Daddy's Home

DADDY’S HOME (Sean Anders, 2015)

As a relatively new stepfather to two kids in DADDY’S HOME, Brad Whitaker (WIll Ferrell) wants nothing more in the world than for the children to accept him as a paternal figure. It seems that his relationship with Dylan (Owen Vaccaro) and Megan (Scarlett Estevez) is finally reaching that point. Dylan wants to speak to him about his problems with a bully, and Megan asks him to accompany her to a father/daughter dance. When the kids’ biological father Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) calls Sara (Linda Cardellini), their mom and his ex-wife, to say that he’s coming for a visit, she resists the idea, but Brad welcomes the opportunity for him to maintain a role in Dylan and Megan’s lives.

It doesn’t take long for the mild-mannered, smooth jazz radio executive to understand why Sara expressed concerns about inviting his cool, fit counterpart into their house, yet Brad continues to give Dusty the benefit of the doubt even when he’s actively undermining his authority at home and upstaging him at work. Their competition for the affection of the kids escalates to absurd measures. More critically, it strains Brad and Sara’s marriage, which was Dusty’s intention all along.

DADDY’S HOME seeks to mine a stepfather’s insecurities and desire for total acceptance in a family in the way that MEET THE PARENTS found humor in wanting to impress future in-laws. While Ferrell’s Brad starts on a firmer foundation, he’s like Ben Stiller’s MEET THE PARENTS protagonist in that both face off with hostile, more stereotypically masculine men fending them off as perceived interlopers. Brad’s situation may be more specific than one about the universal anxiety in wishing to gain approval from a significant other’s parents, but what he struggles with is not significantly different than any outsider striving to get inside a group.

The opportunities to satirize the degrees to which an adoptive and biological father will passive-aggressively and nakedly combat for supremacy are seemingly countless, yet DADDY’S HOME contains about enough ideas to fill a film trailer. Although there’s some amusement in expected scenes of gift-giving one-upmanship and handyman prowess or lack thereof, the film lacks imagination. Dusty’s less showy efforts to erode Brad’s reputation, like his insinuations of racism, tend to be funnier than the more obvious gags.

The film’s stylistic tug of war is waged between the heart-warming, all-ages comedy it wants to be and the nasty streak residing in the hearts of its adversaries. DADDY’S HOME feels as though it’s restraining Brad and Dusty from unleashing hell on each other and, in its relative politeness, mutes the humor in their clashes. Ferrell has his moments as he tries to be a good sport while being humiliated. Wahlberg can be funny playing a caricature of male ruggedness and unflappability. DADDY’S HOME just doesn’t let them run as wild as they could and suffers for it.

Grade: C

Sisters

SISTERS (Jason Moore, 2015)

Amy Poehler and Tina Fey are funny, likeable performers, but they can’t appear in a film and make it golden by sheer force of personality. It feels as though that’s what is being asked of them in SISTERS, a slack comedy that wagers the audience will be tickled enough by seeing them behave irresponsibly and hearing them deliver a good one-liner every now and then. Their rambunctious dispositions shine in moments, like during their shameless, suggestive flirtation with a guy landscaping his yard and when they are confronted by an old school acquaintance they didn’t invite to their bash. Fey and Poehler’s characters, the Ellis sisters, know they possess power in the situations and aren’t ashamed to wield it with authority. SISTERS clicks when their naughty streaks emerge because they’re the aggressors and flails when the Ellises’ recklessness is like a party trick they’re called upon to impress everyone with.

Poehler plays the younger sister Maura, a divorced nurse who is preternaturally nice to seemingly everyone she encounters. Not only is she upset when her parents (James Brolin and Dianne Wiest) inform her that she and her older sister Kate (Fey) need to return to Orlando to clean out their bedrooms because they’re selling the family home, but it’s also put upon her to share the news with her irresponsible sibling. Maura gets Kate to accompany her on a trip to Florida without providing the underlying reason. The unemployed and virtually homeless Kate is happy to get out of town. When they arrive at their childhood home, they discover that their parents have already sold it.

If the sisters have to accept that a part of their past will no longer remain in family ownership, then they intend to say goodbye with a massive final party at it. They invite old high school friends, many of whom welcome a break from domestic predictability and a chance to relive their youthful recklessness. Maura and Kate agree to switch roles from when they were teenagers, with the younger sister free to cut loose and and seduce neighbor James (Ike Barinholtz) while Kate keeps a watchful eye on her and their guests. Things get out of hand, though.

Longtime SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE writer Paula Pell’s SISTERS screenplay lacks sting. Even as it trots out some vulgarity intended for shock value, it produces less of a zap than the static discharge after rubbing one’s feet on the carpet and touching a doorknob. The mushy quality to the jokes reflects how a comedy sketch writer pressed against deadline turns to the easiest punchlines than funnier options that need more time to be worked on. The scenario is set up and resolved rather quickly, leaving an enormous amount of time devoted to the party itself. These scenes of suburbanites shedding their inhibitions seem to last forever with diminishing comedic returns.

SISTERS’ underlying message is similar to NEIGHBORS regarding coming to terms with one’s age in life, but who cares about what a film is saying when everything wrapped around it is thoroughly mediocre? Poehler and Fey emerge unscathed from the lackluster film, even though this stands as yet another deflating reminder of the uninspired state of mainstream film comedy.

