The Weekly Gravy #104

Two People/Två människor (1945) – **½

Carl Theodor Dreyer was not a prolific filmmaker, producing only 14 features in a 45-year career, with the last five spread over a period of 32 years. Even though several of his silents are comparatively obscure, it’s 1945′ Two People, made right after his renowned Day of Wrath, that has the fewest votes on the IMDb – less than 400 as of this writing. That’s as Dreyer would have wished, given that he’d disowned the film after clashing with Svensk Filmindustri over the casting, the inclusion of a flashback sequence, and the score, which is laughably overwrought. (This website dedicated to Dreyer has a great deal of information about the film.)

It’s certainly hard to argue that Two People is much more than a well-intentioned failure. The story deals with medical researcher Arne Lundell (Georg Rydeberg), who has been accused by his rival Prof. Sander of plagiarizing his doctoral thesis, which closely resembles a paper Sander published at the same time. After a montage which establishes their feud, Arne arrives at the apartment he shares with his wife Marianne (Wanda Rothgardt); she arrives shortly afterwards, and they discuss his misfortune.

They hear on the radio that Sander has died, and a colleague informs them Sander took his own life. But shortly after, the news comes out that Sander was murdered…with evidence pointing to Arne, who’d made potentially threatening comments, whose missing pistol matches the murder weapon, whose handkerchief is stained with blood (from a nosebleed, he claims) and whose initials are on a glove found near the crime scene – the same kind he received for Christmas.

Arne simply states his innocence and shows little concern, in contrast to Marianne’s anxiety. But he’s thrown for a loop when he learns she had been in a relationship with Sander before they met – and that’s not Marianne’s only secret. You might have figured it out already, but honestly, how else was this going to play out?

It’s not what happens in a piece like this, but how that matters; not what the characters do, but how they do it and how they feel about it. And the original play, Attentat by W.O. Somin (performed in English as Close Quarters) might well have worked better, not least because you wouldn’t have Lars-Erik Larsson’s score slathered on top of the action, and you wouldn’t have had the various editing tricks (wipes, fades, and the like), which here only serve to weaken the tension.

You also might have had a more suitable pair of actors. Rydeberg in particular is all wrong; he looks like he should be crooning a love song in a light musical, not wrestling with the potential destruction of everything he’s worked for. He’s too old, too passive, too polished for a character who’s supposed to be idealistic and impulsive. Rothgardt isn’t much better; she never feels natural, never feels like the kind of person who’d do what Marianne does.

But the material doesn’t really help them much, although at just 71 minutes, I have to wonder if the original text was cut. Certainly, we rush through the story and its emotional peaks and valleys, far too quickly to ring true – and it rarely does. It’s full of melodrama and theatrical contrivances, like how Arne just so happens to pick up the book which contains a letter which reveals Marianne’s past with Sander, or the ending, which was never going to work for me because it draws upon one of my least favorite tropes.

It does have its high points. There are moments which feel warm and real, like the dancing scene or the bit where Arne and Marianne feed each other sweets. The climactic confession sequence is actually quite well done, and the flashback, which Dreyer wanted removed, boasts a striking image; Sander’s shadow (all we see of him) cast upon the ceiling, a sinister specter looming over the flesh-and-blood Marianne. And there’s some good use of sound – the approaching sirens in one scene, which prove to be irrelevant to the story but remind us and the characters of the very real danger they’re in.

But those are cheek-by-jowl with scenes like the burning of Arne’s handkerchief, or his preparing supper in a full suit, or his turning on Marianne and telling her to leave, only for them to reconcile moments later and move on as if nothing had happened. Dreyer set out to make a true chamber drama on film, but we never really get the tension or the sense of confinement (the close quarters, as it were) that this story needs to work. The result is best left to Dreyer completists.

Score: 64

Funny Pages (2022) – ****

Funny Pages could alternately be called Young American Splendor, or maybe I Was a Teenage Robert Crumb; we can only guess whether Robert (Daniel Zolghadri) will make it as an underground cartoonist, or if he’ll even be able to avoid going back to high school when the spring semester rolls around, but even if he does, he’s had enough experience in the few weeks that the film covers to fill a graphic novel or two – more, if he lets his vivid imagination expand upon it.

