A Few Words About a Few Movies

 After a long hiatus from blogging, I have returned to share my thoughts on films I've seen in the last few months...

Killers of the Flower Moon (director: Martin Scorsese)

Ask me what I think of this film and, depending on the day, you'll get one of two answers. Sometimes I will jokingly call it "an exercise in bladder control!" (Which - at three-and-a-half hours, preceded by up to 30 minutes of previews - it most certainly is. If you don't want to miss anything, prepare to keep your legs crossed!) But usually I tell people, with my eyes earnestly wide, "It's VERY good." And in those cases, my enthusiasm is a tiny bit feigned.

And not because it isn't very good. It's carefully and beautifully made, an ambitious effort that mostly achieves what it sets out to do.  The lead performances are also uniformly excellent, particularly the quietly confident performance of Lily Gladstone as Leonardo Di Caprio's long-suffering Native American wife. (We'll just overlook Brendan Fraser yelling his way through a bizarre cameo in the film's climactic courtroom scene.) 

Yet it kept nagging at me that I wasn't entirely satisfied with the film, and it took me some time to figure out why. It's both an oversimplification of Scorsese's work and entirely true to say that he specializes in depicting white men behaving badly. And Killers of the Flower Moon fits very comfortably into his wheelhouse. Its central tragedy is the systematic murder of Osage people by white men intent on seizing the rights to the oil-rich Oklahoma land on which they live. But the impact of that tragedy is blunted by the fact that most of the Osage characters are little more than ciphers. The focus here is almost entirely on the criminals - the victims are minor players. 

There are two brief scenes in Killers... where Scorsese trains his camera on an Osage man who delivers a powerful, angry history lesson in the exploitation of his people by the white intruders. These scenes were not in the original script; Scorsese actually discovered this actor delivering his impassioned history lesson to fellow actors during a break in shooting. Impressed by the actor's passion, Scorsese asked him to re-tell the story on camera. These scenes comprise an admirable addition to the story, but they're not quite enough. We don't know who that man is or what's been done to him; the history he delivers is important and disturbing, but we don't get to see what it has cost him personally. And sadly that's the case with nearly all the Osage characters. With the notable exception of Gladstone's character, Scorsese's film stands outside their experience, keeping a far too polite distance. He's far more comfortable showing us the cold-hearted menace of Robert De Niro's character, or the fatal cluelessness of Leonardo Di Caprio's.

To his credit, however, the director does deliver a brilliant coda which forces us to see the way we package and distance ourselves from the true heinousness of the most shameful moments in our history. 

Killers of the Flower Moon is in theaters now. It will be available to stream on Apple TV with a subscription at a date still to be announced.

Priscilla (director: Sofia Coppola)

Sofia Coppola is the cinematic poet of the loneliness that lurks inside lives of  privilege, particularly for women. Here, as in her earlier film, Marie Antoinette, Coppola is specifically concerned with the outwardly pretty but inwardly desolate life of a (too young) woman trapped in the gilded cage of her husband's royalty. (Yes there's a difference between being the King of France and the King of Rock and Roll, but I think the analogy stands.) 

I can clearly recall an interview given by Priscilla Presley around the time she published her memoir of life with Elvis. She was quietly insistent that the 'real Elvis' was a sweet and decent man. Coppola's depiction of their relationship lines up with that assessment even as it refuses to back off from the uncomfortable creepiness of it all. It's startling when Elvis' friends invite a wide-eyed, guileless 14-year old to meet Elvis at their home, even weirder when Elvis arranges to install the still teen-aged Priscilla in Graceland by setting up his father as her temporary guardian. He controls and dictates everything from her wardrobe choices to her friendships and even a Catholic school education; he also feeds her pills to help her sleep. Yet he demurely postpones the consummation of their relationship until she reaches legal age, and it isn't clear whether this is evidence of his innate chivalry or the result of frank discussions with his legal team.

Yet Elvis, as impressively portrayed by Jacob Elordi, comes off as an essentially well-intentioned man who got too rich and too famous too fast. There is genuine affection and decency in his portrayal, as well as unreasonable anger and startling dictatorial tendencies. His performance makes it all too easy to understand how Priscilla fell under his spell. He's seductive and terrifying in equal measure. 

For her part, Callie Spaeny as Priscilla makes the slow transition from wide-eyed innocence to thoroughly exhausted 28-year-old with seamless authenticity. It's an exquisitely measured performance through which we can always see Elvis as Priscilla must have seen him.

As with most of Coppola's films, Priscilla is also about costuming and set dressing. The opening credits play over scenes of a young woman putting on lipstick and high heels, as Priscilla would do for Elvis. Throughout the film, her wardrobe choices are also the clue to how much control Elvis has over her. By the film's final scenes, she's sporting hippie-ish long hair and peasant blouses with bell bottomed slacks. Even before she puts herself and her toddler daughter into the car that whisks them away from Graceland, we know the love story has reached its end.

Priscilla is in theaters now. It is expected to be available for streaming rental in January and will be available to stream on Showtime with a subscription in July 2024.

Red White and Royal Blue (director: Matthew Lopez)                                                                      Sitting in Bars With Cake (director: Trish Sie)

Contrary to popular belief, I don't require every movie I watch to have profound artistic or intellectual significance. Like everyone else, I sometimes need a movie that is sweet and silly and doesn't demand too much of me.

(Within limits, that is.  Even by these standards, I could barely make it through the very clumsily directed cash grab that is My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.The original film was slight but delightful; the entirely unnecessary sequels have only tarnished the memory of its goofy sweetness.)

 I can't defend either of the films listed in the heading above as great cinema, but I can recommend them for those nights when the world seems sad and awful and you just want to get under a blanket, drink cocoa and watch nice people being good to each other.

Red White and Royal Blue, based on a best-selling romance novel, is about the seemingly impossible love between the son of the U. S. president and a prince of Great Britain (the spare, not the heir, which gives a bit more hope for a happy ending). In the best screwball rom-com fashion, the two start out hating each other, but wind up being up head over heels in love.  The roadblocks to their union are predictable, but you end up cheering for them in spite of it. 

More importantly, the casting and writing hint at a world we aren't quite yet living in, but (most of us) would like to. Without comment, it gives us a female U.S. president (Uma Thurman, rocking a wobbly southern accent), a black female British prime minister(Sharon D. Clarke), and a host of other characters who are generally tolerant and kind. Despite a few strong hints that the British public may not accept this relationship, there's very little overt homophobia on display. 

Sitting in Bars with Cake, by contrast, is an old-fashioned tear-jerker in which a bright young woman, Corinne, is stricken with a terminal illness. But the main story belongs to her friend Jane, a painfully shy law student who is too scared to talk to men in the local pub until Corinne convinces her to bring along one of her scrumptious, beautiful homemade cakes to serve to the other revelers. Men and women alike love her cakes and she gradually comes out of her shell and begins dating. But that trajectory is complicated by her dedication for supporting Corinne throughout her grueling medical procedures and final illness.

