Film reviews: ONE TO ONE: JOHN & YOKO, THE WEDDING BANQUET, THE UGLY STEPSISTER 

• Magnolia Pictures
• One to One: John & Yoko

One to One: John & Yoko
I completely understand the idea that, after 50-plus years, we really don't need another documentary about any of the Beatles—and if this one works, it's because director Kevin Macdonald kind of understands that, too. Because this is less a documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono than it is about the world that shaped them at a particular moment in their lives: approximately 18 months between 1971 and 1973 when they were living in New York's Greenwich Village, absorbing American culture and politics from television, including a documentary about conditions at a home for developmentally-disabled children that inspired the "One to One" benefit concert in August 1972. Macdonald includes performance clips from the concert—Lennon's only full-length live performance as a solo artist—but also fills the film with images from early-1970s television: snippets of hit shows, commercials, news coverage of the 1972 presidential campaign and the war in Vietnam. The result is a fairly fascinating distillation of the mental whiplash that could result in the juxtaposition of innocuous programming ignoring these years' social upheaval with stark reminders of violence, sexism and racism. Yes, we do get a picture of Lennon, Ono, and the other activists and artists in their New York circle through contemporaneous interviews and recordings, trying to figure out what they can do to make the world better. The sense of discovery comes from realizing that every radical is forged in a specific crucible. Available at Megaplex Theatres IMAX screens on Wednesday, April 16, wide release April 18. (R)

• Bleecker Street Films
• The Wedding Banquet

The Wedding Banquet
A lot has changed for queer people in the past 30 years, and a lot hasn't—and co-writer/director Andrew Ahn finds a solid balance between the two in his remake of Ang Lee's 1993 art-house hit. In this incarnation, gay Korean immigrant Min (Han Gi-Chan)—facing an ultimatum from his grandmother (Minari Oscar-winner Youn Yuh-jung) that could threaten his legal status in the U.S.—attempts to set up a green-card/beard wedding with Angela (Kelly Marie Tran), the best friend of Min's long-term partner Chris (Bowen Yang). There are additional complications as Angela and her own partner, Lee (Lily Gladstone), attempt to conceive a child through IVF, even as Angela struggles with lingering issues with her own mother (Joan Chen), and the plot starts to feel kinda overstuffed with everyone's various dramas. But what the script by Ahn and original Wedding Banquet screenwriter James Schamus lacks in structural efficiency, it makes up for in plenty of solid laugh lines, and opportunities for every one of the cast members to shine. Perhaps more importantly, it feels savvy about recognizing not just how queer folks create families of choice, but where those same folks can still feel the need for the families that raised them, and how they can try to find a way back into right relationships. Even when you're one or two steps ahead of the characters in figuring out what comes next for them, it's hard to resist the crowd-pleasing good vibes. Available April 18 in theaters. (R)

• IFC Films slash Shudder
• The Ugly Stepsister

The Ugly Stepsister
It's certainly no great leap to body horror from the original, pre-Disney version of the Cinderella story, and writer/director Emilie Blichfeldt turns obvious finger-wagging at unreasonable beauty standards into something that's grotesquely fun. Certain elements of this grim fairy tale are familiar—a lovely girl turned into a maid by her stepfamily; a ball to find a prince's bride—but turns the focus on Elvira (Lea Myren), who goes to extreme measures to match the beauty of her stepsister Agnes (Thea Sofie Loch Næss) and win the hand of the prince. Myren's performance provides a terrific anchor for everything, capturing the desperation of someone twisted into knots by storybook notions of happily-ever-after, remaining sympathetic even as she becomes a villain to Agnes. But it's also impressive how deftly Blichfeldt plays with our knowledge of the story—there's a delightful twist on how this Cinderella comes by her magically-repaired ball gown—while being selective about when and how to use the real over-the-top material and overseeing top-notch tech credits like the sound design underscoring the way Elvira starves herself. It might end up feeling a bit saggy at 109 minutes, and there's nothing radically new here about how women harm themselves to appeal to others (especially hard on the heels of The Substance). Kudos, though, to Blichfeldt for finding twisted satisfaction in noting that sometimes, a scream is a wish your heart makes. Available April 18 in theaters. (NR)