It all begins when he’s having a one-on-one meeting with his mentor and art teacher, Mr. Katano (Stephen Adly Guirgis). Katano urges Robert to follow his own path and not go to college as his parents expect, then tries to help Robert out with his figure drawing by stripping nude and standing on his desk. Robert has to leave abruptly, and Katano, afraid he’s crossed a line, follows in his car. While trying to talk to Robert, who insists nothing is wrong, another car crashes into Katano’s and kills him.

Robert, determined to honor his mentor, breaks into the school one night with his best friend Miles (Miles Emanuel) to retrieve art from Katano’s office. They’re caught and Robert’s public defender Cheryl (Marcia DeBonis) is able to get the charges dismissed; he then informs his parents he’s dropping out of school and not going to college. He’s able to get a car (a beater if there ever was one) and a job as Cheryl’s secretary, and he moves out of his parents’ home in Princeton and into the run-down, sweltering basement apartment of Barry (Michael Townsend Wright).

Through his job, he meets Wallace (Michael Maher), a client of Cheryl’s with an antisocial personality, obvious emotional disturbance…and a history in the comic-book industry, having worked as a color separator for a major publisher. Robert desperately wants his advice, but bringing Wallace into his life may prove to be more trouble than it’s worth.

It must be said up front that Funny Pages is not much less crude and grotesque than the underground comics Robert puts upon a pedestal – and for the receptive viewer, that very grotesquerie can be exhilarating. See, writer-director Owen Kline doesn’t pretend Robert’s dream – or at least his way of pursuing it – isn’t a complete folly. There’s no question that Katano was a problematic mentor, that Robert’s car isn’t a piece of junk, that Barry’s apartment is an utter dump, or that Wallace needs a therapist, not an acolyte.

At the same time, you never feel like Kline is judging the characters; rather, you can feel the same kind of thrill Robert feels at striking out on his own, at defying his parents, at breaking the rules, at siding with those on the margins of society. His father calls his behavior “spoiled brat shit,” and he’s probably got a point, but Robert has to make his own mistakes, same as everyone. For all its grotesquerie, it’s a deeply sympathetic film.

The vividly drawn characters are brought superbly to life by the cast. Zolghadri feels wholly real, performative in the way adolescents so often are, but sincere in his curiosity, his fascination, his artistic obsessions, and the naiveté that leads him into trouble. There are fine turns from Emanuel, DeBonis, Maria Dizzia as Robert’s concerned mother and Josh Pais as his prickly father, Wright, and Louise Lasser in a hilarious cameo as a pharmacy customer, but Maher is the true standout.

With his wide eyes, intense energy, and total lack of humor (in-universe, mind you), Maher makes Wallace a riveting figure from his first petulant appearance. You can feel sorry for him – he alludes to a troubled past he never describes in detail, and he’s clearly got emotional issues – but Maher doesn’t sugar-coat how Wallace is his own worst enemy. That his irritability and unpredictability are often hilarious doesn’t make them less troubling – and here, too, Kline finds the right balance between comedy and sympathy.

Shot on 16mm, Funny Pages has a wonderful grainy glow which brings the film’s wintry world (it’s never specified, but it seems to be set in the early 2000s) to ever more vivid life, as do the frequently wandering camera and probing close-ups. It has a delightful soundtrack (I’m not sure how much if any of it was composed for the film), careful attention to detail, and as many laughs as any film I’ve seen since Everything Everywhere All at Once.

I’m not sure how I feel about the ending; I’m not sure if it’s quite believable, a bit too inconclusive, or if it’s a fitting way of showing how Robert, having really gotten a taste of how dark and cruel life can be, goes back to the place where he can feel safe and where he can see the world through the prism of the comics he loves. And maybe turn his life into a few comics of his own.

Score: 88

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2022) – ***

If Two People was undermined by the miscasting of its leads, Honk for Jesus is almost redeemed by the casting and performances of its own. No, it’s not a strict two-header, but the performances by Regina Hall and Sterling K. Brown are so good that you can overlook how little else there actually is in the film itself.

Before the start of the film, Lee-Curtis Childs (Brown) was the beloved pastor of an Atlanta megachurch, and his wife Trinitie (Hall) was his beloved first lady. But accusations of misconduct led them to temporarily shutter their church, and they now preach only to a devoted congregation of five (down from, oh, around 26,000). They’re planning a big comeback, however; they’ll re-open to the public on Easter Sunday, Lee-Curtis will profess his redemption, and everything will go back to normal. In theory.