Grade: C-

Concussion

CONCUSSION (Peter Landesman, 2015)

Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County Coroner’s Office seems like an unlikely place for a challenger to the National Football League to emerge, yet that’s where Dr. Bennet Omalu (Will Smith) makes an important discovery in CONCUSSION. The Nigerian immigrant and absurdly well-educated neuropathologist has no particular interest in or objection to the American sport until he performs an autopsy on former Pittsburgh Steelers great Mike Webster (David Morse). Omalu believes that repeated blows to the head are responsible for causing the early dementia Webster experienced. He publishes his findings on chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, and naϊvely believes the NFL will be grateful to learn about risks to their players’ health.

Fair or not, CONCUSSION does not compare favorably to SPOTLIGHT, another recent process film about exposing a systemic problem that leaders have hidden or ignored. CONCUSSION well-assembled but indistinct scenes of research in the first half show Omalu working at personal and financial cost to find out why professional football players are exhibiting such unusual psychological distress that result in premature deaths. He pursues the answer to a question not being asked and arrives at a conclusion that could threaten a hugely profitable corporation. When it sticks to the work Omalu does in the morgue and at his kitchen table, CONCUSSION grants a glimpse into the thankless efforts that go into producing such a study.

After Omalu and colleagues have published, CONCUSSION falls prey to the trap of needing to make the NFL into the proverbial moustache-twirling fat cat villains with pervasive menacing influence like one of James Bond’s SPECTRE foes. There are intimations that the league may have a hand in the FBI leveling trumped up charges at Omalu’s boss Dr. Cyril Wecht (Albert Brooks) to remove him from office and coming after the good doctor too. CONCUSSION also suggests the possibility of he and his girlfriend-turned wife Prema (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) being followed. Such finger-pointing and dramatic turns pull CONCUSSION into thriller territory that is at odds with the research and policy matters at hand.

CONCUSSION succeeds in showing the toll football took on some gridiron heroes and their families, but ultimately the story belongs to Omalu. Smith portrays him as a gentle and generous man, but the film and performance struggle to develop him beyond being an honorable do-gooder. Omalu’s romance with Prema generates some nice moments, especially when he talks about being an outsider, yet these scenes stray from the film’s focus.

Grade: C-

Spotlight

SPOTLIGHT (Tom McCarthy, 2015)

At the urging of new editor Marty Baron (Liev Schreiber) in SPOTLIGHT the Boston Globe’s four-person investigative reporting unit directs its attention to the story of an area priest who molested children. The team, known as Spotlight, consists of Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams), and Matt Carroll (Brian d’Arcy James) begins work on the story in 2001 and soon learns that the abuse isn’t limited to one bad man in the Catholic Archdiocese. Rather, they uncover a pattern of institutional cover-up in which the problematic priests are moved among parishes.

SPOTLIGHT presents a thrilling examination of how journalists research and report a story. Although the film contains mystery elements, its attention is focused on the method and dogged determination to reveal the horrible truth that, in this instance, seems to have been an open secret among certain people in power. Writer-director Tom McCarthy and his co-writer Josh Singer excel at retracing the Globe reporters’ steps to connect information hiding in plain sight and gain access to documents that have been buried or removed. This may be the first and last time creating spreadsheets from rooting through old church directories can be described as compelling viewing.

Clearly the abusive priests serve as villains in SPOTLIGHT, but none of them are the ultimate targets of the reporting. To borrow video game terminology, the big boss awaiting the print heroes is the Catholic Church itself. The Spotlight team is squaring off against an antagonist without a face, yet McCarthy finds subtle ways to remind of the size and prevalence of their opponent. Cathedrals and their spires are often seen in the rear of shots as if ominously looming over the city and across the street from the publication. Church bells are heard in the background, one more indication of how it permeates the community.

The members of the investigative unit identify as Catholic, even if they may not be practicing. The majority of their newspaper’s readership is Catholic too. McCarthy and Singer do well at using the coded language groups employ to stress and enforce rightly held attitudes among those within a circle. The screenplay and the actors are also on point in demonstrating how reporters have to talk, almost as confessors, to their interviewees so they can extract key information. As a process film, SPOTLIGHT is exemplary.

Grade: A

In the Heart of the Sea

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA (Ron Howard, 2015)

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA tells the story purported to have inspired Herman Melville’s MOBY-DICK. The author (Ben Whishaw) shows up in the film’s framing device as he interviews an old Tom Nickerson (Brendan Gleeson), the last survivor of the 1820s tragedy when a whale destroyed the ship the Essex. In the flashback scenes Tom (Tom Holland) is a boy who finds work on a whaling vessel along with experience-challenged captain George Pollard (Benjamin Walker) and first mate Owen Chase (Chris Hemsworth).

IN THE HEART OF THE SEA has the basics for a rip-roaring adventure yarn with the chase for magnificent beasts of the ocean and fight for survival in dire circumstances, but director Ron Howard and screenwriter Charles Leavitt are not able to locate a center for this incredible story. Although Tom is speaking with Melville, Hemsworth’s brawny sailor functions as the default main character, leaving the storyteller as a supporting player in his own life’s narrative. It’s likely why there’s a curious distance between the action and the emotional current. In his telling Tom doesn’t create much of an inner life for himself as a young man, let alone Owen or any of the various seamen aboard the Essex.

Howard demonstrates more interest in the day-to-day operation of whaling expedition. The most exciting sequence comes as the men capture and kill their first whale on the voyage. Howard pinpoints the dangers, from occupying tiny boats beside the enormous creatures to needing to allow for enough rope to a harpooned whale so it doesn’t drag them to their doom, and the disgusting reality of disassembling a whale into its saleable parts. It’s fascinating to observe what was required to succeed in this kind of living.

