Author: jose

The melancholic melodies of Donnie and Joe Emerson don’t quite feel of this world. Particularly “Baby,” a song which always sounds like something out of a dream. The duo, who grew up on an insular family farm in rural Fruitland, Washington, were teenagers when they self-released their only album—the wistful, soul-inspired “Dreamin’ Wild”—in 1979, without much fanfare. Over 30 years later, the album got a second life when the reissue from boutique label Light in the Attic Records became a cult success. A standard biopic of a story like this could easily write itself. 

Thankfully, writer/director Bill Pohlad has brought their tale to the silver screen with the same thoughtful, humanist lens with which he made the excellent Brian Wilson biopic “Love & Mercy” a decade ago. While his new film hits all the cursory beats of their rediscovery, including a few scenes of Chris Messina playing their record company savior Matt Sullivan, Pohlad is less interested in the album’s resurrection than he is in the psychological effects this had on the duo, especially on the more naturally talented Donnie (Casey Affleck). 

The film begins in the forest surrounding the Emerson farm. The dark blue night sky is illuminated by the amber lights of their homemade recording studio. A young Donnie (Noah Jupe) strums one of their songs, “Good Time.” Its reverb-laden vocals, slick guitar riffs, and crashing drums echo as the scene shifts to the boy performing on a stage, the audience hidden by shadows. The lyrics “Did you have a good, good time?” repeat on loop until the adult Donnie awakens, as if it were all a dream. 

Throughout the film, Pohlad employs this hazy, dreamlike editing as Donnie remains haunted by his younger self and the broken promise the album represents. At first, it seems Donnie, who runs a flailing recording studio and plays weddings and dive bars with his wife Nancy (Zooey Deschanel), is mourning solely the loss of his artistic dreams. But as Donnie spends more time with his brother Joe (a tender Walton Goggins) and father Don Sr. (Beau Bridges, never better) preparing for a comeback concert, it’s clear there’s more emotional baggage here than meets the eye.

While in “Love & Mercy,” the two Brian Wilsons were played in lockstep by John Cusack and Paul Dano at different ages, the lines between the past and present here are a little more blurred. Jupe’s young Donnie is filtered through Affleck’s memories. At first, he’s the wide-eyed, hopefully teen legend printed by the New York Times. But soon, a more realistic, somber portrait of his youth and his rocky relationship with young Joe (Jack Dylan Grazer) and their father is revealed. 

The director also flirts with flights of magical realism. When Donnie and Joe play their first big gig—an anniversary show for Light in the Attic at the Showbox in Seattle—like a specter, a disappointed young Donnie stares at older Donnie on the stage. Later, the two sit together outside the old recording studio to broker a peace between what once was and what now is. It’s an incredibly effective way of visualizing Donnie’s internal attempt at coming to terms with his own self-loathing. 

It also is a wonderful payoff for how Pohlad films the early scenes with Donnie and his family. Whenever Sullivan gives them good news, or Joe and Don Sr. happily reminisce, Pohlad often holds the camera directly on Affleck’s emotive face, under which he’s holding back a sea of unexpressed feelings—about these shared memories, these “good times,” and his guilt at not only not fulfilling his own dreams, but in pulling his whole family down as well. 

Although Pohlad successfully crafts a complex and tense dynamic between Donnie, Joe, and Don Sr., he fails to bring that same dimensionality to the women in the film, including their sisters and mother, and especially Donnie’s wife, Nancy. This is a pointed failure for Pohlad, considering the wonderful showcase the role of Melinda Ledbetter was for Elizabeth Banks in “Love & Mercy.”

Despite this, Pohlad’s film, like the music at its heart, has a beguiling, oneiric quality. “Dreamin’ Wild” is a rich and evocative portrait of the weight of broken dreams and the strength one can find in a family as unwaveringly supportive as the Emersons.

Now playing in theaters. 

French documentary director Claire Simon appears just a little over three times in “Our Body.” At the beginning, we see her walking from her home to the hospital, past, as she points out, the cemetery where her father was cremated. She tells us the idea for the movie came from one of her producers. There was “an encounter.” Her producer had an illness “that brought her into a female world.” And so Simon and her camera entered that world of “gynecological pathologies that weigh down our lives, our hopes, our desires.”  She jokes darkly that she hopes she will not catch cancer there. 

And then in a Frederick Wiseman “fly-on-the-wall”-style film, Simon takes us into the most intimate, terrifying, and sometimes joyful moments faced by the people who come to the hospital. But unlike Wiseman, whose films focus on institutions and bureaucracy, the focus here is on the lives of the patients and their interactions with very patient, sympathetic, and capable health care professionals. We see very little of the lives of those professionals. There are only two scenes without any patients. One is a very businesslike clinical discussion of care plans and prognoses.  The other is a truly astonishing scene of doctors in a lab, carefully joining an egg and sperm for a couple who need help getting pregnant.