Although its premise may seem a bit contrived, Sitting in Bars... is, in fact, based on a true story. It is earnest and effective not only in its portrayal of a deep and devoted friendship, but in showing that our youthful ambitions sometimes morph into quieter vocations that better suit our gifts and talents. Both of the young lead actresses - Yara Shahidi as Jane and Odessa A'zion as Corrine - have an appealing chemistry. Bette Midler also appears, briefly, as Corrine's cranky boss. She's not particularly well used in the role, but succeeds in giving the story a curmudgeonly little kick.

Red White and Royal Blue and Sitting in Bars with Cake are both available to stream on Amazon Prime with a subscription.

Saltburn (director: Emerald Fennell)

And now, we reach the other end of the cinema spectrum, light years away from the feel-good vibes of the just previously mentioned films...

Emerald Fennell made a spectacular directorial debut with her feminist revenge dramedy, Promising Young Woman. But where that film had insight and a genuine sense of heartbreak, her sophomore effort seems to be motivated by nothing more than a quest to inflict the maximum amount of grossness on her audience. To borrow a phrase that another critic used about another, equally disturbing film (Anti Christ), she doesn't just push the envelope, she burns down the freakin' post office.

Saltburn starts out pleasantly enough, but evolves into a relentlessly creepy tale, often extremely difficult to watch. In the course of  two hours and ten minutes you'll be forced to see all of the following: A young man slurping the draining bathwater from a tub in which another man has just masturbated. The same young man copulating with a freshly dug grave. And again, that same man ripping the ventilator tube out of a critically ill woman's throat like he's brandishing a bullwhip. The actor in all these scenes (and at least one other that is arguably worse) is Barry Keoghan. According to interviews with Fennell,  Keoghan often suggested his character do something more extreme than the director herself had envisioned. Hence the bathwater slurping and grave boinking. And there's plenty of full frontal nudity along the way; I'm pretty sure Keoghan's penis gets enough screen time to qualify for its own Best Supporting Actor nomination. I've lavishly praised this actor in the past, but I'm not sure I'll ever be able to look at him again.

The story has a tenuous connection to earlier, better ones like Brideshead Revisited where unprepossessing middle class university students develop crushes not only on beautiful, aristocratic fellow students, but also on their beautiful, aristocratic families and the beautiful, sprawling estates they call home. (There are also glancing references to Peter Medak's corrosive satire The Ruling Class.) Keoghan plays nerdy, socially awkward Oliver Quick who becomes infatuated with the rich and gorgeous Felix Catton. (Jacob Elordi. Yes, the same Jacob Elordi who played Elvis in Priscilla. This dude has range!). Felix invites Oliver to his family's estate, Saltburn, to spend summer break with his eccentric family. Oliver morphs from a shy bumbler to a cold-eyed, manipulative shit literally overnight with a much-too-rushed build-up to that sudden personality shift. This jarring transition sets up the ensuing parade of aforementioned "WTF?" moments. Saltburn is not without its merits. There are fine comic performances by Rosamund Pike, Richard E. Grant, and Carey Mulligan, plus a particularly tantalizing tracking shot through the estate house that sets up Oliver’s fixation on the Cattons and their glamorous abode. But, on the whole, it's a deeply unpleasant experience.

Saltburn is in theaters now. It will be available to stream on Amazon Prime with a subscription at a date still to be announced.

My Kinder, Gentler 2023 Oscar post

 

They're doing it again this coming Sunday.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will hand out their Oscars for the 95th time.  I'm only 63 myself, but sometimes it feels like I've been watching this awards show for all of the last 95 years. And with each subsequent awards presentation, I get a little less invested in it. As I wrote in 2022: "With every passing year, it becomes more obvious to me that these awards have only an ephemeral and tenuous connection to enduring artistic achievement."

In recent years, the tone of my Oscar posts has become increasingly bitchy and snarky. But I no longer have it in me to be a crab-ass about an event that, as previously noted, has "only an ephemeral and tenuous connection to enduring artistic achievement." No virtue signaling intended here, but with all the the truly terrible things happening in the world right now, I don’t have the energy to get pissy about a well-intentioned (if messy and incoherent) action comedy winning Oscars it probably doesn't deserve. I’d rather save my indignation for people who truly deserve it, like (insert name of any far right lunatic politician here.)

What follows are my kinder, gentler observations as to who/what WILL win, who/what SHOULD win (IMHO) and who/what was tragically overlooked in the nominations.

Best Supporting Actress

Will win: Jamie Lee Curtis for Everything Everywhere All at Once

She's already scored a SAG award for her role as the frumpy, menacing IRS agent who relentlessly stalks Michelle Yeoh throughout Everything, Everywhere... And she's a much loved performer whose unbridled enthusiasm for her co-stars' many award wins has been a happy highlight of the awards broadcasts. It's probably a bit churlish of me to say that her wig, bad clothes and fat padding here do at least half of the acting for her, but. I'm saying it anyway 'cause it's true..  Make no mistake, I'm a Jamie Lee fan, and she does have a lot of fun with this role. But I'd like to gently suggest that it really isn't an Oscar-caliber performance. (I actually thought she was more impressive as the traumatized, middle-aged Laurie Strode of the 2018 Halloween reboot.)

Should Win: Kerry Condon for The Banshees of Inisherin

A Kerry Condon upset in this category is not entirely out of the question; she won the BAFTA and quite a few critics' awards. But as much as I loved her fine work in Banshees, I'm not sure even she can stop the tsunami of awards love for Everything Everywhere All at Once. As Colin Farrell's wise, frequently exasperated sister, she provided the common sense ballast needed to ground the film's dark absurdity. Hers was a delicate, funny and very accomplished performance.

Overlooked: Keke Palmer for Nope

From the minute Keke Palmer showed up in Jordan Peele's sci-fi/horror fantasy, I remember thinking "She's going to get an Oscar for this!" Palmer was hilarious with a 'light up the screen' kind of charisma you couldn't take your eyes off. Yet, here we are in 2023, and no one's even talking about Nope - or Palmer's wonderful performance in it - anymore. And that's a shame. The film itself was flawed and understandably has fallen out of the conversation, but Palmer should have been remembered and honored.

Also overlooked: Nina Hoss for Tar

Playing Cate Blanchett's long-suffering partner in Tar, Hoss raised the art of 'subtle changes in facial expression that speak volumes' to a new and dizzying height of artistry." With one raised eyebrow or quiet double-take, she communicated everything we needed to know about the dynamics of their relationship. Hoss' performance, unfortunately, is the kind of powerful but understated work that rarely gets noticed at awards time.