Toward the end IN THE HEART OF THE SEA strives to achieve meaning of some kind, but the attempt feels tacked on to a story that has never quite understood what or who it is about. The seafoam green visual palette, water level shots, and heavily scarred CGI whale add some verve to what is otherwise a frustrating account of tragedy.

Grade: C

The Night Before

THE NIGHT BEFORE (Jonathan Levine, 2015)

Fourteen years ago Isaac (Seth Rogen) and Chris (Anthony Mackie) took out their grieving friend Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) on Christmas Eve for a night of chemically-enhanced celebration in New York City. Ethan’s parents had died recently, and he needed a boost to his spirits. In THE NIGHT BEFORE the three made this raucous time an annual tradition, but it’s agreed that this year’s holiday revelry will be the last. The guys are in their mid-thirties, and two now have other obligations upon them. Isaac will soon become a father. Chris is enjoying the benefits of fame from a breakthrough late in his professional football career.

Ethan, on the other hand, remains adrift in menial jobs and is moody about his break-up with Diana (Lizzy Caplan). He seems reluctant to let go of the Christmas Eve debauchery, but if this will be the final year of it, he’s prepared to do it up big. Employing sticky fingers as he works in a coat check, Ethan procures passes to the Nutcracka Ball, the city’s preeminent party at a secret location. Although the friends are looking forward to an evening of mindless fun, circumstances cause them to confront their greatest fears about the future.

Although Rogen doesn’t have a screenplay credit, THE NIGHT BEFORE touches upon a theme that pops up in several of the comedies he’s starred in, NEIGHBORS in particular. Rogen and his on-screen buddies wrestle with being responsible grown-ups while wanting to hang onto the freedom and recklessness that marked their young adulthood. Rogen’s Isaac has been taking impending fatherhood seriously, so his wife Betsy (Jillian Bell) grants him a free pass--and gives him a box of random drugs--for the good and supportive behavior he’s demonstrated through her pregnancy. Rather than letting Isaac cut loose, the permission to be irresponsible makes him face up to his anxieties about the major life changes that await and for which he feels ill-prepared. Filled with existential panic while in an altered state, Rogen is funny as he tries to keep his composure while high as a kite at Midnight Mass and in front of a friend’s mother.

As the guys’ pot supplier Mr. Green, Michael Shannon counters Rogen’s hysterical energy with a dry wit filtered through a typically intense performance. Mr. Green and his product serve a purpose akin to the ghosts in A CHRISTMAS CAROL, making Shannon ideal as someone whose presence indicates menace streaked with ribbons of humor to help his clients’ get through their cloudy mental states.

While THE NIGHT BEFORE produces a decent share of funny moments, it runs into a fair number of bumps in the road. Director Jonathan Levine and his co-writers can’t quite find the right mix of outrageous humor and dramatic material. Ethan is kind of a downer as the adventure goes deep into the night. The film’s hedonistic attitude gets tempered as THE NIGHT BEFORE advances toward a sentimental conclusion. That’s par for the course for films like this one, but it makes for a weird fit alongside Chris’s subplot regarding his steroid use to become a star toward the end of his football career. Like a sampler box of chocolates, some of it is good, and some is better left untouched.

Grade: C

Creed

CREED (Ryan Coogler, 2015)

CREED’s Adonis Johnson (Michael B. Jordan) is the product of an affair and never knew his father, so he has plenty of conflicted feelings about the man the world knew and loved as heavyweight champion boxer Apollo Creed. Rather than going by his mythological name, he prefers to be called Donnie and doesn’t trumpet his heritage. He inherited physical gifts from his father, though, although he exhibits them on the sly by fighting on the weekend in Mexico than in a recognized organization.

Donnie decides that he must follow his heart to be a boxer, so he moves from Los Angeles to Philadelphia and tracks down Apollo’s old rival and friend Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) in the hope that this other boxing legend will train him.

As the seventh film in the ROCKY series, it would stand to reason that CREED might play like a retread. Instead co-writer and director Ryan Coogler delivers a familiar but dynamic offshoot. CREED takes a comfortable position in the tradition of these underdog sports movies and builds upon it. The story beats are similar, yet as a character study of a different up-and-comer and an icon who moves from inside ring to the corner, it is surprisingly affecting. Stallone, who did not have a hand in writing a ROCKY-related film for the first time, is critical to the film’s emotional tug. Rocky isn’t the last of his kind but is the last from his circle, and in part CREED is about coming to grips with that. Stallone plays Rocky with a sadness about him. He isn’t looking to regain past glories. He misses the people who used to be around him, not the titles. Stallone wears the heartache well, revealing the soft spots inside the warrior’s body he still possesses. Coogler conveys Rocky’s melancholy with subtle touches. Paulie’s old room in Rocky’s house remains the way it was when he died. Rocky keeps a folding chair in a tree at the cemetery, a sign that he’s a regular visitor at his trainer and wife’s graves.

Although it’s inevitable that CREED will build up to a big fight, Coogler is more interesting in Donnie’s internal struggle to reconcile where he comes from and who he is. The fight is with himself, which Rocky wisely points out in a training exercise in front of a mirror. Jordan plays Donnie as someone at once confident in himself and insecure about a background over which he had no control.

The emotional beats achieve the strongest reactions, whether between fighter and trainer or Donnie and Tessa Thompson’s Bianca, a singer that he falls for. Still, the boxing scenes pack their share of thrills, especially Donnie’s first billed fight that Coogler stages in a single unbroken shot. The technique dazzles while serving a dramatic purpose of understanding what it feels like to step into the ring for a first professional fight.