But there’s the Sumpters, Keon (Conphidance) and his wife Shakura (Nicole Beharie), to consider. Once members of Lee-Curtis’ church, they’ve struck out on their own with great success, and are planning to open a second church…on Easter Sunday. There’s the lingering shadow of Lee-Curtis’ misconduct and what it’ll cost to resolve his legal troubles. There’s the tension in the Childs’ marriage. And there’s the camera crew which follow them around a lot of the time.

See, much of Honk for Jesus is framed as a mockumentary, complete with calls to leave the room or pause filming and supposed stock footage of Lee-Curtis and Trinitie in their prime. But there are also numerous sequences which are “off-camera” (denoted by a shift in aspect ratio), mainly focusing on what Lee-Curtis and Trinitie do behind closed doors. It’s never a great sign when a film doesn’t stick to its own gimmick.

But even more than that, the film doesn’t seem entirely sure what it wants to be, or what it’s trying to say. At times it aims to be a Spinal Tap-style comedy about the excesses of its characters. Take the tour we get of the Childs’ closet, full of designer clothes which they happily show off (the costuming is spot-on), or the scene where Lee-Curtis strips down to his underwear during a service (a woman in the audience said, “Okay, Sterling!”) so Trinitie can baptize him – during which she holds him underwater for rather a long time. Or the bit with the mime makeup.

At other times, however, it seems to be aiming for something more grounded, more serious. It’s pretty obvious Lee-Curtis is deeply closeted, and there’s a scene where he makes a thinly veiled pass at a member of the documentary crew, but the precise nature of his misconduct is never made clear. That’s pretty heavy territory for a comedy to wade into, and while the film remains tasteful, it also feels oddly non-committal, and ultimately lacks bite.

Really, it’s not all that funny, and the audience I saw it with didn’t laugh all that much. Based on a short of the same name by writer-director Adamma Ebo, it runs 102 minutes, almost seven times as long as the original. It shows in the slack pacing, the extraneous scenes, and the growing realization that Ebo’s only got so much up her sleeve once the key points have been made: megachurches are garish and self-serving, homophobes are often hypocritical (Lee-Curtis preaches against gay marriage), and church folk tend to conceal their feelings beneath a nice veneer.

What keeps the film not just afloat, but genuinely engaging, are its leads. Brown is so perfectly intense, so carefully balanced between commanding fervor and self-indulgent showboating – or, when things go sour, profane tantrums – while Hall is so tightly controlled, so dedicated to keeping up a pleasant facade despite the fury simmering beneath, that you’re happy just watching them strut their stuff. The supporting performances are solid enough – Beharie is quite good as the sweetly smug Shakura – but it’s Hall and Brown’s show and they most certainly deliver.

If only the film had the focus and cohesion to match up to their work, it would be something truly special. Admittedly, if you’ve been a part of this world (I’m neither Black nor Christian) you may find enough of Honk for Jesus rings true to make up for the faults of the script, but otherwise, I recommend you just revel in the magnificent lead performances and not let the rest of film, right down to the limp final note, overshadow them.

Score: 73

RRR (2022) – ****

After making a big impression when it first opened this past March, earning rave reviews and doing far better at the box-office than most Indian imports, RRR was brought back to theaters, first in June (for a so-called EncoRRRe), again in August and again today, at least at my local independent theater. Sure, I could’ve seen it on Netflix, but given the chance, I wanted to see all three hours on a big screen. It was absolutely worth it, and not just because it was shown complete with an intermission (sorry, “InteRRRval”), but because it lived up to the hype; it’s a film of explosive action, thrilling musical numbers, jaw-dropping imagination, and sheer joyous excitement. It’s as subtle as a menagerie of wild animals at a garden party, as far removed from historical reality as anything Cecil B. DeMille ever dreamt up, and a very glossy portrait of Indian society and the struggle for independence (this article breaks down its dubious messaging in detail). But as a go-for-broke spectacle, it’s a damn good time.