Even with an almost three-hour run time, this is not the kind of film where experts weigh in with facts about health care policy or particular diseases or treatments. And it is not the kind of film where we see what happens to the patients we observe with their caregivers. Every scene is just a tile in the mosaic, not a part of a linear storyline arc. Very occasionally, we hear Simon ask a question off camera, and sometimes there is a light trickle of music on the soundtrack. But most of the film is quiet conversation, punctuated only by the hospital sounds echoing in the hallways and examination rooms. 

Americans will be especially interested to see that patients never feel rushed. No one worries about insurance or Medicaid or filling out forms or not being able to pay for care. While all the caregivers we see are compassionate and professional, at one point there is a protest rally outside the hospital, with angry patients complaining about abuse.

Inside, a teenage girl wants to terminate her pregnancy. A pregnant woman with cancer wants to be able to deliver her baby. Operation scenes (sometimes graphic) show us how the medical professionals work as a team. A trans man has to wait 11 months, until he is 18, to consent to the medical treatment his father will not approve. Doctors find a way to communicate with patients who have difficulty understanding the implications of their medical issues and evaluating the options they have to consider. Some of them are not native French speakers. In one case, they pass an iPhone back and forth to translate. An older trans woman learns she has to go through her own version of menopause. It is time to stop taking the estrogen that has been a foundation of her transition. A doctor points to the places in his own body to help the patient understand. Another doctor uses words that are gentle but vague. “Sometimes the disease can defeat bravery and defeat medicine.” Her words may not be clear but the way she grasps the patient’s hand tells her and us what she means.  

We notice those hands because Simon has an exceptional eye for the small details that illuminate the quiet but devastating, literal life and death moments. In another scene a slight widening of a close-up subtly reveals a wig removed from a patient receiving chemotherapy.  We also see a woman giving birth attended by just one medical professional, who gently coaxes and encourages her. The father is at home, caring for their other children. There is that moment of pure magic when suddenly a baby is welcomed to the world and the very first words she hears are her mother’s whispers of hope, love, and joy.  There are people who hear bad news and people who are learning what their lives will be after debilitating and sometimes disfiguring treatment. There are people who need medical assistance to become pregnant and some who learn that they will never carry a child. 

The patients are very diverse (except that none of them are wealthy; apparently the rich have other sources of health care). The medical staff are all kind and thoughtful. The film would have benefitted from more about their perspective, how they manage the stress of the job. 

Simon tells us at the end that the doctors have many stories, but the patients have just one. Those stories together create what she calls “a crazed waltz of destinies.” And as Simon finds herself on the other side of the camera, hearing her own results from a doctor, it underscores the movie’s most important message that we all dance in the crazed waltz some day. 

Ben (Justin H. Min) is a snobby cinephile and Japanese-American living in Berkeley, California. He’s the kind of guy who, at the beginning of “Shortcomings,” dismisses the crowd-pleasing Asian action film he watches at a movie theater with his girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) on arrogant grounds. Miko loves the representation on screen, believing it’ll lead to greater opportunities for Asian-American filmmakers. Ben doesn’t see the wonder “in a garish mainstream rom-com that glorifies the capitalistic fantasy of vindication through wealth and materialism.” He can barely hide his disdain for the picture when he meets its giddy filmmaker.  

Ben is a failed film student who spends his days managing an arthouse movie theater and watching Criterion discs such as Ozu’s “Good Morning.” He can’t fathom a world where he isn’t the prime arbiter of taste. Much to his chagrin, however, Ben loves white women. His attraction is tested when he hires the oddball performance artist Autumn (Tavi Gevinson) to work the ticket window at the theater. Will he cheat on his girlfriend, Miko? If he, along with the premise, comes off as loathsome, that’s sorta the point. 

“Shortcomings” is a wickedly funny, absorbing character study and solo feature directorial debut by actor Randall Park (“Fresh off the Boat”). In the hands of Park, Adrian Tomine’s graphic novel (adapted here by Tomine) finds cutting new dimensions in the miserabilism of an unabashed asshole. 

It works because the film fully embraces the wretched unlikability of Ben. Park worms through Ben’s many relationship troubles: He gets with Autumn, for instance, and then turns his sights to the politically charged Sasha (Debby Ryan), endangering each with his caustic humor. Min savors the script’s savage barbs and quick sarcastic one-liners. You can never tell if or when you’re seeing the real Ben. The same goes for the women he dates. They initially like his corrosive wit, believing it’s a charming feature rather than an unfixable glitch. Surely, more lies beneath the surface? But there is no there, there. And Min, who found critical acclaim as the android in “After Yang,” demonstrates his immense range as he plays with Ben’s surface-level features with the exhilaration of a man dancing on an electric fence.

