Delayed Reaction: El Mariachi

Premise: A young musician gets mistaken for an assassin.

 

I might as well see the movie that made Robert Rodriguez's career. Rodriguez really is a fascinating filmmaker. He's kind of become a prestige B-movie maker. His franchises are Spy Kids, Machete, Sin City, and the Mexico trilogy (El Mariachi is part one of that). He also has Alita: Battle Angel floating around. He's good at what he does though, which has led him to partner with guys like Quentin Tarantino and James Cameron. I basically associate him with being the guy you hire to do something fun and do something cheap.

 

El Mariachi is up there with Clerks as one of the best true indie movies that captures who the filmmaker is, only at a lower scale. Kevin Smith has made more ambitious movies than Clerks and films with better production value than Clerks. But all his films do feel like a scaled-up Clerks. I look at guys like Darren Aronofsky and Chris Nolan's first films. It's hard to watch Following and see the guy who made The Dark Knight or Interstellar though. Rodriguez, in a way, has been making El Mariachi his whole career. I mean, literally, his follow up was Desperado, a sequel to El Mariachi with a real budget and real actors. Sin City is El Mariachi after Rodriguez read a comic book. Machete is El Mariachi if he stopped caring about plot.

 

I won't go as far as calling El Mariachi great though. While informative of Rodriguez’s later career, it absolutely plays like a film made on a tiny budget with amateur actors. It holds the record for the cheapest movie to ever make $1 million at the box office, and it shows. This movie is clever and entertaining enough, but it definitely works best as a pitch for the filmmaker's next movie. Even though I know what Rodriguez has done with his career, I still spent most of my time watching this thinking "Just imagine what this guy could do with a real budget".

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Strange World

Premise: When his town's power supply gets threatened, a farmer turns reluctant explorer to find out what is wrong and go further from home than he ever intended.

 

Disney Animation needs to give up on this, right? We know what works with Disney Animation. They let Pixar do their thing. Disney Animation is great at the fairy tales and princesses. Musicals they make into classics. They can approximate the Pixar thing well enough with a Wreck-It Ralph or Zootopia. No matter how well they make the movies though, they just can't get audiences to care about adventure movies. Raya and the Last Dragon had the COVID excuse, but honestly, does anyone think that was going to be a blockbuster without COVID? Two of the studio’s biggest busts ever were the early 2000s back-to-back of Atlantis: The Lost Empire and Treasure Planet. The forgotten movie in the Disney Renaissance, right between The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast was The Rescuers Down Under, which managed a meager $27 million. Every decade or two, Disney Animation just needs to test the theory again, I guess.

 

There's nothing wrong with the movies either. They tend to be remembered well. They just never attract audiences to match their budgets. In that respect, it's hard to call Strange World any kind of outlier. It was always doomed to underperform at the box office. It certainly doesn't help that Disney had no idea how to market it. In a box office landscape where audiences need a reason to go and see something, Strange World offered nothing tangible to hold onto. Hell, even Pixar's once untouchable brand name couldn't turn Lightyear into a hit during the summer.

That said, Strange World is an enjoyable movie. It's clever and exciting. There are some good twists. The messaging was a little blunt, but that's true of even the best Disney Animation features. It's the kind of movie that will be best remembered as “one of the movies of the 2020s” for Disney animation rather than as a singular hit. Because, while enjoyable, there's aren't any standout characters, designs, or visuals. The best Disney Animation movies have something special at the core that they then attach to a plot like Strange World. Like Aladdin or even Up aren't that different from Strange World. Aladdin has the Genie and those songs to supplement it. Up has the balloon house visual and that infamous opening to supplement it. Strange World is just the adventure.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Oliver!

Premise: A poor orphan boy want some more, please sir.

 

Finally, I did it! I have finally seen all the Oscar winners for Best Picture. I can't say why it ended on Oliver! It just happened that way. It's fitting, because the 60s are the decade I have the hardest time getting a grasp on. It has remarkably fewer movies I love than the 50s or even the 40s. While some Best Picture winners are incredible (West Side Story, The Apartment, The Sound of Music), it also has many that made no impression on me (Tom Jones, My Fair Lady, A Man for All Seasons).