In the early 1920s, a young girl of the Gond tribe, Malli (Twinkle Sharma), is “bought” by the callous wife (Alison Doody) of the brutal Governor Buxton (Ray Stevenson). Komaram Bheem (N.T. Rama Rao Jr.) is tasked with bringing her home. Meanwhile, Buxton’s men learn of a plot against his life, and must track down a man they have no information about. A. Rama Raju (Ram Charan), an incredibly capable and ambitious officer in the Imperial Police, volunteers to find the man. Going undercover, he seeks the man without success, while Bheem, posing as a Muslim laborer, tries to figure out a way into Buxton’s heavily fortified palace.

Their paths cross when an explosion on a bridge threatens the life of a child on the river below. With teamwork, a motorcycle, a horse, and a long rope, they rescue the child and become immediate friends – Raju unaware that Bheem is the man he seeks, Bheem unaware that Raju works for the Raj he plans to defy. But Raju’s loyalties are not what they seem, and over the rest of the film’s three-hour running time (it takes 36 minutes just for Raju and Bheem to meet), we get the full truth of his objectives, and a hell of a lot more besides.

I have to wonder if RRR holds up as well for those who’ve seen more Indian films – or films of the “masala” style, combining comedy, drama, action scenes, musical numbers, romance, and so forth. I’ve only seen four Indian films: the Bollywood classic Sholay (which is okay) and Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy (which is brilliant). They couldn’t be less alike; a Hindi-language masala epic and a Bengali-language social-realist trilogy. But the cinema of India is so vast, encompassing so many films in so many languages from so many centers of production, that trying to get a grasp on it, especially for an outsider, is damned difficult.

The Indian reviews seem to be positive but not glowing – not unlike the relatively muted domestic reviews for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon – so you may wish to take my praise with a grain of salt. But I’ll absolutely praise it, because I had a blast watching it.

Just look at the scene where we’re introduced to Raju. Ordered to arrest one man in the middle of an angry mob, he takes a flying leap into the crowd, armed only with a baton and his moustache, and fights his way through them, taking blows to the head, escaping from dogpiles, and enduring all manner of punches and kicks without ever losing a step. He gets his man, and the crowd limps away. It’s as thrilling and beautifully choreographed an action scene as you could want.

Or take the most popular musical number in the film, “Naatu Naatu” (a catchy tune, no doubt) where Raju and Bheem show up an obnoxious Englishman at a colonial party with a display of homegrown dancing so spirited that everyone – especially the ladies – joins in, then drops from exhaustion until only Raju and Bheem are left. When Raju notes that Jenny (Olivia Morris) is rooting for Bheem, he lets his friend win their impromptu dance-off.

For that matter, take the friendship between Raju and Bheem, the real emotional core of the film. They both have female love interests, Raju with his fiancée Sita (Alia Bhatt) and Bheem with Jenny, but throughout the film we’re not rooting for either of them to get the girl, we’re rooting for their friendship to survive everything the film throws in its way. The homoerotic undertones are obvious – I’m far from the first person to pick up on them – but they only deepen our investment in an admittedly shallow story.

After all, there’s not that much depth to Raju or Bheem, and they’re the most complex characters by far; Buxton is so perpetually angry you half expect steam to shoot out of his ears. But they’re performed with great spirit and vigor. Charan is excellent as the hyper-competent Raju, as good at clearing a crowd as he is at cutting a rug, fiercely committed to his aims but torn apart by his personal loyalties. Rama Rao Jr. is also very good as Bheem; he might overdo the oblivious oaf routine at times (especially when Jenny is around; Raju is a very capable wingman), but very convincing as a man of elemental strength and determination. (The only real standout for me in the rest of the cast is Stevenson, who’s very enjoyable as an undiluted bastard.)

S.S. Rajamouli’s direction marries all these elements into a wildly entertaining whole. The script is considerably less impressive (aside from the bullet lecture, there aren’t many memorable lines), but the editing, M.M. Keeravani’s music, the sound, and the special effects (a few dodgy CGI animals aside) are all so effective that you can take it in stride. It gives you three hours of entertainment and justifies nearly every minute.