The other major highlight in the cast is Sherry Cola as Ben’s loud, gregarious Lesbian best friend, Alice. The film’s heart is the balancing act between Alice and Ben’s friendship, including open dinner talks and double-teaming at parties. She puts up with his idiocy as he sometimes acts as her beard for her traditional Korean parents. When Miko moves to New York City for an internship, Alice, recently transplanted to the big apple herself, allows Ben to stay with her as he searches for Miko. But Ben is poison to everything he touches. 

While “Shortcomings” aims at identity, particularly Ben’s inability to be comfortable with his attractions—which causes him to default into an oppressed versus oppressor stance—the film relies on keen jokes to make a punchy mood. The tight dialogue runs the gamut from quips about experimental music and international and blockbuster cinema (“Snowpiercer is a sequel of Willy Wonka” is a theory one theater worker shares with another) to gags concerning representational movies and assimilation.

The film doesn’t break new ground in the genre, hewing close to rom-com tropes that’d feel at home in Judd Apatow’s late aught works. When the raw emotional outbursts need to flourish, Park can also slip into less-than-flattering coverage coated by less-than-snappy editing. Luckily, this isn’t a picture that lives and dies on big fights or charged monologues. 

Even when you expect “Shortcomings” to land on a redemptive note, it surprises you. Park doesn’t pull the easy lever. Instead, the film’s ending is far more truthful to the character than you’d expect in your usual rom-com because the happiness of others doesn’t bank on Ben’s evolution. In fact, their joy is firmly separate. Such honesty allows Park’s vision, comedic sensibilities, and fruitful work with actors to remain indelible even in a familiar package.   

Now playing in theaters. 

You don’t need to know that Prime Video’s seven-part mini-series “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is based on a book to sense it. With a narrative that sprawls over years and ties various traumas and their associated grief into complex character beats, it’s the kind of thing that clearly worked on the page. That’s why Holly Ringland’s novel of the same name became an international hit, attracting one of our best-living actresses to director Glendyn Ivin and creator Sarah Lambert’s adaptation. Inconsistent Australian accent aside, Sigourney Weaver’s work here is among the best of her luminous career, tackling a challenging role with subtlety and grace. There are times when the pace of “Alice Hart” can be glacial, but it’s worth being patient with its early chapters, which set the stage for a study of generational loss and the horrible mistakes people make in protecting loved ones.

Introduced as a child, Alice Hart (Alyla Brown) lives in a state of constant threat at the hands of her abusive father, Clem (Charlie Vickers). She adores her mother, Agnes (Tilda Cobham-Hervey), who is captured almost as a mythical creature in the early chapters in how a child can view an adult they want to save. Mom can’t be human. She must be a selkie who can escape this horror. When Alice wanders into town one day, she catches the attention of a librarian named Sally (Asher Keddie), setting in motion a sequence of events that will lead to the death of Agnes and Clem, forcing Alice to go live with her grandmother June (Sigourney Weaver) on a flower farm called Thornfield that’s actually a women’s shelter. At first, Alice doesn’t speak, but the other residents of the farm, particularly Candy (Frankie Adams) and June’s partner Twig (Leah Purcell), help her recover.

June Hart is a fascinating character, a distant, cold woman who seems almost put out by having Alice around even though she fights with Sally for custody of the child. The narrative jumps halfway through the season to Alice as a young adult (now played excellently by Alycia Debnam-Carey), and several decisions that June made in that time-leap come to the fore, which she thought were protecting Alice but at a great cost. The final stretch of the season also gives June a disease, which seems manipulative at first, but allows Weaver some of the richest dramatic material of her career as she comes to terms with the choices she made, the traumas that shaped her, and how both planted the seeds for Alice’s lost flowers.

“The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is clearly a melodrama, but Ivin centers character and setting over manipulative plotting in its best chapters. He alternates shots that linger on minor details with gorgeous shots of the Australian landscape from cinematographer Sam Chiplin, set to a moody, effective score by Hania Rani. It’s a remarkably well-made piece of adult drama, even if the pace undeniably drags at times. In the era of “Everything is the Wrong Length,” it truly does feel like there’s a great 130-minute-or-so movie in this story. But that version would admittedly lose the show’s accumulation of small joys and how the writers let these excellent performers live in these roles instead of just running in and out of the spotlight.