Grade: A

The Good Dinosaur

THE GOOD DINOSAUR (Peter Sohn, 2015)

THE GOOD DINOSAUR considers what might have happened if the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs never occurred. In the animated film’s imagined millions of years after the devastating meteor misses Earth, talking dinosaurs have developed agricultural practices while non-verbal humans in roaming packs are among the pesky critters that try to swipe their stockpiled food. Arlo (Raymond Ochoa), an undersized apatosaurus among his two siblings, is tasked with catching and eliminating the pest. The feral boy is caught but gets away, leading Arlo’s father (Jeffrey Wright) to take the youngster in search of the thief and finish the job.

A flash flood sweeps away Poppa, so a grieving Arlo blames the boy for his father’s death. When he turns up again, Arlo shows no restraint in chasing after him, but he gets knocked out while in pursuit and awakens far from home. The boy proves to be Arlo’s means for surviving, as he provides him with food and protection. He shows dog-like loyalty to the dinosaur, thus leading to Arlo naming him Spot (Jack Bright). He’ll need the help as they encounter fierce creatures on the long journey home.

For better or worse, a new Pixar film bears the weight of expectations of being nothing less than great. With its visual elements THE GOOD DINOSAUR lives up to the high standards set by its predecessors. The natural scenery’s photorealistic rendering captures the beauty of land, vegetation, and geological formations untouched by civilization. It’s astonishing to compare how far computer animation has come since TOY STORY was released in 1995. Director Peter Sohn uses some lovely visual storytelling too, especially in the scene with Arlo and Spot finding a common language through sticks and sand to share their tragic family backgrounds.

As great as THE GOOD DINOSAUR is to look at, the story is a jumble of scenes in which a fearful dinosaur child matures through a daunting quest home. Arlo wanders through this archetypal western tale without clear markers of progress or picking up notable supporting characters. The narrative just sort of ends without any awareness of how close he’s getting to the homestead. The biggest threat on the journey come in the form of a trio of pterodactyls who aren’t as good-hearted as they initially seem. These nasty beasts introduce a fair amount of terror to their scenes but are in the film for so little time that their impact is diminished.

THE GOOD DINOSAUR doesn’t shy away from the hostile nature of the world and those encountered in it, which may make the film scarier for younger viewers than might be anticipated. Death and imminent harm hang over the film, yet the greater takeaways is the bond formed between a dinosaur and his pet boy as they face conflict. THE GOOD DINOSAUR does lighten the gravity of the situation with some loopy humor, such as Arlo and Spot’s awkwardness at bathroom time and their hallucinogenic visions after eating fruit. It’s unlikely to be anyone’s favorite Pixar film, but the majesty of its visuals and scattered idiosyncrasies are rewarding.

Grade: B-

Mr. Holmes

MR. HOLMES (Bill Condon, 2015)

93-year-old Sherlock Holmes (Ian McKellen) has been long retired to a house in the country where he tends to his bees and tries to bolster his failing memory in MR. HOLMES. It has been thirty-five years since his last case. Dr. Watson’s recounting of the matter of a man who wished for the renowned detective to follow his grief-stricken wife strikes Sherlock as a fiction lacking motive for the identified culprit, yet he struggles to recall the details of the case. He draws encouragement to keep working on the mystery from Roger (Milo Parker), the sharp and inquisitive son of his housekeeper Mrs. Munro (Laura Linney).

Sherlock is also using this time to reflect on a recent visit to postwar Japan at the request of Mr. Umezaki (Hiroyuki Sanada). Having written on the benefits of royal jelly, he has been summoned to help find the prickly ash, which, like the bees’ secretion, is thought to assist one’s memory. This encounter may have a connection with Sherlock’s past as well, although he dismisses ever knowing the man he is said to have consulted.

With Sherlock Holmes as the main character, the expectation is that MR. HOLMES will yield a good mystery. In this instance it is not so much within the case he is trying to solve but the enlightenment that he discovers regarding his nature. It is a film first and foremost about loneliness. Sherlock has devoted his life to the practice of logic, but in his current state he learns that it too has limitations. Nevertheless, screenwriter Jeffrey Hatcher includes plenty of marvelous details indicative of a larger design that can crack the drama’s secrets through Holmesian deductive reasoning.

McKellen is splendid as a brusque logician who can seem heartless with offhand remarks yet takes such apparent delight in a boy who wishes to hone his mind in a similar manner. McKellen’s eyes dance with the spark of a keen intellect underneath the elderly make-up. His Sherlock enjoys being the smartest person in the room, yet he also shows a patient teacher who becomes aware of how his cold, calculating manner requires the warmth and understanding of social courtesies.

Grade: A-

Experimenter: The Stanley Milgram Story

EXPERIMENTER: THE STANLEY MILGRAM STORY (Michael Almereyda, 2015)

In EXPERIMENTER: THE STANLEY MILGRAM STORY social psychologist Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) studies obedience at Yale beginning in 1961. Volunteers in the experiment are given the role of teacher to a man they’ve met but who is not visible in the adjoining room during the test. This person is referred to as the learner, and he is asked to remember word pairings. If the learner supplies an incorrect answer, the teacher is instructed to give an electric shock of 45 volts. The voltage increases with wrong replies up to 450 volts. The learner is not actually being shocked but makes exclamations of pain and requests to stop, which can be heard through the wall. Although an observer in the room with the teacher will tell the participant to continue with the experiment, the teacher could quit. Milgram found that most do not. The experiment makes him famous but draws criticism that follows him through life.

