Problemista

An unusual debut film by Julio Torres who appears on Saturday Night Live and directs, writes and stars in this work.  He plays Alejandro Martinez, an El Salvadorean seeking a work visa in the US and to be employed as a toy designer.  

His mother (Catalina Saavedra) brought him up creating an imaginary world with models and toys and now he feels he can contribute to a company in the US.  Sadly, he cannot get a job like this and is employed by a cryogenics firm until they sack him.  Through this he meets an extraordinary woman, the partner of an artist, Bobby Ascencio (RZA) who has frozen himself for posterity.

She is Elizabeth, played with gusto by the great Tilda Swinton, with a fiery red hairstyle and a combative approach to everyone.  No sooner does she enter a restaurant than she’s off-side with the staff.  Elizabeth needs help to locate Bobby’s works and then curate a show and she sees Alejandro as a support in this and Alejandro thinks she could help him with sponsoring his visa application.  

The film shows the bumbling push-me pull-me relationship between them as they try to achieve their goals with comments on art, creativity, the meaning of life and the immigration process all mixed in together.  It has its own individual touch and some moments of humour.  Swinton is a delight in a role we are not accustomed to from her.  

Torres is more of an acquired taste.  He is credible as a sort of lost nerd but his individual scenes lack oomph.  A little editing could have been good.  Wrapping up the whole show is a rather nice narration from Isabella Rossellini.

A pleasant enough film with some wacky moments (Craigslist?)

but apart from Swinton it lacked something.

3 stars

Joy Ride

Sabrina Wu as Deadeye, Ashley Park as Audrey, Sherry Cola as Lolo, and Stephanie Hsu as Kat in Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

A year ago we had an Irish film of a similar name with Olivia Colman.  This couldn’t be much different.  Directorial debut by Adele Lim who scripted Crazy Rich Asians this has much the same mood and involves a road trip to China and Korea by 4 female friends. Audrey (Ashley Park) is a hotshot lawyer who was adopted by white parents from China as a child.  Now, she is returning for the first time for business.  Lolo (Sherry Cola) is her childhood friend accompanying her.  They will meet up with Kat (Stephanie Hsu) who is a star actress now in China and the fourth and incongruous member of the group is Deadeye (Sabrina Wu). In the rather far-fetched script Audrey has to prove her Chinese heritage to win a contract so she sets off to find her birth mother.  

On a train they end up nearly getting busted for drugs, get rescued in the wilderness by a basketball team they then proceed to bed, Audrey gets fired, they pretend to be a K-Pop band and finally Audrey finds family of sorts in Korea.  A final scene back in the USA shows how they move on from all this a year later.

Joy Ride. Photo Credit: Ed Araquel

What works here?  It’s a pacy movie full of jokes, which are not all funny but do raise a laugh on many occasions.  The actresses are natural comedians and it is a joy to watch the way they act.  Parks surprised me with her versatility and Cola was a star in Shortcomings.  Their energy is also vital to help us believe all the implausible plot twists such as becoming a K-Pop band called Brown Tuesday. 

You may not be so keen on the scatological references, the pussy numbers (Cardi B and other musical influences are found here) and some of the Asian jokes seem more like a clichéd stand-up comedy routine than anything else.  And of course it is good to see a comedy propelled by Asian women showing it can stand up against the best.

3 stars plus

American Fiction

Nice to get a serious, intelligent and at times very funny film musing on the state of things today.  Monk (Jeffrey Wright) is a writer who writes serious novels from a black perspective often with historical connections.  He also lectures at university and is obliged to take leave when a woke student objects to the word ‘nigger’ on the board even though it is the title of a literary text. Monk challenges her and the university authorities want him out.  

He goes to a book festival and sees Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), author of a new blockbuster written in the vernacular of a semi-literate girl from the ghetto.  He is somewhat taken aback that this type of literature which panders to the worse stereotypes of black people is what is selling and worse still what is gaining critical acclaim.  

So, he sets about writing a book in the same style, gives himself a pen name – Stagg R Leigh and gets his agent to send it to some publishers.  They swoop on it and Monk cannot believe that his spoof with all its literary deficiencies is going to be a best-seller and have a film made of it.  He can’t do interviews live so he creates this fugitive persona who risks returning to jail in order to explain his elusiveness.

The climax to this part of the film is when the book ends up on the shortlist for an award that Monk is part of the jury for.  Of course, he can’t reveal he wrote it and tries hard to point out its flaws but the majority white jury proves his point – that you give people what they want to read and that’s what you also give prizes to.

All of this literary drama takes place as Monk reconnects with his estranged family.  

His mother (Leslie Uggams) is developing Alzheimers, his capable sister Lisa dies suddenly (great cameo from Tracee Ellis Ross), his brother Cliff (Sterling K. Brown) is exiting a divorce and coming out as gay at the same time and the family once rich have money problems.  

Monk is obliged to update his relationships with family members. He also picks up a girlfriend along the way, Coraline (Erika Alexander) but that is not smooth sailing either.  Lots to think about in terms of how we relate here.

Wright has an excellent role to sink his teeth into and does very well indeed and the screenplay by director Cord Jefferson (from Percival Everett’s book) is top-rate, making excellent observations and posing many questions about our cultural standards and priorities.  Laura Karpinan gives us a suitable soundtrack.

4 stars plus     

2023 Best Comedy/Musical

Nominees: 

Barbie (US/UK 23)

Bottoms (US 23)

L’Innocent (France 22)

Mascarpone (Italy 21)

RRR (India 22)

Winner

RRR

Senior Year

If this movie was a school student you’d be picking it for a complete fail at the end of the school year.  But sitting down to discuss marks it turns out that you can’t write it off completely and it might just scrape through as a begrudgingly awarded pass.

Steph Conway (Angourie Rice and then Rebel Wilson) is an Australian High School student in the US who is new and unpopular.  

She sets about changing that by becoming Cheerleader captain and her aim is to beat Tiffany, her arch rival, to become Prom Queen.  Typical American stuff.  A cheerleading trick goes wrong and she ends up in a coma, waking up 20 years later in the boy of a mature woman with the mentality of a 17 year-old. (Wilson takes over here).

Steph is determined to finish her senior year and get to be Prom Queen 20 years late.  A lot has changed. Her friend Marth is now the principal, her secret admirer and bf Seth is now the school librarian, Tiff married HS jock Blaine and have a daughter Bri, who is, no kidding, the number one influencer queen in school.  Bri is super woke and doing good deeds everywhere.  She is going out with the top boy Lance (Michael Cimino of Love, Victor fame!) And there is no Prom as it was regarded as out of date and inappropriate for the school.  Steph in her 37-year-old body sets out to revert all that and fulfil her dream.

So, we have masses of poetic licence to accept but since we are here to see Rebel Wilson we’ll put up with the incongruities.

So, what didn’t work?  Well, like My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3, a lot of the script seems more like jokes and punchlines in search of a proper story and real characters.  These characters end up being stereotypes at the service of a joke rather than appropriate to the context.  And considering there is a whole dedication to wokeness, the political non-correction just seems far too obvious. Some of the characters like Lance are a mess, supposedly gender fluid one minute and hot jock the next. 

Tonally it is all over the place mixing crude jokes with serious conversations with cheap gags.  And there really are lots of missed opportunities to compare school 20 years ago and now.

What saves it then?  The energy of the whole show is great and it moves long smoothly if you can forgive the problems mentioned above.  There is a talented cast with Sam Richardson as Seth, Zoe Chan as Tiffany and even Alicia Silverstone, one-time queen of this type of film.

And then there is Rebel.  She gives us her physical slapstick comedy again, her rather crude jokes and it is still pretty funny but I did keep feeling I want to see her under good direction try something more serious.  I suspect she could be good (Jojo Rabbit was still a comic role) and just broaden her range of tools.  She would need a firm director for this.

And there are two or three scenes, such as the one at the screening of Deep Impact which are genuinely funny, if nothing especially new.  It’s all in the timing!

So, the plus points just allow Senior Year to scrape out of the bunch of lemons but not by much.  And yet, recently reviewed Bottoms, a modern version doesn’t rate too far ahead either.

2 stars

Bottoms

From the director of Shiva Baby comes a new hit movie, also a comedy, also quite awkward in places and definitely more outrageous.

A spoof on the teen jock movies like Porkys, the twist here from Emma Seligman and favourite actress Rachel Sennoit is to make the nerds in High School, a pair of lesbian virgins who want to become popular and get laid.  

To do so, they form a fight club ostensibly to give other women self defence classes but also to bond with the hot chicks who follow around the footballers of the school team, the Vikings.  So, we get a good laugh at the customs of typical US High School movies – the jocks like Jeff

(Nicholas Galitzine), the sexist and idiotic Principal (Wayne Pere) and the laidback cool teacher (Marshawn Lynch) who bends the rules while upholding the system.

But from the get-go, the really wacky part of this are the girls.  Ayo Edebiri as Josie gives incredible fantasy speeches channeling whoever she can and Rachel Sennoit as PJ is the mistress of deadpan faces and improvisation.

There is a lot of violence here – bloody faces and snapping bones in the club and in the school which we are supposed to take with a grain of salt as the girls go bad and more.  The film ends up with the crucial football match against the local rivals and includes bombs planted in trees, a Gladiator like field strewn with bodies and pineapple juice coming through the sprinklers!  

Full marks for imagination and satire.  Full marks for attacking some sacred cows. I’m not sure if it is my cup of tea but I understand how it has been labelled a future cult film as it blends lesbian relationships with school traditions and lashings of violence. 

 I wonder what they will come up with next!

3 stars

L’Innocent

Seen on a plane, which is never the best, but I thoroughly enjoyed this film directed by Louis Garrel,

who also takes the lead role.  He plays Abel, a guide in an aquarium who freaks out when his mother announces that she has found love among one of the prisoners in her prison drama classes.  

Initially hostile towards and suspicious of his mother’s new beau Michel (Roschdy Zem),

he soon finds himself proving that Michel is not going straight as he leaves prison but that he, Abel, is himself involved in a heist job – that of stealing tinned caviar.  

He and his friend Clemence (Noémie Merlant, very good) end up protagonising some hilarious scenes in which the heist takes some unexpected turns.  

The screenplay by Garrel, Tanguy Viel and Naila Guiguet deservedly won best Screenplay at the Césars this last year.  Anouk Grinberg is also effective as Sylvie, the mother.

4 stars

Mascarpone (Maschile Singolare)

This is a refreshing story from Rome which follows the fortunes of 30 year-old Antonio (Giancarlo Commare) who suddenly finds that his husband of many years wants them to separate as he has a new lover.

Antonio ends up sharing a flat with the mercurial Denis (Eduardo Valdornini) who loves opera, dressing up and is a part-time escort.  Denis finds him work in a bakery which suits his pastry chef talents and later he takes a proper course.  

Although he has sex with both Denis and the bakery owner, the gorgeous Luca (Gianmarco Saurino),

the two encourage him to go on dates and we get to see a whole raft of different characters pass through his bedroom.  

Eventually he meets photographer Thomas (Lorenzo Adorni) who would seem the perfect match but is he ready for a long-term relationship again?

This is a sort of coming of age story with a difference.  Antonio is older but has been sheltered and is now learning things about real life.  

Denis and his cooking teacher Orsola (Barbara Chichiarelli) both give him their wisdom and there are other life lessons built into the story. It is a refreshingly unjudgmental look at a gay lifestyle where having a variety of sexual partners is part of learning.

Alessandro Guida and Matteo Pilati co-direct and write (with Giuseppe Paternó Raddusa) and the whole package is light, intelligent and natural.  

A sort of comedy with a touch of drama.  

Acting is good and Commare conveys the innocence of Antonio well.

3 stars plus

La Casa de las Flores (series 1)

Successful Mexican series from 2018 and first of at least 3.  A blend of telenovela and comedy it is led by famous local actress Veronica Castro, who plays Virginia De la Mora, the matronly head of  family and a floral business.  

The series begins with the suicide of a woman who hangs herself in the shop and turns out to be the long term lover of Virginia’s husband Ernesto. This unleashes a never-ending chain of events, some realistic, some fantastic and all involving the De La Mora family.

The oldest daughter Paulina, played by Cecilia Suarez with unusual diction is the family problem solver, generous and vengeful at the same time.  

She has an ex-husband turned transsexual (Paco Leon, excellent) in Madrid and a teenage son.

Elena (Aislinn Derbez) has returned from the US with a fiancé in tow but soon gets distracted in other ways and Julian (Dario Yazbek Bernal), the spoilt younger son is busy bedding all and sundry, coming out of the closet and going back in and baring his butt whenever he can.  

His main gay squeeze is the family accountant Diego. Ernesto (Arturo Rios) has a daughter by his lover and an adult stepson and these are all involved too.

The deceased ran a drag night club called La Casa de las Flores just like the florist so there is plenty of room for contrast and confusion here.

Basically the series is about morals.  Old-fashioned moral standards are being challenged every step of the way by new fashions, thereby reflecting two sides of Mexico’s current scene.  Some of the stories are more credible than others and some work more successfully as comedy than others.  I found the love scenes of pent-up gossipy friend of the family, Carmela less than authentic and the interventions of the maid Delia never quite convince in her role as a sort of Shakespearian fool.  At other moments the drug situation rears its head as Virginia decides to start her own marijuana business.

So lots of material thrown at us.  It’s never boring but as colourful as it is I felt that it fell well short of a Betty La Fea, the legendary Colombian comic novela that was so well constructed at all levels.

I notice that season 2 of this show has lost fans, perhaps because of Veronica Castro’s absence (not that she wowed me) and perhaps because the novelty of this chaotic family will quickly wear off.

Entertaining up to a point.

3 stars plus

Bros

Gay rom-com by gays for gays and with gays, and it comes from a major studio.  Without being stunning, it does an honourable job at following rom-com rules and is an enjoyable and perceptive reflection on where we are at today, or at least in New York.  

Bobby (Billy Eichner) is a podcaster, cultural commentator and soon to be LGBTQ museum curator who is strong and ‘happily single’ at 40.  That is until he meets a jock type (Luke MacFarlane) who he falls into an on-again off-again romance.  

The two men keep stepping on each other’s toes and then try to reaccommodate each other and this gives us much of the comedy as well as some of the scenes in the museum committee as they plan for the official opening.

There are many references to cultural handlings of the gay issue including a running gag on a TV channel that alludes to Hallmark.  

Eichner also wrote the script with director Nicholas Stoller and while he can get a bit wordy, he does ensure the pace moves along well.  Debra Messing from Will and Grace makes an amusing cameo. An appropriate soundtrack will also have the audience sighing.

Light and enjoyable but plenty to think about if you pause for a moment.

4 stars