 

So, I hated this movie. And I thought I wasn't alone in that. Looking at the Best Picture winners around it tells a pretty clear narrative. It was a year after In the Heat of the Night and a year before Midnight Cowboy. Oliver! is the dying gasp of a studio system about to be rocked by the New Hollywood movement. Oliver! is this cloying, extravagant classic musical that is so boring in comparison to the other offerings of the time. Midway through this movie, I looked up some Best Picture winner rankings online, wondering how close to the bottom Oliver! was. To my surprise, it's middle of the pack in almost all the lists I could find. My only theory about this is that Oliver! is harmless. There's little to piss people off like a Crash. There's no greater legacy to attach to the movie, so people forget about it and rank it where it could do the least damage.

I disliked it strongly though. It was all flash and no substance. I don't really like the songs. The child actors/singers were too winsome. It felt big, yet somehow still stage-bound. I couldn't shake the feeling that I was watching a community theater production with exceptional resources and budget. This definitely fits into the box of "Best Picture winners you only need to see for completionism."

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: M3gan

Formula: Child's Play / Snakes on a Plane

 

This movie should be bad. That's the simple truth. If you describe every part of this movie to me out of context, I'm going to assume it's a bad movie. The trailer went viral, not because it was scary. It took off because M3gan is silly. Her look. Her dancing. It's very hard to tell from the trailer how much everyone is in on the joke. I've seen highly-memed movies fail. Plenty of them. People get what they need for a round of jokes then sense the movie isn't as good as the memes and skip it. So, I wasn't even sure how much of the excitement for the movie was sincere. It reminded me a lot of Snakes on a Plane years ago. That movie was made on its title and Samuel L. Jackson's giddy press for it. That excitement got it as far as a big opening night and dramatic fall off before falling into obscurity, except for that evocative title, of course.

 

It's a delicate balance to get M3gan right. It needs to be a real horror movie but with enough knowing nods to let the audience know that it's in on the joke too. However, they have to make the movie before they know what the audience reaction to even the trailer will be. Which means it's a minor miracle that M3gan hits as well as it does.

 

M3gan is about a little girl, Cady (Violet McGraw), who loses her parents in a car wreck. Her aunt, Gemma (Allison Williams), takes her in and just happens to also be a toy designer working on advanced A.I. technology. Unsure how to relate to her niece, Gemma designs a doll to be her friend and coping device. That's M3gan. Of course, this is a horror movie, so M3gan's A.I. is corrupt and turns her into an autonomous killing machine.

 

There's nothing revolutionary in the pace or design of the story. It delivers the beats the audience expects. It just does it with a little flair. In particular, the M3gan design is just great. She's kind of fabulous; not designed to look like a killer doll. And, as I mentioned, the film gives just enough winks to the audience to be a lot of fun. Sometimes it's giving M3gan a killer pair of sunglasses. Sometimes it's sitting her in a pile of stuffed animals. Sometimes it's having her do a little dance for absolutely no reason other than it looks cool. This movie doesn't just get that it's supposed to be fun. It gets the exact kind of fun it needs to be.

 

It can be a bummer when a legitimately terrifying horror movie gets the sequel treatment. Saw went from nefarious to silly by the end. The first Friday the 13th was really effective the first time around, then it was done so many times that Jason took Manhattan. M3gan is nice because there's nothing to ruin with the unneeded sequel that's sure to come. M3gan has a personality and look that's already silly. This movie is never that serious to begin with. Yet it does leave the humor to the editing choices and meta-context of the movie. It doesn't rely on self-aware characters or desperate appeals to the audience. The movie plays it straight so you don't have to.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Drunken Master

Premise: A troublesome young man gets sent away to learn Kung-Fu from a famous master.

 

I think I've proven that I'm an easy sell when it comes to these Jackie Chan Chinese movies. I've been watching and loving many of them for a couple years now. Give me some intricate staging and some stupid slapstick, and I'm happy. Drunken Master didn't do it for me. It leans much more on the comedy than the martial arts and isn't as clever in how it combines the two elements. It seems like Chan doesn't really hit his top form until the 1980s when he more regularly directs and/or controls his productions. This movie reminds me much more of his Hollywood roles that see him more as a tool than an asset.

