Delayed Reaction: Enola Holmes

Premise: The younger sister of Sherlock Holmes goes searching for their missing mother and gets sucked into another mystery along the way.

 

So, Millie Bobby Brown is legit. I think most of us figured that with Stranger Things. Just in case anyone thought that was a fluke, Enola Holmes is here to say she's going to be around for a while if she wants to be. She's charismatic and confident from start to finish. What's impressive too is how the movie surrounds her with veterans like Henry Cavill, Sam Claflin, and Helena Bonham Carter and she doesn't just hold her own. She dictates the terms of those scenes.  

The movie overall is nothing special. It's a YA Sherlock Holmes targeted to today's young people. Enola's over-the-top skills are foregrounded early as just something the Holmes family has in common. She breaks the fourth wall constantly. Most of it is fun in a Fleabag way. In a less playful movie, the self-awareness could've bothered me more. It mostly fits here. It has the annoying habit of mystery movies where plot happens to Enola as often as it comes to her by her own efforts. The movie gets a little over-concerned with literal puzzles (although it does call Enola out on that).

 

Enola Holmes is by no means a perfect movie, but it is a surprising amount of fun. The cast is solid and Millie Bobby Brown proves that she deserves her star status.

 

Side Note: It's always nice to hear a Brit allowed to use their accent. Millie Bobby Brown has a solid American accent, especially for her age, but you can't fake her ease with her natural accent (or something a lot closer to it).

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Rebel in the Rye

Premise: A biopic about reclusive author J.D. Salinger.

 

When J.D. Salinger died in 2010, I thought that was going to open the floodgates of content about him. He was famously reclusive. Despite The Catcher in the Rye being a high school English class staple for decades, a book that millions of teens have related to, it's never been made into a film. Little was known about Salinger's life. He didn't publish anything for the last 4 decades of his life. Many assumed there was a treasure trove of unpublished works just waiting to go public after his death.

 

For whatever reason though, that never really happened. To my knowledge, no new works have been published. None of the kids from Stranger Things have been cast as Holden Caufield in the film adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye. Salacious details of Salinger's life haven't been uncovered. Rebel in the Rye is the only piece of pop culture from the last decade about Salinger I've found. And it isn't much.

 

Nicholas Hoult is fine playing another famous 20th Century author (never forget Tolkien). Other than the fact that he dated Oona O'Neill before she married Charlie Chaplin, there's not much interesting about Salinger's life. He came from a well-to-do family. He went to a great school to become an author. Like many of his generation, he got sidetracked by WWII. He found increased success after the war, culminating in The Catcher in the Rye. Then he moved to the country because he didn't like the fame. There isn't much there to make into a movie. It doesn't help that I think we've all had our fill of tortured genius movies. I did find it funny that Zoey Deutch was prominent in the marketing of the movie but was barely in it. Her entire role could've been written out without consequence. Granted, I'd never ask for less Zoey Deutch.

 

One thing about the movie I did find refreshing was that it came to the defense of editor's notes. I loved the scene where Salinger is talking to the guy from the New Yorker. Salinger starts off defensive about the notes, treating them like demands and a compromise of his artistic vision. The editor instead tells him, no, they're just suggestions. They are trying to help. The same with Salinger's relationship with the professor played by Kevin Spacey. He's there to help and make Salinger better. Too many movies treat writers as fully formed, writing everything perfectly in one draft. This movie does a great job pushing back on that notion.

 

Otherwise though, it's a pretty generic biopic that struggles to justify why it isn't just a Wikipedia page.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: I Spit on Your Grave 3: Vengeance is Mine

Premise: The woman from the first movie turns to vigilante justice for other victims.

 

I mean it this time. I'm done with this franchise. I don't enjoy these movies. The rape and violence are too exploitative. I get no thrill from watching it. However, I did want to check this third one out though because the premise intrigued me. I wanted to know how they would bring back Sarah Butler from the first movie, given how specific the idea behind these movies is. Surely, she wouldn't be brutally assaulted again, right?

