter, which was based on the book by Janos Havasi and inspired by several accounts of ethnic German Hungarian prisoners, tells the story of Irén (Marina Gera), a diligent mother who promised her young daughter she would come back home from the wheat harvest she was summoned to. Instead of that task, and against her expectations, Stalin’s Red Army forces her to work in backbreaking coal mines under unsafe and inhumane conditions.

Among the physical and psychological difficulties, she was lucky enough to find the vital love of a Yugoslavian prisoner, Rajmund (Sándor Csányi), from whom she learns all the tricks to survive in a hostile environment.

One cannot deny that Eternal Winter is a moving journey, but Szász couldn’t get rid of certain stereotypes commonly associated with the genre. The film is unfussy but flat in tone, visually arresting but emotionally vacillating, ultimately dramatizing when confronting challenges and resolutions.

The last section wastes most of the emotional gravity previously built, and when the tears begin to roll, it’s the indifference that settles. The predicaments are not in the script, co-written by Szász and Norbert Köbli, but in the approach.

Luce (2019)

Direction: Julius Onah
Country: USA

Super-protective white parents, Amy (Naomi Watts) and Peter (Tim Roth), start questioning the true personality of their adopted black son, Luce (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a former child soldier who never ceases to show gratitude for the opportunities of living in America. At the age seven, he left his war-ravaged Eritrea behind and flew to America, where his new relatives invested in therapy and rehabilitation to give him the emotional stability needed. They apparently succeeded in that effort.

In fact, Luce became an authentic model of inspiration for the African Americans in high school. He is a brilliant student, a winning athlete, and a sympathetic person with whom everyone can have a nice conversation. However, his teacher, Harriet Wilson (Octavia Spencer), becomes considerable concerned about a pro-violence essay he wrote. She confirms her initial suspicion after inspecting his locker.

Based on the off-Broadway play by JC Lee, who also teamed up with director Julius Onah in the script, Luce is all about actions, opinions, and reactions. Yet, its strongest scene - involving Harriet’s mentally ill sister, Rosemary (Marsha Stephanie Blake) - comes from a subplot that contributes significantly to stimulate this character-led drama thriller. Despite the isolated, pungent moment described above, most of the tension is swallowed by the overcontrolled dynamics, with the film crashing in its third act.

Onah has things to say about racial disparity, severe trauma, confused parents, and hidden pain. He just didn’t find the right way of saying it, leading the film to land on an anti-climactic zone that almost made me indifferent to the topics in question, as well as unfulfilled.

The King (2019)

Direction: David Michod
Country: UK / Australia

The phrase “war is bloody and soulless” can be heard twice in The King, a particular cinematic vision on the early life of Henry V, co-written by director David Michod (Animal Kingdom; The Rover) and actor Joel Edgerton (The Gift; The Rover), who sought inspiration in a group of history plays by Shakespeare. However, this decent yet not great effort, marked by a neo-noir ambience and detached from the traditional Shakespearean routines, is less interested in showing the blood shed on the battlefields, but rather inspecting what agitates the peace of an uncertain, inexperienced young king surrounded by artful advisers. Thus, introspection and concern mark the course of this darkly atmospheric account.

The prince of Wales, called Hal (Timothée Chalamet) by his friends, is in open conflict with the politics followed by his father, the dominant Henry IV of England (Ben Mendelsohn), and consumes his time drinking alongside Sir John Falstaff (Edgerton), a brave commander who also fell in disgrace after heroically battling for King Richard II. Uneasy, Hal takes action in assistance of his bland younger brother, Thomas (Dean-Charles Chapman), to whom the throne was promised by their dying father, and defeats the rebel Henry Percy (Tom Glynn-Carney) in a head-to-head armored dispute.

After Thomas and Henry IV have succumbed, Hal is crowned king of England. Short time later, he declares war to France, a country that, according to his counselors, has been provocative and disrespectful to him and his people. For this bold move, the king relies on Falstaff, trusting him more than anyone else in the kingdom. The latter’s risky tactic to defeat the more numerous French under the leadership of the arrogant Dauphin (Robert Pattinson), will reveal perspicacity.

Even not as striking as the previous unforgettable versions of Henry V by Laurence Olivier in 1944 and Kenneth Branagh in 1989, The King is rarely uninteresting and still resonates with a consistent structure, excellent production values, and competent performances. In truth, the 140 minutes never seemed extended to me, since Michod avoids wasting time with plot trivialities and goes straight to the point.

At the end, the shady palace intrigues and tenebrous ambiances give place to a bright ray of light, infusing some hope in the heart of the victorious somber king.

The Dead Center (2019)

Direction: Billy Senese
Country: USA

Shane Carruth (the mastermind behind Upstream Color) embodies an obsessive, hard-working psychiatrist in The Dead Center, a supernatural low-key horror pic written, directed, and produced by Billy Senese. Considerably better than Closer to God, his debut feature from 2014, The Dead Center still is a clichéd film impregnated with demonic transferences, haunting pasts, and unexplainable deaths.

The busy and oftentimes insubordinate Dr. Daniel Forrester (Carruth) struggles to understand what’s wrong with the latest admitted patient (Jeremy Childs) in the Fulton County Hospital. The man, who had committed suicide, is a strange amnesiac who literally woke up from the dead and escaped the morgue to where his body was sent.