 

My biggest issue with this though wasn't really the movie's fault. I don't think, at least. I watched this dubbed, which I'm normally fine with. That's not something I'm precious about. But Chan didn't dub himself, which is a first of the movies I've seen. And the translations just didn't work. A lot of moments came off harsher than they should've, like Chan calling a woman a bitch. Repeatedly the dialogue didn't quite match the tone of the scene. Given how much I've enjoyed some of the other dubs of his I've seen, I'll assume this was an issue of the dub and not the original dialogue. That's always the risk of Amazon Prime's massive film catalog.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Movie Reaction: The Whale

Formula: Heavyweights * Requiem for a Dream

 

Darren Aronofsky is a director I just can't get into. He has a special skill with performers. No one puts an actor through the ringer quite like him, whether it's Ellen Burstyn going through drug-fueled mania in Requiem for a Dream or Natalie Portman going through obsession-fueled mania in Black Swan. I have trouble connecting with his ugly take on humanity, no matter how allegorical he makes it. That made The Whale a troubling prospect. On the one hand, I was sure it would be career best work from Brendan Fraser. On the other hand, Aronofsky is not my first thought of a director to delicately handle the story of a 600-lb man. Frankly, The Whale delivered exactly what I expected, for better and worse.

 

The Whale is an adaptation of a play about a man, Charlie (Brendan Fraser) who has let himself balloon up to 600-lbs in the years since the death of his boyfriend. It's pretty much slow suicide. He can tell he doesn't have long left and won't spend any money for health care beyond the help he gets from his best friend, Liz (Hong Chau), who is a nurse who checks in on him. In what appears to be his final days he decides to call his daughter, Ellie (Sadie Sink), who he hasn't seen since the disastrous end of his marriage 8 years before. She hates Charlie, but he convinces her to visit on the promise or giving her his inheritance. Ellie wants to see him more than she'll admit as well. And the movie pretty much carries on as a collection of scenes set around the apartment with Charlie, Liz, Ellie, Ty Simpkins as a Christian missionary who is determined to make a difference with Charlie, and a few other people on the fringes.

 

Unfortunately, my thoughts of The Whale line up with a lot of stage adaptations. The performances are really great but the rest of it doesn't translate as well. I'm fine with Fraser winning every award imaginable for how he doesn't disappear under all the makeup and prosthetics. I just hear his laugh once and I'm reminded of how much I miss him in those dumb 90s movies. At the same time, there's so much sadness in there too. He plays a full character despite what could turn into a gimmick. Sadie Sink plays her anger, pain, and sadness so well as conflicting forces. And, I'm beginning to love how Hong Chou can just show up to any movie like she's always been there. She feels the least like and character and the most like a person of anyone in this movie.

 

Certain play aspects of this I don't mind. Like, being bound to the apartment for the whole movie makes sense. Charlie is in self-imposed exile. Where it loses me is the checklist feel of the movie. After a while, I started asking which combination of characters I hadn't seen together so I could know what scenes were left. It also started to bother me how every character talked like they were making a point rather than actually having a conversation. Aronofsky has some thoughts about a few topics, religion in particular, and he'd be damned if he allowed a character to let you forget it.

 

I don't know where I land on the obesity issue. I think the film is making a point that's larger than "fat people are bad". Virtually the same movie could've been made about, say drugs (check his filmography) with the same beats. It's more about the overindulgence as a destructive act. Aronofsky really likes to revel in it though. This movie wants you to realize how disgusting Charlie is in a way that feels excessive. That's how Aronofsky works though.

 

Depending on what you watch movies for, The Whale has anywhere from little to quite a lot to offer. To me, it felt like a performance-delivery-machine more than a fully rounded film. Aronofsky’s tendency to shout the quiet parts has never endeared me to his films, and The Whale continues that.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Good Luck to You, Leo Grande

Premise: A retired teacher hires an escort for several sessions to experience sexual things she missed earlier in life.

 

Simple movie. Simple Reaction. This is mainly a two-hander between Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack. I praise McCormack for how well he holds his own with Emma Thompson. I praise Emma Thompson for how measured her performance is. Thompson could act nearly anyone off the screen, so it's fascinating whenever she opens herself up to this kind of vulnerability.

 

A movie can just be two people talking in a room as long as the conversation is interesting enough. Good Luck to You, Leo Grande is further evidence of this. The discussion of sex is frank yet thoughtful. Thompson works well as a mouthpiece for all the possible misconceptions about sex work. This does lean a little into a Pretty Woman view of sex work. But, not every movie of this ilk has to be about the worst-case scenarios of that work.

