The Good, the Bad and the Surprising, Six Recent Releases that I've Seen

Fair Play

Hey kids, guess what time it is? You’re right! It’s time for me to catch up with some of the recent releases I’ve seen. How did you know? It’s movie season (much more fun that cold and flu season) and many of the better films of the year are popping up in theaters and on streaming services. Let’s have a look at some of the new films I’ve seen lately.

Killers of the Flower Moon (Scorsese). Killers fits in perfectly with the kind of pictures that the great Martin Scorsese has been making this century. In other words it’s very good but nowhere near the quality he produced with such classics as Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Age of Innocence, King of Comedy and Mean Streets, all made between 1973 and 1993. Like other Scorsese films of the past twenty-five years, Killers is bloated (206 minutes) though never boring, features some fine performances and is nicely edited and beautiful to look at. I just wish he were capable of making leaner, tighter movies. Here are running times — in minutes -- for other Scorsese films of recent vintage: The Irishman 209, Silence 161, The Wolf of Wall Street 180, Shutter Island 138, The Departed 151, The Aviator 170, Gangs of New York 167. I greatly admire Shutter Island and The Aviator and like the other films but they’re all excessive. Not just in length but in what we are expected to absorb. Mind you I hardly yawned throughout Killers but there was so much there that weeks later the story does not stick with me. It’s possible to make great films that are long (The Godfather, Heaven’s Gate, Tess, Barry Lyndon) but it’s rare. I feel as though Scorsese is overdoing his films, showing us too much. Killers is another example.

Fair Play (Domont). This is one of the best relationship movies I’ve ever seen. It’s a study in the dissolution of a relationship that initially seems perfect. It’s the opposite of rom-coms where the mis-matched couple find love. The two leads, Phoebe Dynevor and especially Alden Ehrenreich are transcendent, capturing the full range of emotions that being in a love-to hate relationship entails. Fair Play is intimate film-making, at times claustrophobic. It can be uncomfortable as if we are in restaurant where a loud, awkward scene is unfolding at another table. There is so much to unpack about relationships and about the clash of work and personal lives. It’s a film that deserves to be studied and seen by a wide audience. 

Anatomy of a Fall (Triet). It’s a difficult movie to say much about without spoilers as the ending is so critical to any discussion one can have about it. Suffice to say that Anatomy takes a long time getting to its denouement but is worth the ride. As much as anything Anatomy is a courtroom drama and a character study with it’s long hard look at the wife — played brilliantly by Sandra Hüller — of a man who jumps/falls/is pushed out of high window to his death. She is bereaved, she is accused, she seems both guilty and guiltless. There is something very French about Anatomy, mostly in the way that it is studied and measured, avoiding the spectacular but making the most out of the fascinating world of details. Details of deaths and of the lives we lead.

The Holdovers

The Holdovers (Payne). Stubborn old teacher facing off against angry, precocious teen. A mixed match pair on a road trip. Two opposites fighting each other AND inner demons. You pretty much know where the story is going at every point. There’s nothing original here in terms of the situation or the lead characters. We’ve seen it all before. But have we seen it told as well? Have previous iterations of this story had such strong leads? The answer to both might well be, no. I enjoyed the hell out of The Holdovers despite it’s predictably. Alexander Payne knows how to make a thoroughly watchable film (see Nebraska, About Schmidt, Sideways, Election). Paul Giamatti is as good an actor as there is these days and Dominic Sessa in his screen debut very much holds his own opposite him. Da’Vine Joy Randolph has been turning up a lot lately  (for example on Only Murders in the Building) and is proving to be an excellent supporting player and probably due for a significant lead role. She is an excellent third wheel here. The Holdovers offers no surprises but it’s still surprisingly good.

The Killer (Fincher). A watchable film but ultimately empty calories. There’s no real substance, nothing to be learned from this story of a paid assassin. Michael Fassbinder plays a hit man with all the charm of toll both. There’s nothing interesting about him or the story. There’s some tension, there is a minor surprise, there’s an action scene — that goes on too long to be credulous — and there is much musing and philosophizing by the eternally thoughtful and ruminative killer. But it all adds about to not much of anything. I don’t honestly understand why this movie was made, especially by a talent like David Fincher. 

Rustin (Wolfe). I’m surprised that many critics are muted in their praise of Rustin, rightfully praising lead actor Colman Domingo but wanting more from the film as a whole. I thought there was plenty there and it was mostly damn good. Bayard Rustin always seemed to me a peripheral figure in the civil rights movement, I knew him to have been a key organizer of 1963’s March on Washington and was also aware that he’d been considered somewhat of a liability to the movement because of his homosexuality and past affiliations with the community party. A triple threat for the likes of J Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Rustin helped fill in my understanding of the man and made me want to learn more. It also gave me much respect for this singular figure. Domingo’s bravura performance is the centerpiece of this fine film but kudos to the overall casting (Chris Rock was excellent as Roy Wilkins) and the look and feel of this fine film.