Under hypnotic treatment, he unveils some more details of his obscure past, also confessing he killed a man. Doctors and nurses will experience the power of the malevolent entity that possesses his body and mind.

Besides the unimpressive and somewhat expected finale, the film misses that definite creepy factor that would bring him to the forefront. There are some freaky moments elevated by strident sonic attacks, which are not enough to overcome the shortcomings.

Mediocrely entertaining and repetitive in the procedures, The Dead Center lacks guts and never coheres into something special. Its characters are bland in posture and underdeveloped in their essence. The film might not be as much creative as we would have hoped, but at least it doesn’t waste time on giving useless explanations for the occult puzzle. This is perhaps the most valuable aspect that Senese has to offer.

The Laundromat (2019)

Direction: Steven Soderbergh
Country: USA

The unequalled filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has proven capable of the best (Sex Lies, and Videotape; Traffic; Ocean’s Eleven) throughout a career than spans nearly 40 years. At times evoking the theatrical slapstick, this documentary-style comedy based on the Panama Papers and aptly called The Laundromat is not among his most successful efforts despite featuring an incredible cast with Meryl Streep, Antonio Banderas, and Gary Oldman occupying central roles. The plot’s occurrences were taken from the incidents described in Jack Bernstein’s novel The Secrecy World, and starts with Ellen Martin (Streep), a persistent widow who decides to investigate who’s behind the fraudulent scheme that left her without insurance compensation after she had lost her husband in a boat accident.

Curiosity and perseverance take her to Panama, where she locates two greedy lawyers, the film’s narrators Jürgen Mossack (Oldman) and Ramón Fonseca (Banderas), who keep mining the global financial system to their personal advantage. Corruption, fraud, tax evasion, money laundering, the exploitation of innocent people, and illegal offshore machinations are exposed and explained with a ridiculous posture that is often feels more vexatious than favorable.

From the three stories emerging from Scott Z. Burns’ screenplay, the one involving an adulterous African billionaire (Nonso Anozie) turns out to be the drollest, while the third one, a reconstruction of the assassination of British businessman Neil Haywood (Matthias Schoenaerts) by Chinese attorney and businesswoman Gu Kailai (Rosalind Chao), is permeated with supplementary tension.

Even with the best of the intentions in mind, Soderbergh didn’t avoid a mess, plunging The Laundromat into a sea of silliness and artifice. The revelation of names, their scams, and their shameless impunity are all that was left, and despite the mixed feelings, I hope the film can get people to avoid this plague in the future.

The Farewell (2019)

Direction: Lulu Wang
Country: USA

How good can a lie be? According to the debut director Lulu Wang, who deftly wrote the script of the bi-cultural comedy-drama The Farewell, a justified lie can produce beneficial effects, at least, in what health is concerned. The film was partly based on the life of Wang’s grandmother.

Billi (Awkwafina) is an independent New Yorker whose parents, Jian (Diana Lin) and Wang (Tzi Ma), left China 25 years ago to establish themselves in the US. She gets visibly upset when informed that her Guggenheim fellowship application was denied, but this was nothing as devastating as when she is told that her paternal grandmother, Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen), who lives in Changchun, China, is dying from advanced lung cancer. With the pretext of attending a cousin’s wedding, she and her family travel to China for a last family gathering. Upon serious discussions and doubts, where the differences between the East and the West are amply debated, they collectively decide to hide the truth from the matriarch, in a way of protecting her from the overwhelming distress of knowing she’s terminally ill and has just a few weeks to live.

The family dynamics include pleasant moments and frictions, while the marks of immigration and its hardships are exposed with authenticity. Straddling two cultures, Billi is forced to counterpoint her Chinese roots, more focused on family and society, and her real American identity, which leans on individualism.

Just moments after watching this drama, I got the sensation that the film hasn’t had the emotional resonance I was hoping for. But I was wrong. When I think of it today, I see it as a sensitive, witty, and intelligently written immigrant song that develops with an engrossing plot and phenomenal performances.

With the ability to touch us in many ways, The Farewell plays closer to the heart. It’s a very rewarding film assembled with a disarming touch of brilliance.

The Third Wife (2019)

Direction: Ash Mayfield
Country: Vietnam

The Third Wife is meek and melancholic, yet informative. The modest period drama tells the story of May (Nguyen Phuong Tra My), a 14-year-old who inherently accepts her fate of becoming the third wife of a wealthy, polygamist landowner (Le Vu Long) in the late 19th-century Vietnam. Sharing the same will of the other wives, May intends to give birth to a male baby since it would allow her to grow in status within the closed community.

For good or for bad, she develops a strange attraction to Xuan (Mai Thu Huong Maya), the second wife, whose secret she shares and whose freedom she deeply admires.

The film, loosely based on the life of director Ash Mayfield’s great-grandmother, was keenly filmed, capturing idyllic landscapes immersed in gracious hues. These imagery provides a contrasting effect when compared to the emotional disquietness that the characters experience, most of the times, in silence.

Despite clear, the ideas are never vehemently expressed, with Mayfield preferring a subtle flow that may attract some viewers and keep others aside. The approach is simplistic in nature, oozing delicacy even in the toughest moments. Yet, although fumbling from time to time, this is a respectable first work from Mayfield, who didn’t thrill me with her methods of bringing out emotion and intimacy, but revealed a huge capacity to embrace aesthetic filmmaking.