That lived-in sense really anchors the work of Debnam-Carey, who viewers feel like they know by the time she’s stuck with the very-wrong guy after running away from Thornfield. The final episode forces too many revelations on Alice via exposition dumps and flashbacks, but the young actress sells every response as genuine. Along with Weaver, she grounds the piece in a way that can’t be undervalued, never allowing her key role to spin off into soapy melodrama. The residents of Thornfield learn to communicate with flowers instead of words, and the show is arguably at its best when it’s saying less with actual language, letting an emotional stare or heartfelt hug convey all that needs to be said and all that can someday be found.

The whole series was screened for review. “The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart” is on Prime Video now.

“The Rosenbergs were small fish compared to Ted Hall.” – Joseph Albright, co-author of Bombshell: The Secret Story of America’s Unknown Atomic Spy Conspiracy (1997)

Considering the evidence about Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed for espionage on June 19, 1953, and about Ted Hall, the prodigy physicist recruited into the Manhattan Project at age 18, Albright is right. Ted Hall passed on far more crucial information to the Soviets and was never arrested (although he was interrogated by the FBI and harassed and trailed for years). The Rosenbergs were executed in a blaze of publicity, while Hall moved on to do important research at Sloan-Kettering and other institutions. He “hid” for decades. 

Years later, when his “spy” past was revealed in declassified documents, an elderly and very ill Ted Hall was interviewed by the BBC. When asked why he did what he did, Hall thinks for a long time before answering, “Compassion.” His action can only be understood in the context of his time, requiring a willingness to listen to where he was coming from. Things are not black and white (even saying these words would be treasonous to some). Steve James‘ documentary, “A Compassionate Spy,” takes Hall at his word (a little too much), but establishing what “compassion” meant in Hall’s particular context is the organizing principle of “A Compassionate Spy.”

The documentary is primarily composed of long interviews with Joan Hall, Ted Hall’s wife for 50 years, now in her nineties. Two of their daughters join the conversation, going through their father’s letters, and sharing memories. Joan is a captivating interview subject. The past is still very close to her. She talks about events from 70 years ago as though they happened yesterday.

Authors and physicists are also interviewed, including the aforementioned Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, co-authors of Bombshell, the first account of Ted Hall’s spy activities, written just before Hall died in 1999. Albright and Kunstel provide a wider perspective of the period, while Joan Hall takes us back to her politically active free-spirited youth. Ted Hall admitted in an interview he saw the world through “pinkish” glasses: As an atheist and a Socialist, he wanted the Russian Revolution to spread to the rest of the world. He wasn’t alone in this doomed hope.

The Manhattan Project was cloaked in secrecy; much was kept from even the scientists working in the labs. However, it was clear to Hall almost immediately that “something gruesome and horrible was being constructed.” He naively assumed that Russia—America’s ally at the time—would be looped into the research. He was a scientist and believed in sharing information. He also felt that America’s “monopoly” on this dangerous technology would be very bad for the world. Hall’s radical college friend, Saville Sax (who plays a large part in the narrative, and his two children are interviewed in the documentary), suggested Hall try to pass on details of the implosion bomb to the Russians. It didn’t take much convincing. Hall was legitimately (and rightfully) fearful of what would happen if this bomb was eventually dropped on actual people.

Two-time Oscar nominee Steve James is very good at establishing the context of World War II and its immediate aftermath, the start of the so-called Cold War, the propaganda of the Red Scare, and the wild fluctuations of the American Left. He uses archival footage (note the chilling “blooper” when President Truman starts laughing in the middle of announcing America dropped the bomb on Hiroshima) and propagandistic songs like “Atomic Power,” paranoia engulfing the “free world” after the war ended.

The true nature of the Soviet system, and Stalin’s monstrosities, were clear for many to see, despite the “useful idiots” parroting Soviet propaganda, sometimes in the pages of the New York Times (see: Pulitzer-Prize winner Walter Duranty). The cynical Molotov-Ribbentrop pact of 1939, in which Russia and Germany secretly decided to carve up Poland, sent shock waves. When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, the pact was rendered null and void, but many onlookers never recovered from the betrayal. The Halls, however, felt betrayed much later when the Russians invaded Czechoslovakia to quash the “Prague Spring.” It’s important to underline that many people saw the truth 30 years earlier (see: George Orwell, who also saw the world through “pinkish” glasses but was clear-sighted enough to get the memo about what was happening in 1936-38 during his experiences in the Spanish Civil War.).

James uses re-enactments to show us Ted and Joan’s life. While they are gently and respectfully done, they’re unnecessary, particularly when you have as strong a storyteller as Joan Hall, who paints vivid pictures with her words. The re-enactments don’t serve the same purpose as the re-enactments in, say, Errol Morris’ “The Thin Blue Line,” where they underline the unreliability of witness testimony. Here, they are interruptions, not illuminations.