EXPERIMENTER is staged as if it takes place within an artificial environment. Obvious chromakey backgrounds are used for period settings. The confines of the research space, the classroom, and other private spaces suggest the feeling that every action and utterance is presented for observation behind a one-way mirror. The muted visual strategy points to the clinical nature of this biographical portrait, although it’s not an outsider looking into who the experimental psychologist is. Sarsgaard as Milgram frequently addresses the camera directly, as if the film is the experimenter’s investigation into himself.

With this unconventional approach writer-director Michael Almereyda avoids the trappings of biopic cliches. While EXPERIMENTER touches upon Milgram’s most famous work, it isn’t a checklist of big life moments but a psychological probing of how his background and obsessions informed him to study the banality of evil. Sarsgaard conveys the seriousness of Milgram’s pursuit but retains awareness of the humor and absurdity that can emerge in such labor.

Grade: A-

The Peanuts Movie

THE PEANUTS MOVIE (Steve Martino, 2015)

THE PEANUTS MOVIE takes Charlie Brown and friends from the comics pages and traditional 2D animation to the 3D computer-animated realm, albeit with a look that is not drastically different with what is familiar from Charles Schulz’s work in strip, TV, and film form. The animation has sort of a plush toy quality about it rather than the sleek, hyperrealist plasticity that is often associated with textures in the medium. Those warmer surfaces allow THE PEANUTS MOVIE to be approached as a security blanket rather than some flashy novelty.

The film revisits many of the touchstones found in other PEANUTS properties. Charlie Brown remains a regular, angst-ridden boy who nevertheless sustains eternal hope that his day to be in the spotlight may yet arrive. His loyal dog Snoopy imagines pursuing the Red Baron in his biplane. The other kids view him as unexceptional but good-hearted. He wishes desperately to impress the little red-haired girl who moves in across the street.

The visual style goes hand in hand with the earnest, humane tone the film strikes. THE PEANUTS MOVIE is funny in a gentle way, but it’s also attuned to the fears and insecurities that children and, for that matter, adults carry. Charlie Brown fails and gets embarrassed. He worries about how things might go for him. Through it all, he displays a fundamental decency that others notice, even if they criticize and laugh at him sometimes. THE PEANUTS MOVIE recognizes these crucial aspects of Schulz’s work and renders them in a format considered more accessible to kids today.

3D animation is really the only thing that differentiates this from other PEANUTS ventures. Story-wise it feels like a greatest hits compilation rather than something new, but it’s a modest charmer that benefits from sticking to what we’re used to rather than being modernized.

Grade: B

About Elly (Darbareye Elly)

ABOUT ELLY (DARBAREYE ELLY) (Asghar Farhadi, 2009)

A weekend at a seaside villa turns tense when one member of a group disappears in ABOUT ELLY. Sepideh (Golshifteh Farahani) arranges for three couples, their kids, an unmarried friend, and her daughter’s teacher to get away from Tehran for some relaxation. Her ulterior motivation for the trip is to introduce Ahmad (Shahab Hosseini), who lives in Germany and divorced his wife, to shy teacher Elly (Taraneh Alidoosti). Although Elly appears to be having a good time, she insists that she can only stay one night. She may want to get back to her mother, who is recovering from a recent heart attack, or she may be uncomfortable with the jokes and subtle pressure to pair off with Ahmad.

When everyone realizes that Elly has vanished, the question is whether she walked to town to catch a bus or drowned trying to save one of the kids who had been playing by the shore and was pulled away by the turbulent sea. They have reason to believe that either outcome is possible, but with no body found and no way of contacting her, the answer remains elusive. As the friends scramble to determine how they should proceed in the situation, they act rashly and assign blame to one another.

The final shot of ABOUT ELLY features a car spinning its wheels as the friends try to push it out of a rut in the beach. The image rhymes with their actions throughout the film. The more effort they put into expedient resolutions of the problems they confront, the deeper they get stuck in them. Writer-director Asghar Farhadi creates the quagmire out of small lies and deceptions. This excursion is rooted in deceit. The individual untruths and misleadings may not seem problematic at the time they are uttered, but the accumulation of them forms a quicksand that tugs them further into the morass.

Farhadi’s intricate yet efficient screenplay showcases his watchmaker-like ability for setting a story in motion and having the moving pieces operate in accordance beautifully. ABOUT ELLY monitors eight adults plus kids and the dynamics among them. As it would be for Elly, a stranger among intimates, there’s a lot for the viewer to process in the introduction to these characters. Farhadi’s observational style doesn’t waste a shot in providing all of the information needed to understand the complex interactions.

The remarkable screenplay makes ABOUT ELLY seem like it could translate well to the stage, yet it boasts strengths particular to filmmaking. The roar of the sea reminds of the trouble that awaits but blends into the background until it must be dealt with. Editor Hayedeh Safiyari’s cuts from scene to scene aren’t confusing but raise some uncertainty of how the action advances from one point to the next. The technique reflects the disorientation the group feels upon realizing the mess they’ve ended up in. In a subtle but dazzling transition, the opening shot inside a charity box as money is dropped through the slot becomes light in a tunnel. Both images suggest the danger of not understanding what one thinks is seen with a limited perspective.

ABOUT ELLY debuted in 2009 but remained unreleased in the United States because of rights issues. Like Farhadi’s great subsequent film, A SEPARATION, this thriller thrives on how scenarios unravel as individuals take measures to protect their self-interests.

Grade: A

Burnt

BURNT (John Wells, 2015)

After a few years in the proverbial wilderness doing penance for his substance-abusing and womanizing past, chef Adam Jones (Bradley Cooper) turns up in London determined to earn a prestigious third Michelin star. He burned a lot of bridges in the Parisian culinary world, but by drying out and swearing off booze, drugs, and women, Adam hopes to be able to redeem himself. His composure and ability to escape a troublesome history are in question in BURNT, but his talent never is. It’s why he can appear years after making a mess of things for himself and colleagues and still be granted the opportunity to do something great.

Adam persuades his former maitre d’ Tony (Daniel Brühl) to let him take over the kitchen at his father’s hotel restaurant, even if it means submitting to a weekly blood screening to prove he’s living cleanly. He assembles a dream team of former associates willing to let bygones be bygones, including sous chef Michel (Omar Sy), and newly discovered top talent like Helene (Sienna Miller). Adam senses a kindred spirit in Helene, which is why he has no qualms about being merciless in criticizing her work when she initially fails to live up to his high standards.

BURNT plays like a dramatized version of one of the many reality cooking shows, particularly those involving volatile chef Gordon Ramsay. He’s a chef consultant on BURNT, which presumably means Ramsay suggested the fine dining dishes that are lovingly filmed rather than gave Cooper lessons on how to yell and throw food in the trash. Adam demands perfection and barks at those in the kitchen like a dog with its nose pressed against the glass as its explosive cries try to intimidate passing cars. That the staff tends to treat Adam as some bulletproof genius they’ll go to the mat for seems somewhat absurd based on temperament and history.

Cooper brandishes the chef’s swagger with gusto. Whether he’s getting in a jab at a competitor’s interior design or smashing plates bearing unsatisfactory food, he’s entertaining in his cockiness. Casting Adam as a tragic figure by his own hand doesn’t work as well. Adam’s backstory is often hinted at but never fully elucidated, which makes him an empty vessel for a redemption tale. The character’s trials and tribulations seem rote, if present at all, leaving Adam to rely entirely on Cooper’s charisma to feel for him.

Adam speaks of wishing to cook food so satisfying that it makes the consumer want to stop eating. BURNT is more like potato chips, something that is appealing enough to eat mindlessly but is otherwise insubstantial. Director John Wells and screenwriter Steven Knight keep events moving along briskly. They are most successful in detailing and depicting the workings of a kitchen and the trends that run through the business. There’s more drama in the contemplation between using the frying pan or sous vide than in Adam’s pursuit of his profession’s highest honor.

Grade: C+

Steve Jobs

STEVE JOBS (Danny Boyle, 2015)

As the title character in STEVE JOBS, Michael Fassbender is a prickly and ruthless assessor of those surrounding him, especially when others’ visions don’t match his in the computer business. Director Danny Boyle’s film is broken into three parts as Jobs prepares for product launches. The first, set in 1984, shows Jobs in the final minutes before revealing the Apple Macintosh. The machine’s voice demonstration isn’t working, which is thoroughly unacceptable to Jobs. Meanwhile, he has to deal with other Apple employees who want to talk and ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston), who has brought along Lisa, the daughter that Jobs has vociferously denied is his. The film jumps to 1988 with Jobs, now on his own after Apple’s business struggles, preparing to introduce the NeXT computer. The final section takes place in 1998 as Jobs readies the debut of the iMac.

In adapting Walter Isaacson’s Jobs biography, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin treats the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple as an incomparable genius, jerk, and tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions. He’s brilliant and stubborn to a fault. These traits serve him well as he strives for excellence with the computer but cause friction with co-workers and friends. At Apple Jobs insists upon a closed system. Sorkin makes the leap that Jobs gained control in the devices his company manufactured perhaps as a substitute for that which he couldn’t exert in life.

STEVE JOBS mostly takes place backstage and in the auditorium, giving the protagonist big areas to move about, yet Boyle creates a visual sense of being self-contained similar to how like the plastic shells housing the computer hardware. The fly rigging in the background of one scene hints at being beside a massive circuit board. The papers Jobs lays out in a grid resemble a tile interface.

Fassbender portrays Jobs as believing he’s the biggest brain in a room with plenty of stiff competition. He speaks like a logician and bristles when what computes perfectly in Jobs’ mind doesn’t with yield the same calculation by others. The film’s verbal dexterity is one of its chief pleasures, with comedic insults and oneupmanship in great supply. STEVE JOBS touches upon the personal side of the business icon, but ultimately it gets to know him how he would have preferred: through his work.

Grade: B

Cop Car

COP CAR (Jon Watts, 2015)

Two runaway boys stumble upon an unattended sheriff’s cruiser in the Colorado countryside and decide to take it for a joy ride in COP CAR. Travis (James Freedson-Jackson) and Harrison (Hays Wellford) appear to be ten years old at most. While that’s old enough to know better to make the choices they do, the gravity of their actions is lost on them. They have fun getting their first taste of driving a vehicle without a video game controller and attempting to fire the guns they find in the backseat.

The patrol car belongs to Sheriff Kretzer (Kevin Bacon), and as is to be expected, he’s not at all happy to find it missing when he returns. The boys would be in a world of trouble no matter what police officer’s car they could have taken, but in this case they swiped one belonging to a lawman who was in the midst of disposing evidence that unmistakably proves his corruption. Something incriminating remains in the trunk, which makes the sheriff’s urgency to retrieve it all the greater.

The boys in COP CAR display the obliviousness of youth, especially to the real danger they put themselves in. It’s no judgment of their intelligence that they say and do the kind of stupid things that might occur to unthinking kids but a reflection of their impulsiveness and inexperience. Director and co-writer Jon Watts mines their actions humor and terror. Of course they assume they can drive the car because they’ve played MarioKart because it’s the kind of logic a preteen might employ. It’s horrifying when they play with guns or speed down a lonely country road because they aren’t aware of how reckless they’re being.

To a degree every character of consequence is a bumbler in a manner similar to those in Coen brothers films. While COP CAR can be funny as things unravel and stakes heighten, the tension that develops is its primary asset. Watts demonstrates his ability to construct scenes loaded with apprehension as events pile up and in miniature, as when the sheriff tries to use a shoelace to break into a locked car. The film’s narrative leanness is only a shortcoming in that it doesn’t quite have enough material for even a pared down running time.

COP CAR delivers no backstory because it isn’t necessary. The film lives moment to moment, and the suspense intensifies as it builds to the convergence of its relative innocents with the antagonists. COP CAR turns somewhat cruel in the final act, which is probably a more accurate reflection of how an incident like this might be resolved, but it leaves a bitter taste that comes across as contrary to the scenario’s tone for the majority of the film.

Grade: B-

The Walk

THE WALK (Robert Zemeckis, 2015)

THE WALK dramatizes an act that would be unthinkable for almost everyone. In 1974 street performer Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) went out on a tightrope he and friends secretly strung between the top of the World Trade Center’s towers.

Whether or not one knows Petit’s story or saw MAN ON WIRE, the 2008 documentary about his achievement, THE WALK makes no secret that Petit doesn’t die doing the seemingly impossible. The character narrates the story from the platform at the Statue of Liberty’s flame as if telling a magical tale to a child at bedtime. The danger is readily apparent in what Petit attempts, but the film’s tone treats the act as a flight of fancy that transforms the imaginative power of buildings some considered ugly. Gordon-Levitt plays Petit as a whimsical scamp, just the sort of plucky misfit who grants others the ability to see what is before them in a different light.

While THE WALK works from the knowledge that nothing bad befalls the protagonist, the act of viewing it, particularly in IMAX 3D, can be fraught with triggers for the acrophobic. When director Robert Zemeckis shows Petit balancing on a wire one hundred ten floors above the Manhattan ground, it gives an almost dizzying sensation despite being safely planted in a movie theater seat. I found even the build-up to Petit’s daring performance, as he and a collaborator skitter about the roof of one of the towers, to induce uneasiness regarding the height at which they are working. Like GRAVITY, which granted viewers the feeling of hurtling through space, THE WALK is marvelous as an experience that tricks the brain into what it is like to be in a precarious position.

Grade: B+

Crimson Peak

CRIMSON PEAK (Guillermo del Toro, 2015)

In CRIMSON PEAK Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is an aspiring writer of ghost stories, although the publisher wishes she would come up with something more conventional and romantic. Edith admits that the ghosts are metaphors for the past, but she has been visited by the spirit of her mother bearing the warning not to go to Crimson Peak. She meets Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) when they come to Buffalo to find investors for his invention. Thomas and Edith become romantically involved against her father’s objections, but after tragedy strikes, Edith weds Thomas and accompanies him to his crumbling family estate in England.

Director and co-writer Guillermo del Toro has made it a point of emphasis while doing the publicity rounds that despite the film’s ghosts, CRIMSON PEAK is not a horror film but a Gothic romance in the tradition of JANE EYRE and REBECCA. In truth there’s not really much romance in it either. Edith and Thomas’s marriage is an arrangement of convenience and exploitation. Although feelings change, CRIMSON PEAK never boils with erotic passion between husband and wife or inside one of them.

And yet while CRIMSON PEAK lacks heat or surprises in its conventional story, del Toro captures the imagination with sumptuous visual treats throughout. The spacious, decrepit house is a marvel of production design and art direction. The intricate costumes manifest the emotional undercurrents, with Edith dressed as though she’s wearing a chrysalis while living at Allerdale Hall and Lucille bound in what she wears as tightly as she and her brother are connected to their home. The clay-reddened snow that looks like it’s been bloodied is such a striking image, especially with that imposing manor looming over it. These elements contribute to the mood, which del Toro treats with primary importance rather than investing energy into the familiar plot. The romance, it turns out, is with the look and feel of rotting mansions and scarred psyches. In that CRIMSON PEAK has more than enough to keep one captivated.

Grade: B

Sicario

SICARIO (Denis Villeneuve, 2015)

Having been noticed for doing excellent work on the kidnap rescue team, Phoenix FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is invited to join an interagency task force in SICARIO. She flies with Department of Defense advisor Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) and a lawyer named Alejandro Benicio Del Toro) to El Paso on a mission that isn’t exactly clear to her. The longer she’s with them, the more Kate begins to question the legality of what they’re involved in.

As SICARIO explores what is done in the shadows in the war on drugs, viewers share Kate’s lack of clarity about the situation she’s participating in. With the camera moving forward director Denis Villeneuve takes Kate as the audience’s proxy deep into spaces where safety is far from assured. The scenarios become more fraught as the film progresses. The tension in the opening attack on a house where abductees are suspected to be held is exceeded in Kate’s voluntary baptism by fire as the team goes to Juarez and back. Villeneuve continues to turn up the heat, whether it’s within the walls of a military base, secret border-crossing tunnel, or kingpin’s home. These scenes come with an adrenaline charge and the distinct dread of the dangers in tight quarters.

Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan capture the thrill and horror experienced when going along for a ride to the dark side. SICARIO isn’t concerned so much with considering if the tactics used to make an impact on the cartels are above board. Whether as an unwitting participant or informed objector, Kate isn’t really in a position to be able to alter the actions she witnesses. Chances are if she’s not willing to play ball, those calling the shots will simply find someone else anyway. Speaking out may make Kate feel better, but doing so is likely just the quickest way to put herself at even greater risk.