Score: 87

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul. (2018) – ***

This is the original short film, which runs just 15 minutes and mainly serves as the basis for the roadside-ministry sequence near the end of the feature film, with a few other bits that were moved around in the expansion, namely the encounter with Sister Denetta (Cynthia D. Perry here, Olivia D. Dawson in the film). On the one hand, it’s briskly paced and doesn’t repeat itself as much as the feature does and sticks to the mockumentary format (and the comedic tone) throughout. On the other hand, some of the best scenes in the feature, including the scenes of Lee-Curtis in action, are nowhere to be seen, while the depth the feature adds to the main characters is certainly missed.

Brittany Bellizeare is pretty good as Trinity (note the different spelling), and the short really focuses on her; she doesn’t find the same depths that Regina Hall was able to, but then Hall had far more screen time to work with. In any case, Bellizeare conveys the desperately maintained facade of “bless your heart” niceness quite well. Theodus Crane is okay as Lee-Curtis, but he’s definitely not on the same level as Sterling K. Brown; Brown had a lot more to work with (Lee-Curtis is really a supporting role here), but he also had an intensity that Crane simply lacks.

The short also suffers from an obviously tight budget (the feature was able to afford truly splendid outfits; the Childs’ outfits here look pretty chintzy), and like the feature, it seems to be making a point that’s already been pretty thoroughly made about the hypocrisy of megachurches and the people who attend them. It does pack a greater comedic punch than the feature, but I suspect a short feature (around 80 minutes, say) would’ve been the best showcase for this material, adding depth without having time to get distracted.

Score: 74

The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) – **½

I’ve officially rated 45 of the Oscar winners for Best Picture; I’ve seen 76 of the 95 winners (I’m counting Sunrise), but it’s been years for some of them. I’d like to have a full ranking of the winners and reviews for all of them on this blog, which necessitates a few rewatches, including today’s subject, widely considered one of the weakest winners ever. When I first saw it, I rated it a 57 (low **½) and ranked it the second-worst winner ever, ahead only of The Broadway Melody. But going back to it, I realized it’s not quite that bad, and I’ve raised my score to a 63 (high **½), moving it up a whole spot on my rankings. (Sorry, Cavalcade.) It’s still not a good film, one which deserved neither a win nor a nomination, but it’s got a few more virtues than I once admitted – namely its record of a circus culture which is no more. It’s the rest of the film that’s the problem.

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus is preparing to go on tour. Concerns about the financial viability of a full tour prompt the management to push for a truncated season focusing on the biggest cities. Manager Brad Braden (Charlton Heston) insists that a full tour is necessary and reveals that he’s signed the famed trapeze artist Sebastian (Cornel Wilde) – who insisted on a full tour as well. But he also insists on playing the center ring under the big top, which had been promised to Holly (Betty Hutton), who happens to be Brad’s girlfriend. The management agree to a full tour as long as the circus runs a profit.

When Sebastian arrives, Holly catches his eye, and when she reveals her resentments, he tries to cede the center ring to her, which Brad nixes. Holly decides to compete with Sebastian for the crowd’s admiration, while Sebastian decides to compete with Brad for Holly’s affections. But the womanizing Sebastian has a history with some of their colleagues, including Angel (Gloria Grahame), who does an elephant act with the jealous, possessive Klaus (Lyle Bettger), who soon becomes a mark for Harry (John Kellogg), a midway con man working for Mr. Henderson (Lawrence Tierney).

Oh, and there’s also the matter of Buttons (James Stewart), a clown who’s always in makeup, who never speaks about his past, and seems to have considerable medical experience – and who might just be the fugitive doctor who mercy-killed his terminally ill wife years earlier. All of this climaxes in a catastrophic train crash – which isn’t enough to keep these artists from putting on The Greatest Show on Earth!

Because the film was made with the full cooperation of the Ringling Circus, much of the film serves to show off its size and spectacle, complete with pompous narration by director Cecil B. DeMille. We get ample footage of the circus being set up and taken down (in particular the setting-up of the big top) and extended scenes of the circus’ acts, including “an album of favorite songs,” with the performers passing by in costumes ranging from the Gay 90s to favorite Disney characters, a wide array of clown performances including multiple appearances by the legendary Emmett Kelly, animal performances (controversy over which would bring an end to the old Ringling circus 65 years later), and of course trapeze and high-wire acts, with Holly and Sebastian risking their lives to win over the crowd.