 

I didn't care for the way everything fell apart during the 3rd visit. I'm not sure how much of that was intentional discomfort though as opposed to the discomfort of a screenplay trying to force something to happen. Ultimately, it pays off, but I think the road it takes is bumpier than it had to be. That's about my only complaint though.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Spin Me Round

Premise: A manager at not-an-Olive Garden gets invited to a special workshop in Italy where suspicious things begin to happen.

 

I hate to be the "why can't funny people just be funny" guy but...well, that's my exact response to this movie. I watched it because the cast includes Alison Brie, Fred Armisen, Ego Nwodim, Molly Shannon, Lil Rel Howery, Aubrey Plaza, and Zach Woods. And the movie is technically a comedy. It's that "too clever for its own good" comedy though. The movie is kind of awkward. It turns into a kind of thriller before revealing that it's not at the end. It's the kind of movie that's funnier to describe it afterwards than when you watch it. Because, yes, it is funny that pig attacks were a red herring and the wild sex party is just the result of millionaires who are out of touch with what's actually normal. It just was not very funny as I watched it. It all felt like it was more concerned with duping the audience than entertaining it.

 

I do like that there's this weird offshoot of comedy with this crowd of people. It sometimes yields results like Safety Not Guaranteed or The Little Hours. This one is just a miss on a big swing.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Matilda: The Musical

Premise: It's Matilda...but a musical.

 

Musicals are easy in a way. Easy to rate at least. Are the songs good? How's the choreography? Can the actors hold a note? Do the non-singing scenes drag? I don't have to get deep in the weeds. So, I can simply say I had a lot of fun watching Matilda: The Musical.

 

The songs are good and catchy. Alisha Weir is a really good Matilda even though, as a millennial, I couldn't stop thinking about Mara Wilson. Really, the whole cast was game. Emma Thompson is almost unrecognizable as Miss Trunchbull. Lashana Lynch softens her screen persona to make a lovely Miss Honey. Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough are happy to play dirty as Matilda's parents. While I have no strong connection to the story from my childhood, I'll say this captures the spirit of it pretty well.

 

The highest of highlights in the film are anytime there's a full-school musical number. "Revolting Children" is the one that people freaked out about from the trailer and for good reason. It's a banger and the choreography is remarkable controlled chaos. I love when a film adaptation of a musical really tries to do something with the musical numbers that can't be matched on stage. The school sequences really hit that idea hard and pull it off*.

 

*To be fair, I've never seen the musical, but I doubt it achieves the intricacy and size of this.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Your Christmas or Mine

Premise: A couple who are going to spend the holidays apart each decide to surprise the other by showing up to their family's Christmas.

Your Christmas or Mine is the kind of movie my One Big Leap rule was made for*. In this case, it's a leap that requires a lot of buy in. I have to believe that the premise could happen. That both Asa Butterfield and Cora Kirk would think to surprise each other, lose their system of quick communication (Kirk losing her phone), and be stuck in a situation where they can't just hop on a train to correct it (a snowstorm shuts the trains down). Once I get past those initial mechanics, I can just enjoy this silly little movie.

 

*A reminder, since I haven't referenced it for a while. The One Big Leap rule is that I'm willing to give every movie one big logical leap before I start criticizing it. Maybe that's a coincidental connection between two characters or a fantasy world that doesn't quite make sense. It's not a fool proof system, but it helps me from getting stuck on a "that just wouldn't happen" soap box.

 

Look, I'm going to be extra generous to this movie. I watched it Christmas morning. It's hard to be harsh on anything I watch then. It is a bit of a "chicken or the egg" situation though. This is also the kind of light-hearted movie that would put me in a good mood. So did Christmas make me like it or did I choose a movie I'd probably like because I wanted to stay in a good mood on Christmas?

 

I didn't know what the movie was about going in. I only knew the title and cast. As soon as I realized what was happening in the movie, I was excited. You see, one of my minor fascinations is what you can learn about a person without the person present. One of the most influential shows on my personal life was an MTV show called Room Raiders where a person would choose a date by looking through three contestants’' rooms. It got me thinking an unhealthy amount about what my living space says about me. And Your Christmas or Mine is a kind of actualization of that idea.

 

Now, the movie is also filled with a lot of shenanigans and extreme secrets the two protagonists have been keeping from each other. After the initial premise playing out, there wasn't a lot that I loved or that surprised me about the movie. It's pretty much what you'd expect. The familiar but not quite nameable cast are all charming. The movie throws in a lot of nice detail to round things out.

