5/3-5/16

Denis Villenueve's Sicario //

Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Mysterious Object at Noon //

Bryan Fuller's Dust Bunny //

"An orphan girl hires a hit man to kill the monster under her bed" is a simple, fun premise for a kinda-twisted fantasy-action movie; let's call it premise A. "An orphan girl thinks a monster ate her family, but a hit man thinks they were killed by an organized crime outfit looking to kill him instead" is a slightly more complex premise for a maybe grittier crime film; let's call it premise B. The two premises seem close enough to be compatible, but this film, which tries to synthesize them elegantly, somehow labors mightily under the burden of getting them to fit together: it expends tons of narrative energy and wastes both momentum and goodwill just trying to get the characters pointed in the same direction. There isn't enough chemistry between the girl (Sophie Sloan) and the hit man (Mads Mikkelsen) to make it fun watching them try to convince one another about which version of events is correct, and the film is even less interesting as more characters weigh in (both Sigourney Weaver's handler and Sheila Atim's figure of institutional authority feel like they bog down the narrative rather than advancing it).

This problem extends to the production design, which is... doing a lot, in a sort of Tim Burton kind of way (if you are feeling really generous you could maybe say they are doing a Jeunet and Caro thing). We're presented with a sort of opulent, overstuffed world that is not without its detailed, material charms—honestly, it works marvelously for a kind of tale unfolding in a phantasmagorical, fairy-tale city. But when real-world institutions like the Department of Child Services or the FBI crash into the narrative it feels like we're getting intrusions from a more mundane story, as though Willy Wonka were interrupted by a plotline where he has to deal with OSHA inspectors showing up at his door. (You can honestly imagine that being interesting—after all, some of Burton's best work (Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands) points the way to how you can represent bureaucracy and authority inventively in a fantastical world, but this film isn't prepared to rise to that level.)

I saw a review of this on here that described it as "an R-rated movie for children." They meant it as a compliment, but I think it actually points the finger at the tonal indecisiveness that runs straight through the middle of this film, a sort of crack running through the whole structure that the fancy wallpaper can't ever quite convincingly hide.

Yorgos Lanthimos' Bugonia //

Given the topics this film deals with, it's a little bit odd that it feels as apolitical as it does. Watching it, I got the sense that Lanthimos (and/or screenwriter Will Tracy) were eyeing the polarized territory of 2026 and kinda declining to stake their flag anywhere in particular. As a result, there's something a little mushy at the core of this. And for what?: I'm not sure its rhetorical wiggling totally paid off, given that I've seen people criticizing this for its validation of certain strains of right-wing thinking and one must imagine that there are an equal number of people dismissing it as just more Cultural Elite Leftism. 

And yet I'm not sure that this movie really needs a clearer point of view, and in fact one of the film's great maneuvers is the cleverness by which it shifts which characters we feel sympathetic for with each passing scene. That might ultimately leave us with a slightly off aftertaste: despite a terrifically staged final montage, we maybe walk away feeling like the film doesn't have much skin in its own game. But every moment of the runtime is legitimately gripping, thanks to Lanthimos' always-able direction, and it was easy enough to set aside my qualms and enjoy the ride it offers as a two-hour suspense thriller with some black-comedy elements, nothing more.

The performances help this along, of course—Stone, Plemons, and Delbis are all contributing good enough work that the weaker aspects of the screenplay barely register until later. (In this regard, this film resembled The Menu, another satire-shaped film penned by Will Tracy, which also suffered a bit from a certain strategic fuzziness to its aim but which also won me back with fun performances from its cast.)