While some aspects of the circus and its performances are decidedly dated (and unintentionally off-putting – you have to wonder what life is like for “Tiny,” the briefly glimpsed fat-man), the skill involved, the colorful presentation (the costumes were deservedly nominated for an Oscar), and the historical value of these scenes keep them relatively engaging…at least for a while. But the film runs a whopping 152 minutes, and the extended performance scenes are partly to blame. (Anne Bauchens’ editing was nominated for an Oscar it didn’t deserve but lost to the tight pacing of High Noon.)

But there’s also the story and characters to deal with – and the dialogue. The film won an Oscar for Best Story, which is fairly ridiculous since the story is full of clichés and is really just a framework for the spectacle; the love…pentagon, I guess? at the heart of the story is especially asinine. But it’s the dialogue, from DeMille’s overwrought narration to the leaden quips the characters trade, that really kills it; a line like Angel’s “Listen, sugar, the only way that you can keep me warm is to wrap me up in a marriage license” only works at all because Grahame puts the right amount of snark into it.

Not that the performances are much to speak of. Heston is believably stiff-backed and hyper-competent (even when he’s ordering an elephant to be given a mix of gin and ginger), and Stewart makes a convincing clown, but Hutton, a capable comedienne, is pretty bad in her dramatic scenes, and Wilde, with a vague European accent, doesn’t even try to take the material seriously. (Bettger tries and fails badly.) Dorothy Lamour is somewhat better as the comically oblivious Phyllis (keep an eye out for a cameo from her Road movie co-stars Bob Hope and Bing Crosby), but there’s a reason this wasn’t nominated for any acting awards.

It only had five nominations total, the other being for DeMille’s direction, but there’s not much direction here; he didn’t stage the circus acts, and aside from the train crash, the scenes outside the big top are nothing special. Political considerations might have helped it beat High Noon, but to beat The Quiet Man, which won Best Director? That’s harder to square. (Hell, even Ivanhoe is better.) And again, there’s the question of why, aside from being a huge hit, it was actually nominated. They hadn’t nominated DeMille for Best Picture since Cleopatra. And then he followed this with The Ten Commandments – a flawed film, but a better one. It didn’t win.

Score: 63

Turning Red (2022) – ***½

Being 13 isn’t easy. It never has been, and it sure isn’t for Meilin Lee (“Mei” to her friends and family). She’s a straight-A student, has a trio of ride-or-die best friends, and lives up to her mother Ming’s (very high) expectations. But she’s beginning to feel the strain, beginning to be interested in boys, and one morning she wakes up in the form of a huge red panda. Ming assumes she’s crossed another threshold (“Did the…red peony bloom?”) but learns the truth and reveals that all the women in their family have this ability. A special ritual will contain her “inner panda,” but it happens to be on the same night that Mei’s favorite band is doing a concert in town.

Oh, and it’s 2002. At least she’s in Toronto. (I don’t think Disney would dare to depict post-9/11 American in any kind of realistic fashion.)

I would’ve seen Turning Red months ago, but Disney relegated it to Disney+ (which I don’t have), and despite coming out on DVD and Blu-Ray, it wasn’t available through Redbox (since, you know, all the rental stores are dead and gone). But there was a copy available at the library, so not only have I seen it, but I didn’t give Disney any extra money in the process. So there.

On the plus side, Turning Red is one of Pixar’s most culturally specific films, being set in the Chinese-Canadian community of Toronto twenty years since – long enough ago for there to be marked differences in the way people live (less phones, for one), but not so long ago that it feels like a traditional period piece. The music is only a bit different (4*Town is a loving riff on boy bands of the era like O-Town and 98 Degrees), while the fashions are somewhat different, but it’s close enough to the present that it seems just a bit odd to me.

I also like how naturally the ethnocultural aspects of the story are handled. The Lees manage a family temple (heredity is a key aspect of the story in more ways than one), Mei and Ming watch Chinese soap operas for fun, and authentic cuisine dominates their table, but it’s all depicted organically as one part of Mei’s increasingly complex life. That includes Ming’s flirtation with the “tiger mother” archetype, but for the most part this is also handled with nuance, and it’s obvious director/co-writer Domee Shi is speaking from the heart.