 

My one real issue with the movie is baked into the premise. It's hard to care about a couple who I barely see together. The movie hinges on the idea that Kirk and Butterfield are a couple I care about: who are even better as a team than together. Yet, the whole movie is about keeping them apart. I do like them together in the little bit that we see, so it's sad they don't get to spend more time together. It's hard to buy apples then complain that they don't taste like oranges though. I can't complain that the movie I watched was about exactly what it said it would be.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Movie Reaction: Babylon

Formula: Singin' in the Rain ^ Boogie Nights

 

It was either Robert Frost or S.E. Hinton who said nothing stays golden. All great times much come to an end. Change is inevitable. As one thing rots, another grows. There are many idioms saying virtually the same thing. And add Babylon to the list.

 

Babylon is about the early days of Hollywood. It starts in 1926, during the height of the silent film era and before the Hays code cleaned Hollywood up. These were the days when the movie business was run by whoever was insane enough to show up. Specifically, the movie starts on a night that arguably marks the height of the era. It's a lavish party bacchanal at a film executive's mansion. And it marks the start of the three main characters' stories (as well as several supporting characters). There's Jack Conrad (Brad Pitt), the biggest silent film actor of his time, basking in his centrality to the moment. There's Nellie LaRoy (Margot Robbie) a soon-to-be starlet who was built for this moment. And there's Manny Torres (Diego Calva) an all-purpose handyman at the party who dreams of something bigger. Over the course of the film, we see how their assorted stories intersect and track their specific rises and falls as the studio goes through many changes.

 

This is a lot of movie. It's well over three hours long and needs every minute. I couldn't cover everything that happens or every character here if I wanted. What Damien Chazelle has made is an epic about Hollywood's craziest years like we've never seen before. Because, we have seen this story before. Many times. Singin' in the Rain is about it: something Babylon is very aware of. The Artist won every award for telling this story. Shows like The Last Tycoon were about the fallout of this era. Babylon carves out its own space in this well-trod time by being the movie most about the excess.

 

That's the thing the trailers just can't prepare you for. We're used to the glitz and glamor of early Hollywood. That's how they have to advertise this movie. But Babylon is about the drugs, sex, and debauchery. I don't want to scare people away from the movie, but within 15 minutes of the movie, there's a woman peeing on a man. This movie is in love with those early days of Hollywood, but part of what it loves is the absolute anarchy of it. These early sequences - the raucous party, the wild day of film production the next day - they are when Chazelle is at his best as a director. They are a feast for the senses. He mixes long, chaotic, complex shots with fast and abrupt cuts. It's a blast.

 

Of course, this is a movie about the rise and fall. Talkies come and abruptly change what audiences want. The skillset of silent stars doesn't always translate. Hollywood's control switches from the renegades to the businessmen and society types. Our characters find it harder and harder to find a place for themselves in the new world order. The things they loved about the industry move to increasingly less savory places and the concessions they have to make to stay in the industry becoming increasingly dehumanizing. It's all a lot less fun.

 

I'll always remember the first time I watched Boogie Nights in college. Toward the end of the movie, right around when Dirk Diggler is getting beat up or Rollergirl is kicking a guy's face in, one of my friends stopped and dejectedly cried "where did the porn go?" It was a funny moment but really highlighted something about that kind of movie (which Babylon shares a ton of DNA with). No matter how well done and well-crafted the latter part of the fall is, the audience of going to miss the rise. Babylon is at its best in the early mayhem. Later, it slows down. It's still tense, but it's a hangover. My senses were assaulted for 2 hours and now I still have 80 minutes of disillusionment and disappointment. So, while I do think the movie needed to be as long as it was, I don't think it managed the momentum shift as gracefully as I would've liked.

 

Chazelle has a skill with endings. Whiplash is one of my favorite endings of all time. La La Land's ending patched a lot of holes in the movie before it and sends the audience out on a high note. Even the ending for the more reserved First Man is a needed release. The end of Babylon feels a little too forced. I love that it acknowledges what the audience has been thinking the whole time by pointing out the similarities to Singin' in the Rain. The final moment, when Manny smiles is perfect. I'm less enthused about the montage of the history and future of film. It's quite literally yelling the point of the movie at me. I appreciate the desire to want to end on a big moment. This is maybe too big though. I'm happy to sit with this for a while though. I could also see it growing on me.