Best Supporting Actor

Will Win: Ke Huy Quan for Everything Everywhere All at Once

Oscar loves a comeback kid, and this year they'll honor the former child actor (The Goonies, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) who, after years of scrounging for work, landed a great role in the year's most honored film. It's a fine enough performance which nicely balances that of his co-star, Michelle Yeoh, but far from my first choice in this category. However, I won't begrudge him his hard-earned moment of triumph. Expect unbridled joy to erupt in the auditorium when Quan comes onstage to accept his Oscar.

Should Win: Barry Keoghan for The Banshees of Inisherin

Truth be told, I'd be nearly as happy with a Brendan Gleeson win in this category, although that's even less likely to happen. Keoghan won the BAFTA, so there's a tiny glimmer of hope for an upset here. His gentle, daft Dominick - the would-be suitor of Kerry Condon's character - is beautifully modulated, ultimately tragic portrayal. Keoghan excels at playing oddballs (for a more disturbing performance in this vein, watch his unnerving performance in The Killing of a Sacred Deer). His character in Banshees is similarly off-kilter, but with added nuances of innocence and silliness; it's a deceptively complex performance.

Overlooked: No one, really

I don't have any fights to pick with this category. All five of the nominated performances were honorable, and I have great difficulty coming up with another actor who may have been slighted.  See, I'm not ALWAYS a curmudgeon!

Best Actress

Will Win: Michelle Yeoh for Everything Everywhere All at Once

It will be another inspirational and emotional moment when Yeoh comes to the podium Sunday night to accept her Oscar. That outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion now that she's brought home a Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit award, and a SAG award. I'm happy for her, even if not quite in agreement that she gave the year's best performance. Yeoh gave us some beautiful moments in an otherwise messy and frequently incoherent film and reduced me to tears in her beautifully realized final scenes.  I'm not about to besmirch her upcoming victory.

Should win: Cate Blanchett for Tar

Everything I said about Michelle Yeoh notwithstanding, Blanchett's performance is the towering achievement of the year.  As I noted in my review, Tar is not an audience-friendly film, nor is Blanchett's character one that audiences can take to their hearts. It's a long, talky, intellectually challenging film with an arrogant, predatory protagonist. I totally get why it's not as popular as Everything Everywhere... and that its lack of embraceability is what's hurting Blanchett's Oscar chances. But there is simply no denying that Blanchett is dazzling in the role of Lydia Tar, inhabiting that role so entirely that you don't really notice she's acting.

Overlooked: Florence Pugh for The Wonder

The Wonder is arguably the most undervalued film of the year, and Pugh's stellar performance has been cruelly overlooked in every awards contest so far.  No surprise then that she was omitted from the slate of Oscar nominees, but it's disappointing nonetheless. If you haven't already seen it, please log on to Netflix this week and marvel at Pugh's mesmerizing portrayal of a nurse dispatched to Ireland to observe a girl who hasn't eaten for months, but continues to live and thrive. The locals think it is a divine miracle, but Pugh's cool skepticism cuts through their religiosity.  

Also overlooked: Tilda Swinton for The Eternal Daughter

Swinton delivers a stunning double act, playing both a middle-aged filmmaker and her mother in an ethereal thriller than combines ghost story tropes with an unsparing examination of their relationship. You're barely aware that the same actress is sitting on both sides of the table, so finely etched are details of each women's personality.  Swinton was equally impressive in the too-little-seen, too-little-loved fantasia, Three Thousand Years of Longing.

Best Actor

Will Win: Brendan Fraser for The Whale

This is, by far, the toughest category to call. Pre-Oscar award wins have been pretty evenly divided between Fraser and Austin Butler (Elvis). And Colin Farrell isn't entirely out of the running, although he's probably best considered as dark horse.  I finally settled on Fraser because (as I noted above) Oscar loves a comeback kid.  Fraser's formerly high-profile career faltered for years as the result of both injuries he sustained while making The Mummy films and the fallout from his alleged sexual harassment by the head of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association . Although I didn't much care for The Whale (which was far too focused on the grotesquerie of its lead character's morbid obesity), I greatly admired Fraser's performance and was happy to see him back in the limelight.

Should win: Colin Farrell for The Banshees of Inisherin

I'll be honest: there isn't a single actor nominated in this category whose win would disappoint me. Austin Butler gave a fine and moving performance in the title role of Elvis. Paul Mescal was equally heartbreaking in Aftersun. Bill Nighy's repressed bureaucrat desperately looking for meaning in his final days was the whole reason to see Living. But my heart is with Farrell and his portrayal; of the dim, bewildered Padraic in Martin McDonagh's bleakly funny Banshees. I suspect Farrell's chances here are somewhat hampered by the fact that he and co-star/offscreen buddy Brendan Gleeson have been marketed and celebrated) as more of a double act in this film than they have been as individual performers.  But Farrell has turned in reliably memorable performances for almost two decades now, and a win for him would be akin to a well deserved lifetime achievement award.

Overlooked?

Again, I got nothing. The Oscars were dead-on perfect on their choices for the male acting honors this year.

Best Picture

Will Win: Everything Everywhere All at Once

Let's face it, this film is unstoppable. It has dominated every major award presentation this year and is headed for Oscar glory. For me personally - a woman prone to shutting down in the wake of sensory overload - just the film’s title provokes anxiety, let alone all the lightning-fast jumping around the multiverse that comprises its plot.  But I've been greatly touched by the exuberant joy of the cast as they've appeared together at the podium of nearly awards show to date; they're a group of actors who played a family and then clearly became like family to each other. That actually feels like something to celebrate rather than malign.

Should Win.... Eh, why even worry about it?

The Everything Everywhere victory is a foregone conclusion, and I've clearly made peace with that. So I'll just quickly toss off my opinion that any of the following films would be better choice for the honor: Tar, The Banshees of Inisherin, All Quiet on the Western Front, The Fablemans, Top Gun Maverick. For the record, I loathed Triangle of Sadness and respected - but was ultimately underwhelmed by - Women Talking. Full disclosure: I have not yet seen Avatar: The Way of Water. For that matter, I still haven't seen the original Avatar which was nominated for Best Picture twelve u years ago.

(There actually are a few experts predicting an upset by All Quiet on the Western Front, which cleaned up at the BAFTA awards last month, taking both Best Picture and Best Foreign Language Film. I don't anticipate a rerun of that at the Oscars, though.)

Overlooked: The Wonder.

See my comments about Best Actress above. Here's part of what I wrote when I gave Sebastian Leilo's eccentric but absorbing drama the number four slot on my year's best list:

Florence Pugh plays an English nurse dispatched to Ireland in the 1840s to observe a young girl who has not eaten for months but continues to live and be healthy. The townspeople are inclined to see this as a divine miracle; Pugh's no-nonsense nurse is not convinced. The story evolves gradually and devastatingly as the layers of truth in the situation are peeled back. Pugh's character is a sort of stand-in for us, the audience; her skepticism and her diligent search for the truth keeps the narrative moving forward.  She's the outsider looking into a entirely different culture. Let me remind you that the English were none too popular with the Irish at this time (or probably at any time). At times it almost seems that Pugh's character was invited there only to be refuted. Or possibly converted.

Director Sebastian Lelio bookends the film with scenes of the soundstages where it was shot. A narrator reminds us that we are about to see is a story and that every character in it has a story that they believe in fully. Even though that turns out to be true, it's a slightly awkward framing. Yet the moment the camera first sweeps in to show us Pugh thoughtfully eating soup in a ship's dining room, we are completely and convincingly transported to the 1840s and drawn into the events of the narrative. It’s a transition that, in the wink of an eye, demonstrates the transformative magic of movies.

These are (Not Necessarily) the Best Films of 2022

 

Yes, you read that headline correctly. 

I make no claims that what follows are the absolutely very best films of the year just ended. And here's why... 

As the title of this blog says, I am a PART TIME cinephile, not a full-time professional film critic. I saw exactly 97 of the films released  in 2022, less than half of what a professional critic would see. But I am an enthusiastic, highly selective amateur critic; I focus on seeing as many of the best films as I can squeeze into a schedule that allows for other passions and pastimes. Even so, I miss a sizable number of each year's releases. Here's an overview of what I didn't see (or, in some cases, started but didn't finish).

The Ones That Triggered my Sensory Issues: When I launched this blog seven years ago, I outlined some of my limitations as a reviewer, advising my readers that "I don't do action/adventure/superhero flicks; they overstimulate my nervous system and make me anxious." And actually, it goes beyond that. Films of any genre that are loud, hectic, loaded with quick-cut editing and non-stop frantic movement are anxiety-producing for me as well. You can safely assume that I am not a Baz Luhrmann fan for just that reason.

In the intervening years, I've been able to relax enough to get through a couple of Avengers movies, both Wonder Woman films, several entries in the Thor franchise and a few other action flicks. But I lost some ground during the cosseted years of the Coronavirus lockdown. Forty-five minutes of the amped up action scenes and wildly exuberant dance numbers in RRR were all I could manage out of its over-three-hour running length, then I bailed.  I did manage to get all the way through Everything Everywhere All At Once and Elvis, but in both cases, I was overwhelmed and exhausted by the time the end credits rolled. So you won't see any of these on my list,.because I can't give them a fair evaluation.

The Other Ones I Couldn't Finish: The Menu, White Noise, The Northman, Bardo: A False Chronicle..., You Won't Be Alone 

The Ones I Just Didn't Get To: Jurassic World Dominion, The Batman, Bones and All (I don't do cannibal movies), Avatar: The Way of Water (I still need to see the first film); The Woman King; The Lost City; Babylon, The Whale (but I'm seeing it tomorrow!), Till, The Inspection, The Outfit, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Kimi.

Limited or Missed Opportunities: Aftersun, EO, All the Beauty and the Bloodshed.

One other qualification for this list: the film must have been released for the first time in the Chicago area between 1/1/2022 and 12/31/2022 inclusive, whether in a theater or via home streaming. (Film festival screenings prior to the general release date do not count). That's why you'll see at least one movie on this list that is generally considered to be a 2021 film. And that's also why you won't see any of the following films here, although they'll be eligible for consideration in 2023: Corsage, Saint Omer, Broker, The Quiet Girl, No Bears, Women Talking, Living, Holy Spider, A Man Called Otto.

Even with ALL those qualifications and omissions, I came up with a list of 12 exceptional films that I had to honor, and a healthy list of Honorable Mentions as well. If there's a 2022 film you don't see mentioned anywhere in this post, you can probably assume I saw it and didn't like it that much.

Here are my favorite films of 2022,in reverse order of preference. ("Where to stream" information is included for each film; where I've referenced "the usual platforms," those are Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Redbox and Vudu):

12. Stars at Noon (director: Claire Denis)

Claire Denis' best films aren't so much stories as they are visual tone poems. There may be a narrative, of sorts, but Denis is more focused on creating moods and conjuring emotions. If you can surrender to the vibe and ride it like a wave, you'll love her work. I certainly do. 

Margaret Qualley plays a American journalist who's hit the skids in Nicaragua. She can't get work, nor can she get out of the country, so she's reduced to prostitution to keep going. After falling into a torrid affair with a shady English businessman (Joe Alywn), her situation gets more dire and the trade-offs she makes to get home get ever more compromising. It's not a conventionally suspenseful film, but the urgency of Qualley's situation evolves in a subtle but devastating fashion. And Qualley, an exceptional young actress, carries us through it with seamless assurance.

Stars at Noon is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

11. The Fablemans (director: Steven Spielberg)

Spielberg looks back on his own childhood, his filmmaking origins and his parents' troubled marriage with love and forgiveness, plus a little bit of palpable pain. The film is every bit as luminous and entertaining as one would expect, and Spielberg elucidates the childlike sense of wonder that has informed some of his best work.  There are clues to the origins of  Spielberg's pet themes and formative influences as well. Michelle Williams has received entirely deserved praise for her role as the free-spirited, volatile mother; her effectively mannered performance is nicely balanced by those of Paul Dano as her husband and Seth Rogen as a close family friend.  It's also wonderful to see the great Jeannie Berlin in a small role based on Spielberg's grandmother.

 

The Fablemans is in theaters or available to rent from Apple or Amazon at a premium price ($19.99)

10. She Said (director: Maria Schrader)

An expertly constructed, true-life journalistic thriller, in the manner of All the President's Men, Spotlight and The Post  but with a uniquely female perspective. Here we follow New York Times reporters Jodi Kantor (Zoe Kazan) and Meg Twohey (Carey Mulligan) as they work to expose Harvey Weinstein's history of sexual predation and abuse. On one level, it follows the playbook for investigative reporting stories - lots of tracking down reluctant witnesses, newsroom discussions with editors and so on - but here the reporters are also dealing with issues like postpartum depression and juggling child care and family obligations.  The suspenseful thrill is still there, as is the reporters' relentless dedication to break an important story, but it doesn't skim over the personal challenges they handle along the way.

She Said doesn't seem like the kind of film you have to see in a theater, but I'm glad I did. At the multiplex screening I attended, the almost exclusively female audience burst into sustained applause at two critical points in the story when it was obvious that shit had gotten real for Mr. Weinstein.  I can't pretend that audience reaction didn't influence my decision to put She Said on my year's best list; it's the greatest affirmation I can point to for the film's power and impact.

She Said is available to stream only on Peacock with a subscription. 

9.After Yang (director: Kogonada)

I first watched After Yang on a flight to Lima, on a tiny screen while wedged into a cramped economy class seat. And even in that far less-than-ideal setting, I found it incredibly moving. 

In the future world where After Yang is set, there something called a 'techno-sapiens,' a sort of convincingly human- like android that can be purchased for use as a household helper. One such android, Yang, is a sort of babysitter to Mika, the adopted daughter of his owners, and is treated much like a member of the family. But Yang is a 'refurbished' techno-sapiens, purchased secondhand by the the girl’s father (Colin Farrell), and one day he simply breaks and stops functioning. So Farrell goes in search of the parts to repair Yang and, in the process, comes into possession of Yang's "memory box." In that box are stored images and short recordings of people and moments that Yang considered important to preserve.

It's the contents of the memory box, and what Farrell learns as he searches for the people and places he sees there that give this film its lovely, grieving heart. (There are many scenes from Yang's life with a previous owner, including his relationship with a young woman played by the always wonderful Haley Lu Richardson.) Seeing what Yang sees - what touches and fascinates him - only intensifies Farrell's appreciation of beauty and relationships with loved ones. The film is filled with soft, burnished colors and infused with a sustained sense of melancholy. It's comforting to watch and challenging to ponder, all in the same moment.

After Yang is available to stream on Showtime with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

8. Emily the Criminal (director: John Patton Ford)

Here's what I wrote after seeing this film back in October. It's all still true, and after watching the film again recently, I have an even deeper admiration for Aubrey Plaza's performance in the title role:

"A great performance from Aubrey Plaza makes this film an especially compelling experience. Plaza plays a restaurant delivery worker who's struggling - and failing - to pay off student loans while making the rent. Given the opportunity to make fast cash as part a credit card fraud ring, she's at first hesitant, then all in. Emily the Criminal subverts expectations; at first glance, it appears to be an almost Ken Loach-esque tale about the impossibility of getting by in the gig economy, but it evolves into something darker and more particular. Plaza's Emily is a complex and not altogether sympathetic character. At some point, it becomes difficult to tell which characters are criminals and which are victims."

Emily the Criminal is available to stream on Netflix with a subscription, or to rent from the usual platforms.

7. Top Gun Maverick (director: Joseph Kosinksi)

Because it was just so much fun, hit all the right emotional notes and got us all back into movie theaters again. What other reasons do I need, really?

The scenes of fighter pilots slicing through the air are every bit as thrilling and exciting as you'd expect, more so than in the original thanks to the improved technology of the intervening 36 (!) years. Tom Cruise's Maverick got his redemption story. Goose's son (Miles Teller) turned out to be a chip off the old block. They even worked Val Kilmer's Ace into the story, lightly skirting around the actor's now badly ravaged voice (the result of throat cancer) to give the character an emotionally charged farewell.

It is - dare I say this? - better than the original Top Gun.

Top Gun Maverick is available to stream on Paramount Plus with a subscription or to rent on the usual platforms.

6.The Eternal Daughter (director: Joanna Hogg) & 5. Turning Red (directo: Domee Shi)

Two very different films explore the complexities of mother-daughter relationships from different but equally compelling perspectives.

The Eternal Daughter is the less accessible, more eccentric of these two films, but it has an eerie vibe that grows on you. Director Joanna Hogg returns to the autobiographical character of Julie Hart, whom she introduced in The Souvenir, now middle-aged and played by Tilda Swinton. As part of her preparation to make a film about her mother's life, Julie takes her to a Welsh guest house for a week to talk with her about her memories of living there as a child during World War II. 

In an inspired bit of double casting, Julie's mother is also played by Swinton. It's a skillful set of performances by the actress, subtly etching in the details and sore spots in their relationship as Julie probes her mother's childhood memories.

But something is amiss here. The desk clerk alludes to other guests in the hotel, but we never see them. Winds howl, things go bump in the night. The Eternal Daughter initially plays like a ghost story, but it evolves into something entirely different with a startling twist in the final chapter that will make you go back and watch the whole thing again to look for clues. 

At the other end of the spectrum, there's Turning Red, an exuberant Pixar animation that perfectly captures the emotional highs and lows of that delicate moment when girls morph from children into hormonal adolescents - and the resulting impact on their relationships with their mothers. (Yes, that's a lot for a cartoon, but since when have Pixar films ever been mere cartoons?) Set in Toronto's Chinatown in 2002, it's rooted in a specific culture and speaks thoughtfully to the dilemma of a immigrant's child struggling to reconcile her commitment to family tradition with her desire to embrace the culture of their adopted home. Yet it also hits on universal truths about how girls relate to their mothers and whether we live out our parents dreams for us or follow our own lights.

Meilin (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) is a feisty, enthusiastic eighth grader (a "very enterprising, mildly annoying young lady" according to her teachers, an "overachieving dork" per her classmates). She's torn between her mother's expectations (straight As, helping the family with the tourist-friendly temple they operate) and her big love for her friends and a dreamy boy band called 4*Town. 

The film's title, coupled with the subject matter, unavoidably evokes the onset of menstruation; the filmmakers acknowledge this and winkingly play with it. After Meilin freaks out and locks herself in the bathroom, her mother (Sandra Oh) comes running with a box of pads and knocks on the door to gently inquire, "Has the red peony bloomed?" It has not; it's considerably more complicated than that. In a moment of intense anger and embarrassment,  Meilin has turned into a giant red panda.  It's a condition shared by all the women in her family, albeit one they have learned to tame and contain, mainly by avoiding intense emotion. But Meilin grows to enjoy the experience of being that irrepressible panda. Adolescent rebellion ensues, as does maternal panic. But  all gets sorted out in Pixar's reliably authentic-yet-uplifting fashion.

The Eternal Daughter is available to rent from the usual platforms. Turning Red is available to stream on Disney Plus with a subscription or to rent from Amazon.

4. The Wonder (director: Sebastian Lelio)

I'll be honest, I don't know if The Wonder would even be on this list were it not for Florence Pugh's performance. She's in virtually every frame of the film, and she is consistently mesmerizing. The very first scene is just Pugh thoughtfully eating a bowl of soup, and she makes even that most mundane of actions fascinating to watch.

Pugh plays an English nurse dispatched to Ireland in the 1840s to observe a young girl who has not eaten for months but continues to live and be healthy. The townspeople are inclined to see this as a divine miracle; Pugh's no-nonsense nurse is not convinced. The story evolves gradually and devastatingly as the layers of truth in the situation are peeled back. Pugh's character is a sort of stand-in for us, the audience; her skepticism and her diligent search for the truth keeps the narrative moving forward.  She's the outsider looking into a entirely different culture. Let me remind you that the English were none too popular with the Irish at this time (or probably at any time); At times it almost seems that Pugh's character was invited there only to be refuted. Or possibly converted.

Director Sebastian Lelio bookends the film with scenes of the soundstages where it was shot. A narrator reminds us that we are about to see is a story and that every character in it has a story that they believe in fully. Even though that turns out to be true, it's a slightly awkward framing. Yet the moment the camera first sweeps in to show us Pugh eating that soup, we are completely and convincingly transported to the 1840s and drawn into the events of the narrative. It’s a transition that, in the wink of an eye, demonstrates the transformative magic of movies.

The Wonder is available to stream only on Netflix with a subscription.

3. The Worst Person in the World  (director: Joachim Trier)

I first saw this at the 2021 Chicago International Film Festival, at which time I wrote:

"This Norwegian comedy-drama about a thirty-something woman's inability to settle on a career path or a partner is a pleasant, if not spectacular, way to spend a couple of hours.  It's been compared by at least one critic to Frances Ha  - an apt comparison, although this film is more distinctly European in its ambiguity. Its scenes wander in and around the characters emotions, without clearly defined comic beats or other cues to elicit desired audience reactions.

The film benefits from the fine lead performance of Renate Reinsve, a sweet-faced and subtle actress who comes off as likable and sympathetic even as her character makes selfish, ill-advised life choices. Her drift from job to job is played for laughs, while the scenes of her romantic break-ups are played with a realistic ambivalence and genuine pain.

I've seen a few films by this director (Joachim Trier), but I think this may be my favorite of his work. It's certainly the sunniest and sweetest of his films that I've seen."

A repeat viewing this year only deepened my appreciation. There's  a sweetness and a joy to this film, as well as a clear-eyed look at how we all grow past and out of romantic relationships, but without anger or resentment towards those we leave behind. 

The Worst Person in the World is available to stream on Hulu with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

2. The Banshees of Inisherin (director: Martin McDonagh)

The setting is an island off the coast of Ireland, and the time is 1923. The low roar of gunfire can be heard from the mainland where a civil war is raging. But on the isle of Inisherin, the squabbles are far less consequential if, in their own way, nearly as brutal.

After years of sharing daily chats and pints in the pub, Colm (Brendan Gleeson) decides he can no longer be friends with Padraic (Colin Farrell) because he finds Padraic dull company. Colm dreams of writing music and making something meaningful of his remaining days, while Padraic, confused and hurt, keeps chipping away at Colm for rapprochement. Colm becomes so indignant that he threatens to cut off his own fingers, one by one, if Padraic doesn't leave him alone.

If you've seen any other of Martin McDonagh's films, you can probably guess where this is going. 

I hated McDonagh's last film, the dreadfully overrated Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, but this film has redeemed him in my eyes. Back in his own native Ireland, McDonagh is on surer ground. His dark, deadpan humor works brilliantly here, particularly as acted by Farrell and Gleeson, as brilliant a double act as we've seen onscreen in many years.  There's lots of fine work by the supporting cast as well (including Kerry Condon as Farrell's sister and Barry Keoghan as a lonely misfit who harbors an unrequited love for her.) The film is suffused with an underlying sadness and sense of loneliness, even in its most ridiculous moments. It's a tale of small things - petty grievances, idle gossip, fleeting moments of contentment - but it accords to those small things a deep emotional resonance.

The Banshees of Inisherin is available to stream on HBO Max with a subscription or to rent from the usual platforms.

1. TAR (director :Todd Field)

I wrote at length about TAR back in October: you can read the whole review here.

Since then, I've rewatched this film twice, and it only gets better and more impressive on repeat viewings. With another look, I could better appreciate the subtle accumulation of thoughtfully chosen details that reveal who the characters are and what they're about.  And I gained even stronger  admiration for Nina Hoss' portrayal of Tar's wife, Sharon. Hoss is the master of understated but telling alterations in facial expression; the whole history of her relationship with Lydia is etched in every watchful glance, every raised eyebrow. It's the kind of quiet but devastating performance that unfairly gets overlooked at awards time. But you can be absolutely sure that Blanchett will be scooping up another armload of trophies this season; she's already nabbed a Golden Globe and several critics' awards.

TAR is available to rent from the usual platforms.

Honorable Mention: Armageddon Time, Benediction, Brian and Charles, Decision to Leave, Fire of Love, Good Luck to You Leo Grande, Lost Illusions, Marcel the Shell With Shoes On, Sundown.

2022 Nominees to the Academy of the Overrated: Triangle of Sadness, Crimes of the Future

(Not the) Best and Worst of Streaming Series, July-December 2022

 

This is the first in a series of posts looking back at film and television in 2022.

Remember those glorious days of old when you could count the number of existing television networks on one hand, and premium cable was limited to HBO, Showtime and Cinemax? How quaint and long ago those days now seem... and how much easier it was then for one person to compile an authoritative list of the best series of the year. 

With the explosive proliferation of streaming channels and series nowadays, it's impossible for me to watch it all and supremely challenging to get to even a significant percentage of it. I can't honestly do much but pass on my recommendations and admonitions regarding the small subset of programs I actually managed to watch. 

Not that I don't make an effort. I've already published my thoughts about a number of streaming series that aired in the first half of 2022. (You can read them here.) What follows are my thoughts about programs that have aired since July 1. 

One other thing..

If there's an overriding theme here, it's that almost all the really good shows aired in the first half of the year. It was slim picking's from July on, but I did my best...

A Little Better than Expected: Welcome to Chippendale's (Hulu)

I fully expected a series about the infamous male strip club franchise to be good, campy fun and not much else. And  Welcome to Chippendale's does intermittently provide that kind of bawdy amusement. But there's a bit more, including a 'true crime' element of which I was completely ignorant when coming to the series.

Kumail Nanjiani turns in a stellar performance as Steve Banerjee, the Indian immigrant who went from managing a small gas station to owning the Chippendale's franchise to arranging the murder of his business partner. Nanjiami has described the visual image that guided his portrayal as "a block of ice with a tiny flame inside it," and he impressively plays to that idea. His Banerjee is a buttoned-up, calculating, humorless pillar of repressed rage, sensitive to the slights and prejudice he endures as a brown-skinned man in America but all too ready to inflict the same slights on black employees and customers he believes will make Chippendales "less classy" in the eyes of his predominantly white clientele. 

Murray Bartlett's hilarious, irrepressible performance as Nick DeNoia (the club-choreographer-turned-face-of-Chippendale's) is the perfect foil to Nanjiani's grumpy number-cruncher. The "Dr. Hunkenstein" production number his character stages is just about Broadway-worthy. Anna Leigh Ashford, Juliette Lewis, Andrew Rannells, Robin De Jesus and Quentin Plair round out an excellent cast of supporting players.

But despite that cast, Welcome to Chippendales ultimately offers little more in the way of story or revelations that you could find in a television documentary on the subject - and most of those are on Hulu, too. In fact, you might want to skip the series finale altogether and just Google the details of Banerjee's downfall. That is, unless you'd really rather watch the hokey scene where Banerjee is visited in prison by the Jacob Marley-esque ghost of his dead colleague.

Less Bad Than I Expected: Harry and Meghan (Netflix)

Yes I watched all six hours. And yes, I cringed and rolled my eyes more that a few times.

Unfortunately I can't un-see these two doing their affirming guided meditation together, their eyes shut and brows photogenically furrowed as they remind themselves that all the negativity coming at them isn't about who they really are,. (For the record, I have nothing against self-affirming guided meditations - I've done them myself to great personal benefit. But nothing on heaven or earth would induce me to film myself in the act and then put it on Netflix.)

Then there is the scene where Meghan demonstrates the exaggerated, bizarrely theatrical curtsy she made to the Queen on their first meeting. Even Harry looks embarrassed. And that's before we get a glimpse of the fabulous California mansion that Tyler Perry loaned them. 

But here's the most important takeaway: this series makes some legitimate, well-documented, and extremely damning claims of racism against both the British press AND the monarchy. The media references to Harry's "gangsta" girlfriend who's "almost straight out of Compton" are only the tip of the iceberg. There's a segment in which news stories about the former Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex are shown side by side.  Where Kate is praised and celebrated for certain innocuous behaviors (eating avocados while pregnant, fondling her baby bump in public), Meghan is mocked and excoriated for doing exactly the same things! "If  you can't see the racism... then I can't help you," Harry tells us. He's absolutely right.

When Meghan's naivete and over-earnestness morph into entitled whining, it's tempting to tune her out entirely. But in other moments she speaks convincingly uncomfortable truths about the coldness and prejudices of the British ruling class and its many slavishly sycophantic enablers.  Harry's late mother did virtually the same thing in her time, and we effectively beatified her for that. But she was an aristocratic white woman. When an American woman of color speaks out, it's a whole different ballgame. 

Sophomore Slump: Only Murders in the Building (Hulu); 

You know what depresses me the most about writing this entry? It's that I can still remember specific details, lines and scenes from this show's first season (and with great pleasure, I might add), while all I can recall of the second season is that it was a convoluted muddle of new characters and plot complications, including some kerfuffle about whether Martin Short's son was really his son.  Also there was a guest appearance by Shirley MacLaine. It gives me no pleasure to report that the sophomore season of Only Murders in the Building was entirely too much of a formerly good thing; however I have high hopes for the third season as teased in the final episode. Paul Rudd is joining the cast! That can't not be a good thing.

Fifth-season Fumble, Part 1: The Handmaid's Tale (Hulu)

I'm so freaking tired of seeing Elizabeth Moss make this face...

A little refresher: The Handmaid's Tale is based on a Margaret Atwood novel. The first season, which debuted in 2017, covered that novel in its entirety, and if they'd ended the series there, it would be forever remembered as a classic. But the intervening seasons have been made up from scratch in a room full of television writers who tend to fall back on torture porn or scenes of visually stunning, Nazi-esque public ceremonies when they can't come up with a plausible plot development. The show definitively jumped the shark in Season 3, right around the time that Atwood published her acclaimed sequel, The Testaments. By the end of season 4, with June's escape to Canada and the cathartic murder of Commander Waterford by a gang of former handmaids, we seemed to be back on track. And this season started strong enough, but then...

While it's been satisfying to see Serena reduced to handmaid status in the household of a Gilead-loving Canadian couple, this season has mostly been just another exhausting round of repeated physical and emotional torture for its major players. (With lots more opportunities for Elizabeth Moss to make her Righteous Fury Face; see above.) I still don't know whether Bradley Whitford's Commander Lawrence is an evil man, a savior, or just a straight-up lunatic; whichever is the case, his crazy-ass line readings are the highlights of every episode.  I'm thankful that next season will be the last, and that the story is finally transitioning towards the plot  of The Testaments (to which Hulu also bought the rights). But Season 6 has a long way to go to redeem itself and take us out on a hopeful note.

Fifth-season Fumble, Part 2: The Crown (Netflix)

After four spectacular seasons, The Crown has hit a bump in the road.

That's partly due to the extreme overfamiliarity of its story lines around Charles and Diana. That icky phone call where Charles told Camilla he'd like to be her tampon takes up about half of one episode. Or Diana's infamous interview with Martin Bashir, which effectively ended her marriage and ensured her exile from the royal family - that's another whole episode. We've seen it all before (repeatedly, in near-nauseating detail) and there's precious little in the way of new insight or thoughtful re-interpretation to be found here. Dominic West neither looks nor sounds like Charles, although Elizabeth Debicki gives last season's Emma Corrin very strong competition for Best Ever Impersonation of  Princess Diana. Like Corrin, both her physical resemblance to the late princess and her meticulous recreation of Diana's mannerisms are uncanny.

But the worst thing that could have happened to The Crown was the death of Elizabeth II, just weeks before the new season debuted. By unfortunate coincidence, Season 5 is all about the scandal-ridden decline of the monarchy in the mid 1990s and carries with it an elegiac sense of  glory days passing into oblivion.  It all too neatly parallels with the current day feeling that the end of Elizabeth's reign  signals a similar passing away of glory. The son who ascended to the throne at her death is far less beloved, thought to be whiny, self-centered and out of touch by many Britons. Not to mention there's been a fresh round of family scandals with Harry and Meghan's departure, plus Andrew's disgraceful connection to Jeffrey Epstein. With Elizabeth gone, the events of  The Crown - even those that don't directly involve Charles or Diana - feel like very old, entirely irrelevant news.

Nevertheless, Peter Morgan  dutifully trots out a new set of metaphors for monarchical decline, finally eschewing his overreliance on dying stags as symbols for doomed royals. They've been replaced by both the disintegrating royal yacht Britannia (whose repairs will not be paid for by British taxpayers, the Prime Minister insists) and the ancient, unfixable television in Buckingham Palace. "Even the televisions are metaphors," the Queen actually says out loud at one point, apparently for the ten or so viewers who haven't already figured that out.

The production values, of course, remain high, and the acting is predictably impeccable. This season gives us no less than Imelda Staunton, Jonathan Pryce and Leslie Manville in the cast, plus the aforementioned West and Debicki. (Not to be forgotten: Johnny Lee Miller's John Major and Olivia Williams' Camilla, both superb portrayals that haven't received their fair share of the kudos.). But at this point, the show's momentum is irretrievably slowed. It's pretty obvious that the final season is going to kick off with Diana's death, which is a low point from which it may not recover.  

The Ones I Didn't Finish: Mammals (Amazon Prime), Dahmer (Netflix)

In Mammals, James Corden is a chef married to a beautiful French woman whom he discovers is cheating on him with several other men.  The fact that  the couple's "meet cute" scene involves Corden letting off a particularly foul-smelling fart in a small elevator probably goes a long towards explaining how he ended up in that predicament. The Guardian accurately described Corden's character as a "loutish, shouty man-baby," and there's only so much you can stand to watch of a character like that. The brilliant Sally Hawkins is totally wasted in a supporting role as his eccentric, Coco Chanel-obsessed sister.