“A Compassionate Spy” is strongest in digging into the archives to give audiences who might not know this cultural history a real feel for what was happening. The Cold War didn’t just happen. It was built by Wall Street and industrialists (something which Ted Hall predicted during his time at Los Alamos). The very recent past where America was pro-Russia was unthinkable in the 70 years that followed. James shows fascinating clips from Michael Curtiz’s 1943 film “Mission to Moscow,” starring Walter Huston and Ann Harding, featuring a flattering portrait of Soviet society as well as a damn near cuddly Stalin. (If you’re interested in a deeper dive into Hollywood’s interpretation of Russia in the late ’30s and early ’40s, pre-Cold War, you should definitely check out Farran Smith Nehme’s in-depth essay Shadows of Russia: A history of the Soviet Union, as Hollywood saw it.)

James’ specific and empathetic gaze is felt in all of his documentaries: “Hoop Dreams,” “The Interrupters,” “Abacus: Small Enough to Jail,” and “Life Itself.” His interview subjects reveal themselves to the camera in intimate ways, a tribute to who he is as a person and an interviewer. “A Compassionate Spy” covers a lot of ground, and even with some missing nuance and a lack of skeptical or critical voices, it contains enough ambiguity—particularly from Ted Hall himself—to open up discussion on a wider ground.

Now playing in theaters.

Many films that tackle Black stories prioritize plight, treating their characters as inconsequential stand-ins for a thesis on trauma and pain. More successful, powerful films devote their narrative effort to how characters move through their environments. They afford their subjects agency and identity, rendering them as individuals instead of thoughtless symbols of the Black experience. It’s a nuanced distinction, but prioritizing character relays a deeper level of understanding and empathy, which Clement Virgo’s “Brother” executes poignantly.

“Brother” opens with brothers Francis (Aaron Pierre) and Michael (Lamar Johnson) climbing up electrical towers. Francis leads, instructing younger brother Michael to follow his every move. He signals that the buzzing will get louder the higher they climb, but all Michael needs to do is follow his example, and they’ll make it to the top. This vignette becomes a metaphor for their lives as “Brother” threads together three timelines: their childhoods, adolescence in high school, and young adult years. 

The sons of a single mother, a Caribbean immigrant to Scarborough, Canada, Francis and Michael couldn’t be more different. Francis is confident, physically imposing in height and musculature, and a leader among his family and peers. Michael is meek and reserved, a small fish in the pond of an increasingly hostile environment. As Francis finds himself straddling a life of family and ambition while walking a tightrope with a gang-affiliated friend group, the brothers begin facing questions of masculinity and tenacity as they age, coming face to face with the consequences of an anti-Black world in all its forms. 

Pierre and Johnson’s excellent chemistry is integral to the film’s success. They are believable as brothers not only through performance but also through the script’s ability to showcase the symbiotic relationship they have. One’s fear begets the vigilance of the other, just as one’s reservation influences the other’s proactivity. Pierre’s stoicism is a major marker of Francis’s strength against the odds, so when he breaks, showing tenderness and vulnerability, the moments hit with full impact. His indomitable facade doesn’t feel overly constructed or contrived, and Pierre performs each end of the spectrum with touching empathy in body and expression. 

Johnson, on the other hand, is always easy to read, constantly wearing his heart on his sleeve. Though Michael doesn’t intend to be seen, it can’t be helped, and this openness of character is precisely what incites so much love for him. He isn’t painted as a victim but as a dependent. And as we tour his life in Virgo’s three stages, it isn’t until we learn of Francis’ departure (the context of which isn’t explicitly revealed until the final act) that we see Michael come into his authority. He is the film’s emphatic core, driving the emotional weight and expressing it with sensitivity in its gravity, contrasting Francis’s stone-cold disposition.

As their neighborhood sees an uptick in gang violence, Francis withdraws. The brothers come of age during the 1990s hip-hop renaissance, as Michael’s dream is to be an emcee like Dr. Dre. Yet as he grows up, pulling further away from the family unit and into independence, the household is left rocked. Their mother, Ruth (Marsha Stephanie Blake), is a force of tough but tender love. Her ideas for the home are rigid, but her love for Michael and Francis butts against them in a typical head vs. heart dilemma. Blake gives a stunning performance as we view her development as much as Michael’s. From the boys’ childhood to Francis’ eventual departure, Ruth undergoes waves of change she can’t keep up with, and her relationship with Michael supplements the film’s heart after Francis leaves the picture.