 

Thankfully, no. This movie is mercifully light on the rape. Instead, it doubles down on the revenge. If you are the type that gets a thrill out of creative torture, this movie has a couple very painful "executions of justice". The movie takes an unexpected turn by making Butler the heavy of the movie by the end. In the first I Spit on Your Grave, she is "right" to go after those men so brutally. The whole point of the first half of the movie was to convince the audience that those men deserved what was coming to them. In Vengeance is Mine, we don't see any of the violence these men inflict. And their deaths almost feel like entrapment. It's like going to a bad part of town and leaving $1000 hanging out of the back of your pocket. While no one should rob you, you are inviting trouble. Her "evidence" this time is often hearsay or that the men act like jerks to her. By the end of the movie, she's fully deranged and going after innocent people. I kind of wish the movie would've gone even further with the idea. Why even include the early scenes where she's more of a nervous survivor of assault? There shouldn't be a need for the friend to coax this out of her. We have plenty of evidence that she's a badass already.

 

I think the fourth movie brings back the woman from the 1978 original movie. Since I have no desire to track that down, I think I'm finally freeing myself from this franchise. Hopefully, I don't do this to myself again.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: An American Pickle

Premise: An immigrant living in New York in 1920 gets perfectly preserved in pickle juice for 100 years and wakes up in the modern day where he feuds with his great grandson.

 

That was not the movie I expected. It was much more. And I don't mean better. I mean more. There's about 2.5 hours of story in this 89-minute movie. There's a story about loneliness and loss - how to honor those you love. It's an examination of faith. It's an odd couple movie. There's an entire story about a character building a pickle empire. Then a body swap story. It has a religious bent. I can't forget all the time spent on commentary about cancel culture, Trump, and modern life. Every ten minutes I felt like I was watching a different movie. It was impressive how much the movie fit in, but I would've preferred something more focused. Whenever the movie felt like it was going to go somewhere profound or interesting beyond the surface level, it moved onto something else. That was disappointing.

 

Seth Rogen is quite good in the dual lead role. The modern Ben and out of place Herschel feel like different people, not just Seth Rogen with and without a beard. Rogen doesn't fall into his stoner bag of tricks at all. This shouldn't be surprising. Rogen has put together a nice list of dramatic roles over the years (Steve Jobs, 50/50, Take This Waltz) that prove he might be in the Adam Sandler camp (oh yeah, Funny People too) of comedy guys who can do drama well but don't always feel the need to. The movie cuts around Rogen playing both parts well. That's not a surprise, really. Films have been doing this for decades, but I'm always impressed how seamless it is.

 

An American Pickle isn't the funniest Seth Rogen movie. It doesn't have as much fun with the premise as you'd think, often resorting to jokes that could be in any movie. There are kernels of great idea in this that aren't explored enough. I'd be a lot lower on this movie if it was one that I had to buy a ticket to see. It wasn't bad, just a little underwhelming.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Hotel Mumbai

Premise: A dramatization of the coordinated attacks in India in 2008 by Muslim extremists.

 

This movie is an odd duck. It's like they wanted to make United 93 but there was one producer who kept thinking it was more of a straight action movie. Because, this is a movie about a grim topic. A lot of people die. They die in grisly fashion. The actual acts of the protagonists are human. There's not Rambo in this movie. No one turns out to be ex-special forces (well, maybe Jason Isaacs). It's regular people trying to either rescue a loved one or get out of the hotel alive. For the most part, the movie does a good job with grounding the events and the stakes.

 

It's telling though that my impression of the movie when I saw the trailer was that it was Dev Patel's action star turn. The trailer for this really paints it as a straight action thriller and positions Patel as someone backed into being a man of action. The idea that Patel doesn't even pick up a gun in this never would've crossed my mind. Someone clearly thought the best move was to sell this as an action movie. Some of that is in the text of the film too. There are a lot of people killed in this but most do feel pretty anonymous. There's a thing I've noticed it movies like this based on actual events. They know how many people died in total, and you get the sense that someone is watching the movie and counting to make sure they don't go over that. 174 people died in the actual attack (12 attacks over 4 days in several locations, mind you). I don't think Hotel Mumbai shows 174 people killed, but I guarantee if I asked anyone how many people they think died in those attacks after watching the movie (minus the info cards at the end), their number would be much higher than 174. In other words, I wish this movie had shown some restraint with the attacks, instead opting to make individual deaths more unsettling. Granted, it's hard to say that I wish any movie was more like United 93. United 93 at the top of my "great movies that I don't really want to see again" list.

 

I think the surprisingly familiar cast acquits themselves well. Dev Patel isn't quite an action star in this, but he is quietly heroic. Jason Isaac fits in well. I've never understood why Nazanin Boniadi doesn't show up in more things. Also, I wish I could figure out how famous Armie Hammer actually is. When he first popped up in this, I wanted to tell him "You know, you don't have to be in a movie like this". He's been in multiple Best Picture nominees and numerous other high-profile films. It feels like he should be too big to be in the ensemble of a somewhat forgettable thriller like this. But then I look again at his filmography and realize that other than his two big shots at a starring role (The Lone Ranger in 2013 and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. in 2015), he normally is just an ensemble player. Perhaps this is exactly the kind of movie I should expect to see him show up in. Oh well, he's perfectly fine in this.

 

One last thought. I was impressed by the lack of plot armor characters had. There was only one person I knew wouldn't die. The rest turned out to be dice rolls. I wouldn't say it was nice to see character die, but it was nice to be surprised by some of the decisions the movie made.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Before I Fall

Premise: A teenager keeps reliving the day she's going to die.

 

I like Groundhog Day stories and I like Zoey Deutch. This movie was as inevitable for me as her character's fate. In the broad strokes, I liked what the movie was doing. It builds an eventful day with a number of benchmark moments. It sets up several relationships with the main character that have room for easy improvements. It's a by the numbers execution of an idea that people like me find innately interesting.

 

The movie is a bit of a waste of Zoey Deutch though. It's not very fun. Her ease in front of the camera, looks, and relatability all should work well for this kind of teen movie. However, this movie is different from any other repeating day movie I can think of. It doesn't have any fun with the idea. Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day, and Palm Springs always have at least a period where the character or movie has fun with it. Before I Fall doesn't. The closest equivalent is her "bad girl" day, when she is just awful to most people. One of Deutch's strengths as a performer though is her Juno energy, which she doesn't use at all here. There isn't anything different about this role if it was instead played by Margaret Qualley, Kaitlyn Dever, or even costar Halston Sage. So, Deutch isn't miscast as much as she is misused.

 

I know the movie starts by telling us she's going to die, but this sure felt like a movie where she should've found a way to live. I realize that's tonally incompatible with the movie, but I don't care. The way she ends things with most of her friends and family is almost too clean. She essentially told everyone goodbye that day. She will have died suspiciously. I feel like people will just think she committed suicide. I feel for the guy who likes her who basically got to be with her for 10 minutes before she dies. Perhaps I'm thinking from his perspective too much, but that's brutal. Even the girl she saves is going to be fucked up with survivor's guilt. And there's the simple fact that I'm not sure a life for a life is an appropriate reason to sacrifice yourself. If the girl she saved was ready to commit suicide once, then there's a decent chance she'll try it again later. I know thinking too hard about all this, but the reasoning just doesn't track.

 

Side Note: I got really tired of the name "Cupid Day". Why couldn't they just set it on Valentine's Day and be done with it. "Cupid Day" sounds like they couldn't get the rights to Saint Valentine for the movie.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Right Now, Wrong Then

Premise: The same chance meeting of two strangers plays out in full, twice.

 

This is a gimmick movie and I'm all about it. The idea is pretty basic. It's Before Sunrise but twice. The first hour is this director (Jung Jae-young) and artist (Kim Min-hee) meeting and spending the day together. The second hour is the exact same scenario with small initial differences that lead to a vastly different result. It's not quite a Rashomon, but it's close. This is a very effective idea. The first meeting I wasn't that into, but when it got to the second version, I appreciated all the small changes that led to vastly different results by the end. The first meeting was more guarded. Jung Jae-young was putting on a show. On the surface, it looked like the more appealing presentation. He raves about her art (using lines he recycled in past interviews) and doesn't risk ruining it all by mentioning that he's married. It eventually blows up on him. The second meeting, he gives honest criticism of her art and admits that he's married early. That ends up forming a stronger bond, so even after the bizarre scene in which he drunkenly strips in front of her friends, she is more willing to forgive it.

 

This is an idea that I would love to see used for an English movie. And this isn't just a "I hate reading subtitles" complaint. There are certain kinds of movies that play better in the tongue they were written in. I didn't buy a lot of the dialogue in this movie. It was clumsy and rushed. I suspect a lot of it has to do with the ability to translate the conversation and appreciate the delivery of the lines. It's the same reasoning why I wouldn't expect the Before movies to work as well for non-English speakers.

 

Similarly, I really disliked the lead performances. Neither did anything for me. It's clear there was some amount of improv to their scenes, and they did not feel natural at all. I could almost see them thinking about which talking point they're supposed to hit next. To be fair though, maybe I'm just not conditioned to how casual dialogue sounds and looks in Korean. I haven't seen much Korean cinema, so I'm not at all familiar with those rhythms.

 

The central conceit of the movie is so effective that even though most other aspects either didn't work or didn't quite translate, I still appreciated the movie overall.

 

Verdict: Weakly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: I'm Thinking of Ending Things

Premise: A woman contemplates ending her relationship...then weird shit happens.

I get it, Charlie Kaufman. You're smart.

 

Look, I love Charlie Kaufman. That man's mind works differently than virtually anyone else's. His screenplays for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Being John Malkovich, and Adaptation are wonderfully mind-bending. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind was pretty good too.

 

I don't think I'm built for him as a director. I've put off Synecdoche, New York for over a decade because it's only every been described as a mind fuck or depressing. Anomalisa devastated me when I saw it. It's ruined my night. I think it was well made and got to some profound truths about the human experience. It was just too much for me.

 

I'm Thinking of Ending Things is the first time one of Kaufman's movies just felt pretentious*. Other than some of the performances, I had trouble finding anything to like in the movie. The long conversations between Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons in the car often felt like ramblings Kaufman scribbled from a late-night debate with intellectual friends. The scenes with the parents were just plain annoying. I don't like when filmmakers have contempt for characters and are punching down at them. Everything until Buckley and Plemons get to the high school was fine though. I didn't care for it, but I felt like I got it. Everything after that got too self-consciously weird.

 

*I haven't read the book. I did check out the Wikipedia page, and it sounds much more straightforward than the movie Kaufman made, so I'm crediting his authorial voice to a lot of the movie. 

 

The reason I've always like Kaufman so much is that the oddness always served a clear purpose. He has a gift for taking really complex narrative ideas and making them digestible. It always felt like he wanted people to understand his thoughts. I'm Thinking of Ending Things is the first time I've seen him give up on that idea. The final act of the movie moves into more of a David Lynch mode where he puts the onus on the audience to understand. I appreciate the idea of creating an active dialogue between the audience and the film in that way, but at a certain point open-ended becomes indistinguishable from poorly thought out. If you told me that Kaufman couldn't crack the ending of the movie and settled with this, I couldn't point to anything to disprove you. That's very annoying and feels like a cop out.

 

Then there's the fact that much of this movie feels like Kaufman revisiting familiar tricks. The movie is big on playing with perception. Actors are recast randomly for short scenes. Pictures change the first and second time they are shown. Character change locations without explanation. These are all things his movies have done before. Up until the high school scenes, I noted that this movie was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind without the romance.

 

Jessie Buckley and Jesse Plemons are very good at what they are asked to do. I really have no complaints with them. The performances are consistent and interesting. They know exactly what is asked of them and deliver that.

 

Kaufman's skill as a director isn't in question either. He and his collaborators shoot the hell out of this movie, whether it's the bleakness of the snowy car rides or the disorienting experience in the farmhouse. The good doesn't outweigh the bad though for me. And it seems strange to point at the story as the weakness in a Charlie Kaufman movie. Even if I take out the ending that feels like he gave up on, the rest of the movie is just cold drive to nowhere.

 

Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend

Delayed Reaction: I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House

Premise: A live-in nurse comes to realize the house she's in may be haunted.

 

I see the appeal of scares. They are easy. The effect is quick. You can appreciate a scare as soon as it happens. I'd rather have dread though. A lingering unease throughout a movie that you carry with you. That appears to be director Oz Perkins' specialty. Without realizing it, I've seen all of his movies in the last year (The Blackcoat's Daughter, Gretel & Hansel, and this movie). He is great at making me uncomfortable for 90 minutes at a time. While I didn't think any of these movies were great immediately after I watched them, they've all lingered in some way. I've come to appreciate them all over time, even though none yet have risen to "great" yet in my mind.

 

I have to start with Ruth Wilson. Her narration is just plain haunting. I had to stop the movie a couple times because the modulation of her voice along with the scoring got to me. You know how if you play low frequency sounds for a while that makes you more irritable? That's kind of how this movie is, except Wilson's narration just made me feel anxious. Her voice is a little different when she's actually acting on screen. Breathier and a bit annoying. It's very consistent though and mixes with the tone well.

 

Not much happens in the movie. In my notes, I wrote that the movie feels like someone is very slowly reading me an Edgar Allen Poe story. I only realized afterwards that the word I was searching for was 'gothic'. My only real complaint with the movie is a common one for Perkins' movies it turns out. It doesn't stick the landing. I spent 90 minutes uneasy and waiting to see where the story was going. Then, when its intent revealed itself, it was underwhelming. I was similarly underwhelmed by The Blackcoat's Daughter. Gretel & Hansel is a little better about it but still has some of that. I'm certainly watching his career with great interest now.

 

Simply for its ability to cast a spell on me, I must recommend this movie. It has some shortcomings, but the stuff it's great at more than makes up for those.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

Delayed Reaction: Dog Day Afternoon

Premise: Two bank robbers try to find a way to freedom after the police corner them in the bank.

 

OK, I'm a little confused about why this is such an enduring classic in the eyes of cinephiles, but this is a really good movie. I feel like there's been 5 decades of bank robbery movies that have tried to capture the tone of this movie. Most go overboard. Much of what I appreciate about Dog Day Afternoon is how limited and simple it is. The bank is small. We quickly get a sense of the geography in it. The employees act in a human way. No one is trying to be a hero. They quickly see through Sonny (Al Pacino) and Sal (John Cazale), realizing they aren't threatening or particularly competent. Sergeant Moretti (Charles Durning) isn't some negotiating superstar. The movie doesn't even try to overstate the public interest in the robbery. It's all nicely low stakes.

 

I'll admit, I'm so used to late career Pacino, that I kept waiting for his performance in this to go over the top. Instead, it stays pretty measured, with only a few [mostly funny] explosions. I don't know if the way he takes his gun out of the box at the beginning was meant to be funny, but I found it hilarious. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much of this movie is quite funny. This definitely feels like a movie I'll want to revisit.

 

I'm not at "peak Pacino was one of the greats" yet, but I'm starting to see how other people get there. I appreciate Cazale's take on the oddball sidekick. He doesn't go overboard, but he has a number of fun ticks. As I've said many times before, if you can give me a bunch of interesting characters and put them in a room together, then that's a movie I'm going to like.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend