Photo ©Universal Pictures
'Nope" movie still
Scene from Nope
Art Of Love
(Limited Theatrical Release & Streaming on AppleTV & VUDU, July 22)
Simone, by Puerto Rican author Eduardo Lalo, is the first of his novels translated into English. In this adaptation, Esai Morales portrays a Puerto Rican professor and aspiring author, feeling alone and invisible. Lalo intensifies the isolation by never using his protagonist’s name. Walking San Juan’s streets, the professor notices cryptic messages scrawled on buildings, sidewalks and fences. A suspicion they are meant for his eyes is confirmed by subsequent emails and letters, all signed Simone. As his obsession with finding her grows, the writer eventually reveals herself (Kunjue Li). The links to identity arising from location and recognition, percolate through Lalo’s work. (Lisa Miller)
Nope
(In Theaters July 22)
Writer-director Jordan Peele’s latest horror crosses over into science fiction. Peele envisions a California horse-training ranch terrorized by aliens. Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer portray brother-sister ranch owners who believe they’re under attack from extra-terrestrials. They set out to prove a UFO presence by engaging a Hollywood cinematographer (Michael Wincott) and a television host (Brandon Perea) to help get it all on film. Isolated near foothills where no one can hear you scream, the script is frightening, humorous and ironic. Some speculate that “NOPE” is an acronym for Not of Planet Earth, but Peele claims he hoped to provoke an audible reaction from audiences, and “Nope” was the clear winner. (Lisa Miller)
Persuasion
(Streaming on Netflix)
Jane Austen’s prose conveyed a whiff of irony, but in the latest film adaptation of her work, irony is central and amped up into snark. Dakota Johnson does fine work as Anne, still heartbroken years after being “persuaded” by her family to not marry the man she loves, Capt. Wentworth (Cosmo Jarvis), because he’s below her social station. Anne often addresses her complaints to the camera, especially about her vain, snobbish father and hypochondriac sister.
Persuasion’s screenplay is built on the bones of the novel, but with many modernizations. Never before have Austen’s characters spoken of “downsizing” their manor or advising the lovelorn to “move on.” The sets and costumes are smashing, the cast is good throughout, but has anyone thought about the downside of color-blind casting in specific historical settings? Persuasion pretends that there were Black aristocrats in Regency England, which is to pretend that racism did not exist when it was—in truth—pervasive. But then, let’s not spoil the rom-com with unpleasant facts. (David Luhrssen)
The Righteous
(Arrow Video Blu-ray)
Writer-director Mark O’Brien’s remarkable 2022 debut has rightly been compared to Ingmar Bergman, but also bears some resemblance to Flannery O’Connor. The troubled protagonist, Frederik (Henry Czerny), left the Roman Catholic priesthood 10 years earlier to marry. With the sudden death of his adopted daughter came the thought that God is punishing him for renouncing his vows.
Frederick had moved “from up north” to the film’s unidentified rural setting, rendered with wintry bleakness by the black and white cinematography. Frederick and his wife take in a young stranger who stumbles onto their doorstep, Aaron, a boy “from everywhere,” as he says enigmatically. Menace lurks beneath Aaron’s Southern-bred good manners and a threat behind his awkwardness. Eerie music punches the alert buttons well before the narrative takes a dangerous turn.
O’Brien plays the strange young man and Czerny gives an emotionally complicated performance as a flummoxed man of faith, guilty and haunted, caring and angry, waiting for direction from a silent God. The Righteous’ uncanny twists place it in the realm of sophisticated psychological horror. (David Luhrssen)