She does so likewise in depicting Mei and her circle of friends; their ready acceptance of Mei when they learn the truth (another aspect I appreciate is Mei’s decision to embrace the panda side of her) is heartening, and their dynamic rings true enough that you wish the film had spent just a little more time on it. Likewise, Mei’s relationship to her primary foil, the obnoxious Tyler, rings true.

Where the film falls just a bit short, I think, is in trying to reconcile a pretty well-observed setting and solidly drawn characters with a relatively predictable story. The highs and lows feel too preordained; when Mei briefly falls out with her friends, it’s too quickly glossed over. When Mei finally pushes back on Tyler (after he makes some especially nasty comments), everyone around her seems to take his side, and the film lets him completely off the hook just a few scenes later. It struck a sour note with me. (Also, the ramifications of what happens during the climax are glossed over awfully quickly.)

And ultimately, until a really lovely climactic scene in which Mei really comes to understand what her mother has been going through for decades, there just isn’t quite enough about Turning Red that’s truly great. It’s consistently good, often very funny, and has two very strong vocal performances from Rosalie Chiang as Mei and Sandra Oh as Ming. The songs by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell capture the early-Aughts style perfectly. And red pandas are adorable. But for me, it’s just lacking that extra something to push it that little bit higher.

Score: 86

Barbarian (2022) – ***½

I hadn’t necessarily planned on seeing Barbarian before calling it a week, but the reviews were stronger than expected and I had the evening free, so I went for it. As luck would have it, I ran into an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in ages, who happened to be seeing it as well, so we saw it together. Nice how these things work out – and the movie’s quite enjoyable as well, though I’m not sure how much I should say, since a lot of the fun comes in seeing where the story goes, while the strength of the film is that, as strange as it gets, it plays fair with us all the way through.

If you’ve seen the trailer, you know the set-up. Tess Marshall (Georgina Campbell) arrives in Detroit one rainy night, pulling up to the Airbnb she’s rented, only to discover that someone else is staying there. Keith Toshko (Bill Skarsgård) seems nice – too nice, even, and a bit too eager to have Tess stay in the house with him rather than looking for a hotel, and to make sure she sees how he’s not slipping anything into the bottle of wine they share. But aside from his having a nightmare and her door (he insists on taking the couch and giving her the bedroom) opening in the night, everything seems all right the following morning.

Suffice to say, their house will turn out to be more than it appears. And this film will cover more ground than you would expect, touching upon male/female dynamics, urban decay, #MeToo, personal accountability, and police hostility, in addition to serving up a full array of horror tropes garnished with a good deal of dark humor.

After all, writer-director Zach Cregger was a founding member of The Whitest Kids U’ Know. (Remember the Abraham Lincoln sketch? He played Lincoln.) Thankfully, he keeps the humor and the horror well-balanced, crafting some admirably tense scenes and some effectively disturbing ones – and that’s before we get to the real horror of the story. After all, a young woman alone with a young man she doesn’t know, in the middle of the night no less, is quite tense to begin with.

Right up to the end, you’re really not sure what will happen, because Cregger has done a solid job playing with our expectations, but aside from one aspect that edges slightly into the supernatural, he again plays fair with us to the point that we damn well want to find out. It’s a good show on his part, and the technical aspects are up to par, with some really fascinating production design and some excellent makeup as well.

The acting is also strong. Campbell is believably terrified and simultaneously drawn deeper into the house’s secrets, while determined and steadfast enough that you can wholeheartedly root for her. Skarsgård is perfectly cast as the guy who’s so nice it’s terrifying, and Justin Long is just as well cast as a sleazy skunk who’s at least occasionally aware of his shortcomings, but usually only in hindsight. And if you’re wondering just how fits into all of this…watch the movie.

If there’s a major problem with Barbarian, it’s that Cregger sets up more story elements and characters than he’s able to fully develop; there’s one sequence in particular which feels like the vestige of a much longer plot thread, which was kept mainly because it probably cost a decent amount to shoot. (I’d have watched the whole thing.) And the final scenes feel somewhat rushed, since Cregger is trying to fit horror, story development, and thematic development into a fairly small amount of cinematic real estate.

Still, I ultimately quite enjoyed Barbarian, and for horror buffs – I don’t consider myself one, though I’ve managed to see quite a few horror films I really like – it should be a delight. Solidly recommended.

Score: 83