Buzz Blog

Across the River and Into the Trees ***
This adaptation by director Paula Ortiz and screenwriter Peter Flannery pointedly makes its title card “Ernest Hemingway’s Across the River and Into the Trees”—and while it’s been nearly 40 years since I last read the source material, it certainly feels true to the author’s voice, albeit with a contemporary point of view. Set in the waning days of World War II in Italy, it follows Army Col. Richard Cantwell (Liev Schreiber) as he takes a weekend trip to Venice, oblivious to his doctor’s orders about his life-threatening heart condition. There he meets Renata (Matilda de Angelis), a young woman from a fading aristocratic family facing an arranged marriage. Much of the narrative is devoted to the time spent between Cantwell and Renata, and the actors build a terrific low-key chemistry that feels even more intimate in tight Academy ratio, while the romantic atmosphere of Venice actually gets a little claustrophobic. Mostly, it’s a great showcase for Schreiber, who evokes the kind of loss felt by men who had both seen death, caused death and led others into death, but lacked the emotional language at that time to be able to process it. And he shares some great scenes with Josh Hutcherson as his annoyingly earnest driver. It’s restrained, melancholy, perhaps a bit too depressing for some folks … and yeah, I’d say it’s Hemingway. Available Aug. 30 at Megaplex The District. (PG-13)

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See feature story. Available Aug. 30 in theaters. (PG-13)

Reagan *1/2
The entire framing structure of director Sean McNamara’s biographical melodrama about Ronald Reagan (Dennis Quaid) finds an old Soviet analyst (Jon Voight) explaining to a young Russian how Reagan single-handedly caused the fall of the Soviet Union—and that alone should tell you whether or not you’re the audience for it. Howard Klausner’s script follows Reagan from his childhood through his acting career, his anti-Communist crusading as president of the Screen Actors Guild, his meet-cute and marriage to Nancy (Penelope Ann Miller) and his entry into politics, the triumphal music always making it clear that we’re in the presence of a great Chosen One leading the world out of darkness. Quaid’s performance isn’t exactly an act of mimicry, though he leans into the trademark folksy “well…” and understands how to capture Reagan the avuncular Great Communicator. But he’s not so convincing as Reagan the hard-nosed ideologue, so that the greatest-hits parade of policy decisions—from calling out the National Guard on Berkeley protestors to demanding “tear down this wall”—doesn’t even feel particularly effective as partisan hagiography. Not surprisingly, Reagan glosses over stuff like back-channel deals to prevent the release of the hostages in Iran in 1980 or the botched response to the AIDS epidemic, and turns the Iran-Contra scandal into a simple matter of effective messaging. And if you too believe that none of that matters compared to Reagan toppling the Evil Empire by sheer force of his will, have I got a movie for you. Available Aug. 30 in theaters. (PG-13)

Slingshot **
In theory, I’m all for more heady science-fiction like Tarkovsky’s Solaris that uses genre tropes to explore the psychology of solitude. But when filmmakers only look to mimic a classic without understanding what made it tick, you’ve got a problem. This one focuses on an astronaut named John (Casey Affleck), part of a multi-year, three-man mission to explore the moon Titan. As time passes, however, the side-effects of cryo-sleep leads to strange visions, particularly of the woman (Emily Beecham) John left behind. Director Mikael Håfström and screenwriters R. Scott Adams and Nathan Parker (the latter of whom co-wrote the similarly-themed Moon) establish a moody, contemplative pace, allowing the typically internalized performance of Affleck to do a lot of the heavy lifting as the timeline moves back and forth between the mission and John’s experiences on Earth. Yet while the story seems to be wrestling with how John could be creating emotional isolation for himself long before he heads into space, Slingshot ultimately feels far more interested in seeming clever and trying to deliver narrative fake-outs, with a final payoff that plays more like a “gotcha” than a revelation about our protagonist. The genius of Solaris came from both its aesthetics and its complexity, not in trying to see how many twists an audience can withstand. Available Aug. 30 in theaters. (R)

You Gotta Believe **1/2
It will always feel a little churlish knocking an earnest, crowd-pleasing tear-jerker for being clumsy in its good intentions, but … well, there you have it. This based-on-a-true-story sports melodrama is set in 2002 Fort Worth, Texas, where a misfit-filled Little League team coached by workaholic attorney John Kelly (Greg Kinnear) and Bobby Ratliff (Luke Wilson) gets an unexpected invite to represent their league in games ahead of the Little League World Series—and they rally into winning form behind Bobby receiving a serious cancer diagnosis. The narrative takes a fairly predictable arc from Bad News Bears-esque incompetence through youthful shenanigans and “winning streak” montages, stopping in periodically to check on Bobby’s struggles with treatment. The real problem with the script is that it can’t quite settle on a central character: Is it Bobby himself, trying to make peace with possible mortality? Is it John, learning that life is short and work isn’t everything? Is it Bobby’s son Robert (Michael Cash), feeling the weight of his dad’s health on whether he’s successful at baseball? Director Ty Roberts hits all the necessary genre notes, but sometimes hits them with a hammer, pushing so hard at the inspiration that you can feel the perspiration. Available Aug. 30 in theaters. (PG)