Todor Kobakov’s spellbinding score glues the film’s emotional display to its stunning visuals. Played over meditative moments, the music brings “Brother” down to earth while warm versus cool color schemes paint the screen with damning dissonance. No feeling in “Brother” goes unfelt; every element of its filmmaking taps into the heart. As Michael navigates his memory, trying to reconcile ideas of masculinity against unforgiving circumstances, a study erupts: that of the spirit’s resolve and the immortality of familial love. “Brother” is a portrait of Black youth pitted against forces beyond their control. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Anyone hoping that Ben Wheatley might bring some of the exuberant personality and boundary-pushing creativity on display in films like “Kill List” and “In the Earth” to his for-hire gig directing the dismally boring “Meg 2: The Trench” should find different cinematic waters to swim in. Much as in his atrocious remake of “Rebecca” in 2020, Wheatley mostly phones it in here, and he does so on a rotary land line. At least until the final half-hour, when he’s finally free to unleash some monstrous chaos, this is one of the dullest films of the year, a plodding, poorly made giant shark movie that inexplicably lets the giant shark take a backseat to an evil underwater drilling operation. This thing just has no teeth.

Never really allowed to have the winking fun that he is in his best action parts, Jason Statham looks visibly bored this time as Jonas, the deep-sea diver employee of the Zhang Institute, the facility that discovered the continued existence of a prehistoric predator known as the Megalodon in the first film. The sequel reveals that the research facility has even kept one in captivity to continue to study it. Jiu-ming (an inconsistent Wu Jing), the head of the institute, is even convinced that he can train the megalodon, but everything goes wrong when it escapes and … no, this is not just a shark-escape-attack movie, although you’ll wish it was as simple as that.

Instead of focusing on the fugitive meg—who escapes hysterically easily while the crew is focused on something else—the script by Jon Hoeber, Erich Hoeber, and Dean Georgaris sends Jonas and his crew deep into the ocean to the trench that the megalodons have called home for centuries. On their way into the murky, poorly shot ocean—seriously, Wheatley’s answer to recreating underwater photography is just to turn the lighting down—they discover other megalodons, but that’s nothing compared to the evil humans who also happen to be in the trench, mining it for resources. Yes, Jonas and his team basically stumble onto an illegal operation in the middle of the ocean, which leads to their vessels being destroyed. A sequence in which they’re forced to walk the ocean floor to a facility is one of the most poorly executed in years. It almost felt real-time.

A few personality-less characters get chomped or blown up but most of the faux tension is saved for Mei-ying (Sophia Cai), who survived the first film and becomes the main creature that Jonas tries to keep alive. It’s barely a spoiler to say that Jonas, Jiu-ming, Mei-ying and a few others eventually make it back above the surface, fleeing the facility that is now overrun with soldiers for reasons I couldn’t possibly care enough to explain. They head to a resort called Fun Island, and almost 90 minutes into this mess, “The Trench” finally gets a little fun. You see, the underwater explosions destroyed the temperature shield that had kept things like a giant octopus away from tourists. Finally, Wheatley and his team get to have a little fun, but it’s far too little and far too late.

Even the action-heavy final section of “The Trench” barely seems like a production that’s trying to have a good time. How do you make a movie about a jet-skiing Jason Statham throwing harpoons at giant sharks and do with such little joy? This is a bizarrely inert film with none of Wheatley’s dark sense of humor or vicious skill with horror. It’s almost like when he found out that he couldn’t make it R-rated, he just gave up on doing anything interesting at all. Cliff Curtis and Page Kennedy develop a strange buddy-comedy-action vibe late in the proceedings that almost works, but it feels a different movie from the rest of the action. Absolutely nothing here has stakes—so many people in Jonas’ world die with barely a nod to the fact they ever existed—and anyone who has ever seen a movie knows who’s going to make it to the final scene.

Of course, that’s not always a problem. We go to giant shark movies knowing that Jason Statham is going to save the day. So it becomes about execution instead of originality, and maybe that’s why Wheatley falls so flat here. It seems like he needs to be able to play with narrative to be effective, and when he’s forced into a traditional structure like he is here then he can’t put his heart into it. He just checks out and goes through the motions.  

Early in the film, Jiuming gives a speech with a quote about how man is only limited by his imagination. Too bad the movie that follows has so little of it.

In theaters now.

The last few years have seen some very thoughtful, empathetic films that tackle the thorny subject of grooming, specifically of teenage girls by older men. These include Jamie Dack’s Sundance-winning “Palm Trees and Power Lines” and Sarah Elizabeth Mintz’s Tribeca-winning “Good Girl Jane.” The unfortunate misfire “What Comes Around,” from director Amy Redford and screenwriter Scott Organ, is what happens when filmmakers lack tact and land squarely in the realm of exploitation.

We meet Anna (Grace Van Dien) the day before her seventeenth birthday. She’s texting about poetry with a man named Eric (Kyle Gallner), whom she assumes to be a college student who lives 900 miles away. She’s all smiles as he compares her to Emily Dickinson. She lives with her single mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix), who has just become engaged to her boyfriend, Tim (Jesse Garcia), the Assistant Chief of Police. 