 

I love that someone let Damien Chazelle make Babylon. It is big and ambitious in a way most movies aren't. The performances are all great. Pitt is dusting off a lot of his Once Upon a Time in Hollywood character. Calva is a nice discovery, although his is the least flashy role. I don't think Robbie has ever oozed with stardom more. She's a force. It's an odd performance to rate though. Not every actress can do what she's doing. It requires a star charisma that someone either has or they don't. I think that's part of why she's being left out of awards discussion. You need a Margot Robbie to play this role. So, when she does play the role, it feels almost too obvious to appreciate. I think I'm just short of loving this movie. It's so much movie that I left it drained and beat up. I'm still untangling how much of that was an intentional effect of the filmmaking and how much was an accident of inconsistency by the end.

 

Side Rant: I thought of this after finishing this Reaction and couldn't find the right place to fit it in. One of my favorite things about the movie is that it's not making a judgment about eras being better or worse. The early part of the movie still has a woman OD-ing at the party and an extra getting killed on the film set. Very bad things. It's not really about the industry changing for the better or worse overall though. It's about how the changes affect the generation of characters this film follows.  Pitt, Robbie, and to an extent Calva were built for a specific world and time. Some people are built to change and adapt. Some aren't. The bad things that do happen early on are the bad things these characters signed up for. In many ways, the things the industry turns into aren't objectively as bad, but to these characters they are. It's even fascinating how Pitt's character embraces the shift to talkies, not realizing that he couldn't survive the change.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Pinocchio

Premise: So, you know Pinocchio, right? Now imagine it in Mussolini’s Italy.

There must be a gene I'm missing. I don't seem to have that thing where I marvel at Guillermo del Toro's movies. Maybe it's in those first three movies of his (Cronos, Mimic, The Devil's Backbone) which I haven't seen, because I haven't found it in the rest of his movies, which I've all seen. It remains weird to me how much of an auteur he's considered. Pan's Labyrinth was good, although I'm cooler on it than a lot of people. I felt beside myself the whole season when The Shape of Water ran away with Best Picture. It's an OK movie. And his career other than that is some second-tier comic movies, a fun Kaiju movie (Pacific Rim), and a couple gothic dramas that fizzled as real awards threats. As is, del Toro is in my Quentin Tarantino bucket. I love his enthusiasm for movies. I like that it always feels like he's completely into the movie he's making. He hasn't made anything I've really loved though.

 

I thought Pinocchio could be that movie. It seems like it's making a strong awards run as a sentimental favorite of people's. The stop motion animation is a perfect fit with del Toro's distinctive visual signature. It really is a pretty looking movie. And mixing a fairy tale with real historical war has worked well for him in the past. I couldn't find a way in emotionally though. And by that, I mean, there were emotional aspects of the film but I connected with none of them.

 

Much of it has to do with Pinocchio himself. He's just plain annoying in this. He never grew on me as a character because I was too busy with how annoying he was. I know that's not unique to this version. There's a reason why I haven't seen any version of Pinocchio in a long time. This did nothing to make it better though. The whimsy and humor in the film were a little too gentle. It has the feeling of a movie made for kids that only their parents would like. Unlike other movies of that ilk - Where the Wild Things immediately comes to mind - this didn't hit me in the gut the same way. Perhaps it's one of those movies you have to be a parent to really feel. I don't know.

 

It's a shame I didn't like it more. It's a lovely movie. Had I been slightly more aligned with the film, it looked like a cozy world to lose 2 hours in.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: The Wonder

Premise: A nurse shows up to a small village to monitor a girl who has miraculously not eaten anything for months.

This happens every year. In my race to see as many movies before the end of the year as I can, I take a chance on a movie I've heard next to nothing about but has an actor I really like in it. I then find out why a movie with this actor has remained so ignored.

 

Florence Pugh is pretty good in this movie. It does feel like a "Pugh performance Greatest Hits" at times. The setting looks a lot like Lady Macbeth. There's a scene of her walking toward the camera upset that was reminiscent of Midsommar. There was a conspiratorial angle to the town like Don't Worry Darling.

 

To be honest though, the movie lost me right away with that intro where it tells us this is a movie and we should believe the actors’' performances. I don't see the value of that in this movie at all. That intro is much bolder than the movie can back up. Granted, that is the one thing I'll probably remember about the movie a year from now.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend