Image © Searchlight Pictures
A Complete Unknown
The Addiction
(Arrow Video Blu-ray)
Kathleen (Lili Taylor) walks home in Manhattan at night when a stylish woman emerges from the background. The mysterious stranger seizes Kathleen, drags her into an ally and bites her neck, drawing blood in a brilliant slice of Expressionist cinematography. That scene, like all of The Addiction (1995), is in black and white, a wise choice by director Abel Ferrara for depicting the shadowland of the undead.
Kathleen is in shock—it was the violation of rape, but post-trauma stress becomes the least of her problems. She begins drawing blood, clinically at first, before becoming sensitive to sunlight, covering her mirrors, killing her companions … That Kathleen is a philosophy major—faced by the conflicting words of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Husserl—adds dimension to Nicholas St. John’s screenplay, granting her the means to reflect. She becomes cynical, nihilistic, a predator in a world where lust, obsession and violence manifest themselves in individuals and societies. The Addiction opens with a history class slide show on a Vietnam War massacre by U.S. forces and includes a brief visit to a Holocaust exhibit. For Kathleen, the sepulchral stacks of the college library provide more evidence of humanity’s deep failings. Christopher Walken is well cast as the older vampire who tells her, “Eternity is a long time.” (David Luhrssen)
Babygirl
(In Theaters Dec. 25)
Romy (Nicole Kidman) is a successful businesswoman married to a loving husband (Antonio Banderas), with whom she has two teenage daughters. Yet, Romy is seized by sexual fantasies that her husband doesn’t fulfill. Romy’s desires and control issues are brought to the forefront when one of her company’s young interns (Harris Dickinson) vies for her sexual attentions. He draws the boss in with an innate sense of what she needs. Billed as an erotic thriller, the film explores Romy’s fractured mind through their affair. We shudder, anticipating the consequences of the CEO’s behavior and hope she can put the disparate pieces of herself together. With numerous critics giving it a place on their top-10-movies-of-2024 list, the film twists in unexpected directions, unleashing comedy and fear. (Lisa Miller)
A Complete Unknown
(In Theaters Dec. 25)
James Mangold’s four-year Bob Dylan biopic explores the early ‘60s, and the cultural revolution that embraced individual freedom and non-violence. Dylan (Timothée Chalamet) perfectly reflects this period. Mangold’s film observes the writer-singer’s creative output and its effects. Based on Elijah Wald’s book, Dylan Goes Electric! Newport, Seeger, Dylan and the Night That Split the Sixties, Dylan joins the Greenwich Village folk music scene where Pete Seeger (Edward Norton) and Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro) hold sway. They feed off each other. Then, acoustic-guitar-playing Dylan shocks everyone by abruptly changing to an electric guitar. Elle Fanning portrays one of Bob’s girlfriends, passionate in her political beliefs and captured by Bob’s music. Boyd Holbrook’s Johnny Cash is a country upstart and Dylan's friend, imparting bad-boy impulses. Each character further enlightens this portrait of Dylan becoming the creative force he was destined to be. (Lisa Miller)
Nosferatu
(In Theaters Dec. 25)
Director-writer Robert Eggers, delivers this atmospheric take on F. W. Murnau’s 1922 film, Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror. After Count Orlok (Bill Skarsgard) becomes telepathically connected to Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp), he is determined to have her. Ellen’s husband, Thomas (Nicholas Hoult), is a junior estate agent in their German town. The plot thickens when Thomas is dispatched by Herr Knock (Simon McBurney) to get a contract signed by Count Orlok who lives in an isolated Transylvanian castle. Needless to say, things go downhill for all, save Orlok; relishing every moment. Eggers constructs the work in dark blues, greys, browns and blacks, using light and shadow to create his constantly moving tableau. At 133 minutes, this R-rated horror boasts memorable visuals, an unrelenting sense of dread, blood and gore, plague and rats, and Ellen’s yearning for whatever, and whoever, comes next. (Lisa Miller)
