Buzz Blog

Jimpa **1/2 [Premieres]
Early in writer/director Sophie Hyde’s feature, Australian filmmaker Hannah (Oliva Colman) tries to pitch her latest idea to potential financers, saying she wants to do a story that’s about kindness, not conflict. It’s a pretty bold up-front statement for what Hyde is attempting here, and I’m guessing it will work for some viewers—I’m just not one of them. The narrative focuses on Hannah’s trip to Amsterdam with her non-binary child Frances (Aud Mason-Hyde, the filmmaker’s own child) to visit Hannah’s father Jim (John Lithgow), a veteran gay activist, with Frances interested in taking some time away from school to stay with their grandfather. Part of what Hyde is exploring is the distinction between the queer experience of the AIDS era and that of Gen Z, with flashback snippets and cross-cutting conveying what those two generations might not understand about each other. But as much as the film wants to celebrate compassion and grace in understanding those unique experiences, the result is simply too soft and earnest to pack an emotional punch. That’s even more evident in the third act, which feels so much about reconciling the unconventional relationship between Hannah and Jim that Frances starts to feel like an afterthought. In the real world, it would be amazing to see more unqualified generosity of spirit like we see here. In drama? Not so much.

Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore ***1/2 [U.S. Documentary]
Among the many smart things that director Shoshannah Stern does in her profile of Oscar-winning actor Marlee Matin involves a twist on that now-familiar documentary trope involving B-roll of the interview subjects—in this case, being set up with earpieces so they can hear the sign language translator for Deaf director Stern. It’s a reversal that captures who gets accommodations in order to understand communication, and who doesn’t, and how much an absence of communication can shape the way someone experiences and learns from the world. It is, of course, also a specific chronicle of Matlin’s life: her childhood, her breakout role in Children of a Lesser God, her struggles with becoming the de facto spokesperson for Deaf issues in America, her teen substance abuse and the revelations in her autobiography, including experiencing domestic abuse in her relationship with co-star William Hurt. But Stern tells that story in consistently compelling ways, using the film’s subtitles to convey everything from different “speakers” to the cacophonous way Matlin might experience sound. The title might refer most specifically to how the success of CODA and the Oscar win by co-star Troy Kotsur meant Matlin was no longer part of a list of one, but in a larger sense, it’s about the essence of communication: realizing it involves both the need to be understood and a desire to understand.

Twinless ***1/2 [U.S. Dramatic]
I could toss out thematic buzzwords like “it’s about loneliness and connection,” and it’s not even that those words don’t apply—it’s just that writer/director James Sweeney’s movie is so gotdam fun and entertaining that I hesitate to muddy the waters. It’s the tale of two men who meet in a bereavement support group for people who have lost twin siblings: Roman (Dylan O’Brien), a straight guy hanging around in Portland to settle his late brother’s affairs; and Dennis (Sweeney), a gay man with plenty of issues of his own. Both central performances are terrific, with O’Brien pulling off the trickier task of capturing a guy who’s a little bit dumb, a lot angry and still understandably sympathetic, while Sweeney evokes something more pathetic but never ridiculous. Mostly, though, it’s smartly written from start to finish, full of hilarious one-liners, off-kilter filmmaking choices and a brilliant sense for when the darkest possible humor is just right. Even when the general arc of the narrative becomes clear, there’s still great stuff like evoking what it’s like when Dennis becomes a third wheel after Roman gets a girlfriend (the wonderful Aisling Franciosi) through something as basic as who gets to sit in the front seat, and join the sing-along to identical-twin act Evan and Jaron’s “Crazy for This Girl.” Maybe I’ll come around to thinking more about loneliness and connection and whatnot when I’m done giggling myself silly over the bits that keep popping into my head.

The Dating Game *** [World Documentary]
It may feel like nitpicking when I say how frustrating it was that a documentary that felt like it had the potential to be great instead turned out to be only pretty good. Director Violet Du Feng begins with a fantastic subject: In contemporary China, where adult men outnumber women by 30 million in the wake of the “one child” policy, men desperately seeking female partners resort to “dating coaches” like Hao to help them stand out in the crowd. Yes, that makes this something of a documentary version of Will Smith’s Hitch, and Hao himself is almost too perfect a character as we see his own obliviousness as a husband juxtaposed with his conviction that he’s got women all figured out. The scenes involving Hao’s clients are wonderfully awkward, with well-meaning, simple guys forced to be something they’re not, trying to live up to both old-school familial expectations and the needs of modern women. It’s a bit disappointing, then, that Du Feng takes so many detours into tangents about Chinese dating life, from government-sponsored matchmaking events to women obsessed with virtual boyfriends. Related though all these topics may be, in terms of the complexity of finding love in this cultural moment, the movie is at its best when we’re watching dudes who are lost in a forest being led by someone convinced he has the map, except that it’s for an entirely different forest.

SLY LIVES! (aka The Burden of Black Genius) *** [Premieres]
Director Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (the Oscar-winning Summer of Soul) ventures again into the music of the 1960s for his documentary profile of Sylvester “Sly Stone” Stewart, and ends up with something that’s much more compelling when dealing with its title than when dealing with its subtitle. Thompson tracks the full arc of Stone’s professional life, from the childhood and work as a San Francisco DJ that exposed him to a wide range of music and people, to the cross-cultural appeal of Sly and the Family Stone in the late 1960s, to the drug abuse that ultimately derailed Stone’s career. It’s a terrific study of what made him such a musical innovator and influence on artists from George Clinton to Prince, told from the perspective of many of his collaborators and bandmates at the time, with plenty of footage capturing his unique charisma as a performer. But Thompson also wants to investigate the factors that might have contributed to Stone’s fall from grace, with contemporary artists like D’Angelo, Andre 3000 and Vernon Reid addressing the particular pressures of fame on Black creators. It’s not that those aren’t valid or potentially compelling questions; they simply feel back-loaded, such that the movie feels like it’s rushing through its ostensible thesis. “The Burden of Black Genius” ends up feeling like an idea for a great documentary, but maybe a different documentary.

By Design *** [NEXT]
I’m intoxicated by the idea that this movie exists; I’m still wrestling with the question of whether it should exist at feature length. Writer/director Amanda Kramer introduces Camille (Juliette Lewis), a woman living a mundane existence when she spots a designer chair in a boutique, and wishes her soul into it, just before it comes into the possession of musician Olivier (Mamadou Athie). From there Kramer weaves a parable about the way we can come to treat objects with more care and adoration than we treat people, tied into the tendency for women of a certain age to become invisible to admiration; it’s no coincidence that the primary female characters are played by former ingenues like Lewis, Melanie Griffith (who serves as narrator) and Samantha Mathis & Robin Tunney (as Camille’s best gal pals). The narrative explores this notion with some great absurdist comedy, including how easy it is for everyone to continue interacting with Camille’s now-lifeless human body as though nothing had changed. But the gag does wear a bit thin during some of the more grotesque set pieces, and the heavy inclusion of modern-dance choreography doesn’t optimize Kramer’s clear talent for deadpan dialogue (in exchanges like “Who doesn’t like women?” / “Most men. Most women.”). If there were any marketplace for short films, the 40 minutes of this that absolutely kills would be an instant classic.