Blunt is convincing at demonstrating the mental and physical toughness to perform in the field with no certainty of what awaits behind the doors she enters and walls surrounding her. Kate feels frustrated that her legitimate efforts aren’t making a dent in the bigger fight, yet she doesn’t approve of the secret activities attempting to gain a semblance of control in the situation. Matt’s heedless disregard for challenges to his authority make him a frightening yet effective character, and Brolin intimidates and amuses with the cocky assurance of someone who has license to do as he pleases. SICARIO doesn’t flinch as it stares at the violence that’s part and parcel of cartel activity here and abroad and supplies no easy solutions in its tangled, gripping story.

Grade: A-

I'll See You in My Dreams

I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS (Brett Haley, 2015)

Retired widow Carol Petersen (Blythe Danner) likely still has plenty of good years ahead of her in I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS, but she seems resigned to being on a slow, uneventful march to the end even though it’s been twenty years since her husband died in an accident. Carol’s friends encourage her to move out of her house and join them in the retirement community. They also try to persuade her to go out with men again, an idea she begrudgingly humors at a disastrous speed dating event, but she prefers to keep her own place and ignore potential romantic possibilities.

Then out of the blue two men with whom she enjoys spending time pursue her company. Carol’s new pool cleaner Lloyd (Martin Starr) is intrigued that she was once a singer before settling into a career as a teacher. Although he’s a few decades younger than her, Lloyd identifies her as a kindred spirit drifting through daily life. Bill (Sam Elliott) is a charismatic new resident at the retirement village who takes a shine to Carol the first time he lays eyes on her. He possesses a palpable charm that attracts Carol despite her insistence that she doesn’t want to get remarried.

I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS is foremost a performance-driven film, and Danner makes a good anchor. She plays Carol as someone who can acknowledge the good things life has given her while feeling cheated that fate hasn’t always been kind. As Bill observes, there’s a bitterness at the core of Carol, even if it’s not a quality not necessarily on view at all times. Danner molds Carol into someone who is independent and, by all appearances, strong yet has a wounded nature that makes the character cautious. When she sings at karaoke and connects with the guys wooing her, she makes the hurt disappear.

Elliott maximizes his limited scenes with Danner, projecting the satisfaction and confidence that Carol often lacks. Bill has mystery about him just like she does, but Elliott doesn’t wear it like a shield. His rambunctious appeal leaves no question why Carol might take notice of him. As her younger love interest, Starr presents Lloyd as a mirror to her. The pull they feel toward each other comes from spotting their similarities, particularly in how they express themselves.There’s plenty stated and unsaid between them, and their awkwardness only gets in the way when they stop being in the moment.

Director and co-writer Brett Haley has a soft touch for letting items represent other things. A shot of flowers in the foreground perhaps elicits a stronger emotional response than if the characters involved shared the frame. Bill’s omnipresent unlit cigar is just a cigar, although it stands in for how he is approaching life at this later stage. The rat that lurks around Carol’s home is a regular reminder of the grief she still has not been able to eliminate from her surroundings. I’LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS provides a funny and moving glimpse of a slice of life that the recipient would rather trade for a different one.

Grade: B

The Intern

THE INTERN (Nancy Meyers, 2015)

70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) finds retired life unfulfilling, so in THE INTERN he looks for an apprenticeship opportunity that will put him back in the working world. Ben’s introduction to the high tech business environment comes via the senior intern program at a startup e-commerce fashion retailer in Brooklyn where he’s assigned to be the intern for the site’s founder Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway). Although Ben is well-liked and effective around the bustling office, initially Jules doesn’t see the value in letting Ben assist her with the zillion and one things keeping her busy.

Jules is justifiably preoccupied with maintaining standards and overseeing the growth of her eighteen-month-old operation . She’s also being pressured by investors to hire a chief executive officer. The rationale is that a more seasoned manager can ease her workload and continue the company’s expansion, but because she would be giving up some control, the request feels like a potential demotion.

Middle of the road crowdpleasers like THE INTERN are something of an endangered species at the movie theater. It’s too modest for those drawn to the almost-weekly spectacle films striving to be blockbusters and those looking for artier or prestige-driven fare. This type of film has virtues like telling a story simply and intelligently and being appealing without forcing it. Writer-director Nancy Meyers specializes in this kind of mainstream entertainment that doesn’t always get its critical due. With THE INTERN she produces one of her better creations. It’s a warm, funny film that fleshes out two engaging characters not bent according to the situation’s restrictions.

When De Niro has father or father figure types, he’s still usually a tough guy, but in THE INTERN he’s a delight playing the equivalent of the workplace’s grandpa. Through his dress and demeanor he carries a quiet dignity about the character. It’s critical that Meyers writes Ben as resource waiting to be tapped than an expert itching to spew the knowledge he’s amassed from a lifetime in business. De Niro embodies patience in THE INTERN. Ben truly is grateful to have the chance to work with Jules.

The harried thirtysomething businesswoman trying to balance career and family is often a thankless role, but Meyers is smart in demonstrating that Jules is right to want to be in command of her path, even if society’s expectations can be a burden. THE INTERN doesn’t hide the trade-offs or judge the decisions Jules must make. Hathaway conveys the strain of trying to have it all while attempting to appear in good spirits through the challenges.

THE INTERN soaks up the good vibes from De Niro and Hathaway acclimating to one another and finds room for humorous subplots that aren’t essential to the main storyline. A heist-like operation in which Ben and some other guys at the office break into Jules’ mother’s home to delete an e-mail may be the most amusing scene in the film.

Grade: B+