The one and only reason I ever tried to watch Dahmer was for Richard Jenkins who plays the notorious cannibal's father. And Jenkins did deliver one masterfully heartbreaking scene in the first episode, but that wasn't reason enough for me to stick around past the next one. Dahmer is an oppressively sick and creepy drama, despite its not showing us a single second of gore (in those first two episodes anyway.) And that's not entirely surprising given that it comes to us from Ryan Murphy, a man unacquainted with the concepts of subtlety or restraint.  I know true crime dramas are all the rage these days, but this particular story is just too sad and lurid to bear close examination.  Kudos to Even Peters for really nailing that Milwaukee accent in the title role, but that's not a reason to watch.

The One I Wish I Hadn't Finished: Inside Man (Netflix)

Speaking of lurid..

In this one, David Tenant plays a seemingly nice, intelligent vicar. One Sunday after worship service, his assistant rushes into his office, brandishing a flash drive and (literally!) crying  "Vicar, can you hide my porn?!" Seems the assistant has a problem and his nosy mother is all up in it. So the vicar takes the flash drive and agrees to stash it somewhere safe. But unbeknownst to him, that flash drive is loaded with pictures of children being sexually abused. 

There's a quick and careless kerfuffle when the vicar's son gives his math tutor the flash drive to copy some files from her laptop. The math tutor finds the pictures, the vicar can't explain them without exposing his assistant, and so he does the only thing a nice, reasonable man of the cloth could do in such a moment: he knocks the math tutor down the stairs to his basement and locks her in. And things get MUCH worse from there...

Meanwhile, in a parallel plot thread, Stanley Tucci plays a death row murderer with the deductive powers of Sherlock Holmes. We see people visiting him in prison to ask for his insights into unsolved crimes. Tucci listens impassively, then doles out cryptic crumbs of guidance with an inscrutable calm. He's like the Dalai Lama of cold cases. Or maybe just an emotionally dead sociopath. Honestly, it's hard to tell. I'm not entirely sure that even Tucci knew what he was playing here, and I'm one of the actor's biggest fans. 

Eventually, of course, Tucci and Tenant's story lines cross and let's just say, Tucci's character delivers the show's defining message: "Everyone's a murderer. You just need a good reason and a bad day." Eek! Lots of great talent here, both in front of the camera and behind it (the series was created by Steven Moffat, who also created Sherlock), but I felt like I needed a long shower afterwards.

Can't Decide if I Liked It or Hated It: Fleishman is in Trouble (Hulu)

This series (adapted by Taffy Brodesser-Akner from her own novel) consists of five decreasingly satisfying episodes, followed by one absolutely brilliant episode, which is then followed by a not entirely satisfying conclusion. 

 

I cant' imagine I've enticed anyone to watch this, based on that description. But if you do, I think you'll find the alternative title (suggested by a commenter on a Vulture recap) to be painfully appropriate: The Jesse Eisenberg Misery Hour.

Eisenberg here is at his absolute Jesse Eisenberg-iest as Dr. Toby Fleishman, whose high-powered executive wife, Rachel (Clare Danes) walks out on him and their two kids without no explanation and no forwarding address. He leans into every one of his trademark mannerisms: deeply furrowed brow, hunched shoulders, stammering and sputtering through his lines with a palpable anxiety he's desperately trying to contain. His character gets less and less sympathetic as the weeks pass, and by the final episode, I'd written him off as a clueless, self-absorbed prick. 

Toby's story is narrated throughout by a college friend (Lizzy Caplan) whose dreams of becoming a great writer have been subsumed by suburban marriage and motherhood. She's an infinitely more sympathetic character, although her own denouement is similarly unsatisfying.

For five weeks, I tuned into new episodes out of habit, with an ever decreasing investment in the story. But in the penultimate episode, it took a sudden U-turn, showing us the previously related events from the women's point of view. Suddenly, a modestly engrossing series became electrifying.  And the credit for that goes to Danes, whose breathtakingly brave performance saves the day. To this point, Rachel had been the villainess, conveniently kept mostly offscreen so Toby could wallow in self-pitying speculation about her motives. When the truth of her character is finally revealed, it's heartbreaking and devastating. If Danes doesn't get an Emmy for this, then an Emmy is not worth having. Even so, it's kind of a long slog to get to this payoff, and I'm only intermittently convinced it was worth it.

The Best Streaming Series of 2022: The White Lotus, Season 2 (HBO Max)

It's been at least twenty years since anyone used the phrase "watercooler show," but this season of The While Lotus was far and away the 21st century equivalent of that kind of popularity behemoth.  (Note to youngsters: Google that phrase if you're not familiar with it.) Recap on New York Magazine's culture website, Vulture, each received close to 600 comments, as viewers swapped their feverish speculation on how the season would end.

Here's the already well-established template for a season of The White Lotus: the initial episode opens with the discovery of dead body whose identity we don't get to see. Then we immediately flash back one week to the arrival of a new group of guests to a luxury resort in the fictional White Lotus chain (this time in Sicily, shot on location and absolutely gorgeous.) Over the subsequent episodes, we get to explore the shifting, complex personal relationships among those guests while building to the revelation of who died and how.

On its face, that template sounds like a cheesy mash-up of Fantasy Island and Agatha Christie - and it could be if anyone other than Mike White had written and directed. But White is the master of cringey, class-conflict comedy. (apologies for the excessive alliteration) And, as he did in films like Beatriz at Dinner and Brad's Status, White uses this setup to eviscerate the moneyed class while subtly but unsparingly examining their relationship to the people who serve them.  In Season 2, however, the class conflict mostly simmers around the edges while White digs into the problematic marriages and romances of all its characters. In another departure from the first season, the buildup to the demise of the guest who's found floating in the sea as the story opens is skillfully and tantalizingly executed in almost Hitchcockian style. 

The resort guest with the worst marriage here is, unquestionably, Tanya McQuoid (Jennifer Coolidge) the pathologically needy heiress who is the only character held over from Season 1. She's now married to her season one fling, Greg, who appears to be on the verge of leaving her.  For my tastes, Coolidge's slurred and sleepy line readings here don't so much suggest a desperate, lonely and easily deluded woman as they do an actress who popped a full dose of Ambien before arriving on set. But she manages to be spectacular in the season finale, and I'm betting she'll get an Emmy.

For me the series standout is Meghan Fahy as the wife of a philandering tech bro. Determined to be satisfied with her marriage, she's created her own intricate web of happy talk and self-deception to keep her doubts and sadness at bay. It's an endlessly fascinating performance; the character could all too easily been a one-note, one-joke caricature, but Fahy finds hidden nuances in every line of dialogue.

I'm deliberately skimming the surface of the plot and many other characters here (played by the likes of Audrey Plaza, Michael Imperioli, Haley Lu Richardson and F. Murray Abraham, among others) because I think some shows are best experienced without too much explanation. Sometimes you just need to tune in and 'ride the wave.'  You'll get some benefit from watching the first season before this one, but not enough to be strictly necessary.