Buzz Blog

Another Simple Favor ***
The plot here is somehow even more lurid and preposterous than the original based on Darcey Bell’s novel, but if that’s the price we have to pay to get more delightful interplay between Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively, then so be it. Those who saw 2018’s A Simple Favor might recall that it ended with suburban housewife Emily (Lively) in jail after mommy-blogger Stephanie (Kendrick) unmasked Emily as a homicidal con artist; several years later, Stephanie has written a true-crime novel based on that experience, Emily is freshly out of prison pending appeal for [waves hands] reasons, and everyone ends up in Capri for Emily’s wedding to an Italian crime lord (Michele Morrone). Much of the tension comes from speculating on what Emily might be up to in dragging the woman who blew up her life to Europe, but director Paul Feig certainly isn’t interested in delivering something dark, despite the occasional murder. This is breezy caper stuff in high style, reveling in the exotic scenery and every remarkable thread of the wardrobe Renée Ehrlich Kalfus provides for Livey’s Emily. And even beyond that, it’s just another chance to hang out with Kendrick and Lively sparring verbally in way that perfectly matches the former’s bouncy charm with the latter’s ice-queen glamour. No matter how silly the narrative gets, sheer chemistry makes up for a multitude of sins. Available May 1 via Prime Video. (R)

Bonjour Tristesse **1/2
I can’t speak to any of the previous three adaptations of Françoise Sagan’s 1954 novel, but this feels like the kind of psychological drama that can work without a director trying to make every action freighted with significance. This one adopts a contemporary a setting to the story of Cécile (Lily McInerny), a teenager spending an idyllic summer in the south of France with her widowed father Raymond (Claes Bang) and Raymond’s current girlfriend Elsa (Nailia Harzoune) when dynamics are shifted by the arrival of Anne (Chloë Sevigny), an old friend of Raymond and Cécile’s mother. McInerny brings a wonderful watchful quality to Cécile, as writer/director Durga Chew-Bose focuses on the transitional moment between Cécile’s attachment to her father and her own romantic coming-of-age. But while the meticulousness of Chew-Bose’s compositions occasionally yields interesting results—like a long take of an outdoor breakfast table where its emptiness conveys some awkwardness—there are also lingering shots that simply feel like an attempt to wrestle profundity out of untangling headphone wires, or slicing a pineapple. The psychology of manipulation, desire and guilt make for interesting material, and the restrained performances all hit their marks. It simply feels like all of the same points could have been effectively conveyed without the sense of trying so hard. Available May 2 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

Rosario **
Director Felipe Vargas and screenwriter Alan Trezza start with a rare compelling spin on the now-ubiquitous horror movie trope that it’s all Actually About Trauma—and then proceed to mess it up in nearly every significant way. It’s the story of Rosario Fuentes (Emeraude Toubia), a Latinx Manhattan stockbroker who gets a call that her estranged grandmother has passed away; upon arriving at the apartment to await disposal of the body, Rosario discovers that abuela has been involved in some dark magic. Rosario’s status as a child of undocumented immigrants plays a significant role in what follows, as does her general preference for ignoring that history, including Anglicizing her name as Rose. There’s potential for a rich narrative about immigrant parent sacrifices and what can be lost when their children achieve the American Dream they wanted for them, including one well-executed flashback sequence to Rosario’s family’s border crossing. But Vargas generally fumbles the basic grammar of making his scenes scary, and Toubia lacks the presence to anchor what is largely a single-character enclosed-space thriller (notwithstanding the occasional appearance of David Dasmalchian as a creepy neighbor). Worst of all, the script opts for a closing “stinger” that loses the thread of the central metaphor entirely in favor of cheap shock value. Whatever this movie is Actually About, it’s not Actually About it in a way that works. Available May 2 in theaters. (R)

The Surfer **1/2
I’d like to think that I’ve seen enough movies by now that, if I were a producer, and this particular psychological-thriller script crossed my desk, my first thought would be, “Well, we have to get Nicolas Cage.” His inimitable Nic Cage-iness drives most of what works about this story, as he plays an unnamed man who returns to the South Australian beach area where he grew up surfing—hoping to buy his father’s old house—only to find a cultish group of locals with an aggressive anti-outsiders policy. For a little while, it seems as though screenwriter Thomas Martin is going to turn the bullies and their Jordan Petersen-esque, recover-your-manhood guru Scally (Julian McMahon) into an interesting critique of how these scions of privilege are trying to turn themselves into victims of society. He doesn’t know quite how to integrate that material, though, with the disintegration of Cage’s character as he spends several days at the beach being targeted and gaslit, going gradually and wonderfully mad in a way that only Nicolas Cage can gradually and wonderfully go mad on screen. Director Lorcan Finnegan twists his visuals with snippets of traumatic flashbacks, fisheye lenses and inserts of the threatening local wildlife, trying to add to the atmosphere of menace, but it kind of ends up feeling like a hat on a hat when you’ve got the perfect actor to capture what happens when a man falls apart. Available May 2 in theaters. (R)

Thunderbolts* ***
What passes for a braintrust at Marvel Studios has made it awfully easy to cringe at the features they’ve cranked out post-Endgame, and even easier to wonder if having one of them feel pretty solid is a result of grading on a curve. Yet it really does feel like there’s some juice in this latest adventure that throws together a bunch of MCU characters with shady histories—including Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), John Walker/U.S. Agent (Wyatt Russell) and Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (David Harbour)—to become a makeshift team. It’s a motley bunch, and you can see some of the seams showing in the attempts at bickering banter, particularly when Bucky starts to feel like an awkward fit with the other characters in the kind of dysfunctional-family dynamic that has already fueled the Avengers features. Fortunately, director Jake Schreier and the screenwriting team fully commit to the idea of depression and guilt becoming the kind of monsters that can swallow you whole, with Pugh and Harbour in particular giving performances that never once feel phoned-in. Unlike far too many recent super-hero efforts, this one offers an odd climax with evocations of Charlie Kaufman that’s more about defeating personal demons than defeating swarms of CGI beasties, offering the sense that—at least temporarily—Marvel movies have found a way to escape their own recent shame spiral. Available May 2 in theaters. (PG-13)