Everything is going well for the trio until Eric shows up on her doorstep the morning of her birthday to hand deliver to her a book of Dickinson’s poetry. At first, Anna balks at this grand gesture, calling it inappropriate and aggressive. But eventually, his puppy dog apology wins her over, despite the revelation that he’s actually 28 years old. As he walks her to school, Redford hammers home their age difference by dressing Anna in a classic Catholic schoolgirl style garb.

One abrupt cut later, and she’s hiding him in her closet—they’ve clearly slept together—from Beth and Tim, who have set up the kitchen with a very child-like birthday celebration, complete with unicorn hats and a pink vegan cake. This is where you expect the film to explore the psychological effects of Eric’s grooming behavior. Instead, the film zags with a twist straight out of an old-school Lifetime movie. 

Beth and Eric, whose real name is Jess, have a secret history from when he was a teenager and she was his student; his relationship with Anna was all plotted out to reconnect with her and exact revenge, or at least some sort of emotional catharsis. The film is so slippery with its character motivations it’s never clear exactly what his endgame is.

In a sharper vision, the details of this twist could have explored the bias in how the stories of groomed teenage boys are treated compared to teenage girls. But the script only briefly touches on the subject. Instead, it opts for soapy dialogue about unreliable memories, which is just a poorly hidden attempt by Beth at gaslighting Eric.

Filmed entirely in Utah, Redford’s minimal use of settings—Anna’s bedroom, a schoolyard, a forest, and a few living rooms—amplifies the story’s theatrical roots. As does the film’s dialogue, in which the actors always seem to be reciting each other’s cues rather than talking with any semblance of natural speech. 

Icky plotting aside, you need strong actors to make a chamber piece like this work. Van Dien does her best with her underwritten character but is often overshadowed by the dynamic presence of Reina Hardesty, who plays her best friend, Brit. Phoenix is out of her depth after the twist, especially in the penultimate scene, which itself contains yet another twist. Garcia is just sort of there, playing a character whose reactions to the film’s plotting make little sense, given his profession.

As Eric, however, Gallner seems to be the only actor given room to craft a little nuance. He’s charming and crafts a believable chemistry with Van Dien. Although Redford chooses to film these early scenes with Eric seducing Anna in a flowery way, they play like stereotypical young love rather than grooming scenes. After the twist, Gallner also brings pathos to Eric, revealing a very broken young man. It’s unfortunate, again, that Redford chooses to film these scenes with as much flair as a generic made-for-TV potboiler. 

“What Comes Around” ultimately exploits the stories of groomed teens like Anna and Eric without bringing insight into its lasting effects. Redford’s film uses this deeply tragic form of abuse as a launching pad for a shallow psychological thriller without much psychology, a morality tale without any morals. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Although it resembles the far sleekier “Ready or Not,” Timothy Woodward Jr.’s actioner “Til Death Do Us Part” never gets near that level of competence. Instead, screenwriters Chad Law and Shane Dax Taylor keep their audience in the dark, any semblance of world-building or storytelling be damned.

We start at what looks like a stock footage recreation of a wedding, but the Bride (Natalie Burn) looks uneasy. Then we cut to what looks like a honeymoon on a sandy Puerto Rican beach. The Bride is flirting and embracing her groom (Ser’Darius Blain) as they talk along the shore. Later that night, they can’t keep their hands to themselves, earning the judgment of an older couple (Jason Patric and Nicole Arlyn) who tells them their love will also fade as theirs has. The story jumps back to the couple’s wedding night, where the Bride gets cold feet and runs off to a family cabin to regroup. Her groom’s coterie of dimwitted and misogynist bachelors show up, inciting violence. It turns out the “university” that the Bride and Groom joked about on the beach wasn’t an academic setting but some kind of nebulous syndicate of assassins that only seem to kill other assassins. If folks complained that the High Table in the “John Wick” series was too much, at least it’s an ethos with rules. Here, it seems like “the university” rules don’t matter or are only meant to be recited through gritted teeth and rewritten but a few moments later. 

The problem with keeping your viewers in the dark about what is happening when and who is attacking who for what reasons is that you can confuse them, and all they can focus on is the mess you’ve made. Not that there is much else to look at: the action sequences are tough to watch between the lackluster fight choreography and the extra shaky camera work during fights that detract from the combatants. The bachelor party’s dialogue is so unpleasant I wanted the Bride to hurry up and finish them all off already. 

There are also occasional filmmaker mistakes and sloppy one-liners, like, “If you’re so tough, come and get me, you piece-of-shit,” delivered with a deadweight thud. Other questionable story and direction choices make the movie downright silly. Towards the end, a major backstory detail is revealed after all the cutting between the bloody wedding day and the beachy honeymoon. It’s as comical as putting a hat on a hat. At this point, it’s a parody. 

Is there anything worth salvaging if your action movie falls flat on the action front? Not in “Til Death Do Us Part.” It feels as if Burn might be channeling a tough Bride character, a la Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill,” but her inability to move past a scowl for most of the movie flattens her performance. Her main antagonist, the Best Man (Cam Gigandet), is more annoying than frightening, especially when leading a group of dudes with nicknames like T-Bone and Big Sexy. Although he doesn’t have much screen time, Blain as the Groom plays the ominous part of a controlling partner, a confident co-conspirator, and a charming date all in one. He may have the movie’s best performance. 

But none of this exhausting movie’s various elements come together at any point—not the story, filmmaking, and acting. It practically assaults its viewer with its dullness; each punch is a reminder of how tiresome each verbal and physical exchange is. I wanted a divorce long before the credits rolled. 

Now playing in theaters. 

Ira Sachs is one of American cinema’s most reliable crafters of human-scaled cinematic dramas. That description doesn’t sound too terribly exciting, so I should assure you that “Passages” is some kind of time at the movies—a briskly-moving, turbulent, emphatically sexy, deliberately exasperating love triangle in crazy times.

The times in this movie (which Sachs cowrote with Mauricio Zacharias and Arlette Langmann) are crazy, however, because they’re self-perpetuated. While the movie’s set in contemporary Paris, there’s not much in the way of an outside world for its characters to contend with. “Passages” begins on a movie set; the director is Tomas (Franz Rogowski) who’s making a period picture called, well “Passages” (and while I rolled my eyes at this, the doubling of titles ultimately isn’t in the service of any particular meta conceit). Tomas is a tetchy auteur; he micromanages his extras, which means that either he doesn’t have an assistant director to whom to delegate that sort of work, or he’s just That Way. Evidence that follows strongly suggests the latter.

At the wrap party for the shoot, Tomas is joined by his husband Martin (Ben Whishaw), and after a little bantering about whether or not they’ll be dancing, the frustrated Tomas sashays on to the floor with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos), who’s been hanging about the set. They’re intrigued with each other. Agathe has literally just dumped her boyfriend and is extremely available. Tomas, on the other hand, is, yes, married, but he’s also—well the most charitable way to put it is that he’s very open to experience.

The extent to which Martin and Tomas’ relationship is open is never made explicit, but after spending the night with Agathe, Tomas is inclined to overshare, and exuberantly. “I had sex with a woman. Can I tell you about it?”

Martin doesn’t respond enthusiastically, so Tomas continues, “It was exciting! It was something different.” Hey, welcome to the club, Tomas. Anyway. Martin finally responds, “This always happens when you finish a film.” While “Passages” doesn’t spend a lot of time in Tomas’ editing room, its timeline terminates as his film is about to go to Venice. So there is a subtext that we’re seeing this character in a certain extreme state, but the movie doesn’t belabor it; it certainly doesn’t try to use creative work stress to excuse his behavior. Switching up your sexual orientation is an unusual approach to post-production coping, you have to give Tomas that.

Franz Rogowski’s performance as Tomas is fascinating. The way he manipulates those around him is enough to make him borderline repellent, and Rogowski, leaning hard into a speech impediment and all manner of slippery postures, imbues the character with near-rodent-like qualities. Yet one understands why both Agathe and Martin are so physically drawn to him.

And this is the other thing that makes “Passages” a compelling story: Neither Agathe nor Martin are inordinately weak. At different points in the narrative they give in to Tomas and his whiny ways, but they’re not victims. Whishaw’s character is a printer with a sharp eye and a steady-as-she-goes confidence in himself. Exarchopoulos shows how Agathe gets swept up in Tomas’ off-the-wall enthusiasm, but also demonstrates her commitment to living life realistically, as her action after Tomas betrays her very bluntly demonstrates.

After Tomas first takes up with Agathe—during which time he semi-submits to an interrogation from her parents, which may be the sole scene in the movie that compels the viewer to take his side for even a minute—Martin begins an affair with a brilliant young writer/editor, which he’ll cut off abruptly. The writer, Amad (Erwan Kepoa Falé, appealing and understated), understanding what’s up, tells Martin, “You’re weak and you’re sick. You can’t see it yet, but you won’t survive this. Either of you.” The movie’s ending isn’t nearly so cataclysmic, but in its views of a frantic but winding-down Tomas on his own, it tells you that for all the havoc he’s wreaked, he’s learned exactly nothing. And that will keep doing what he does and learning nothing until he burns out.