It’s been a busy month for me, but that didn’t stop me from seeing all the latest movie releases. So, as I didn’t get time to review each individually, I thought I’d do a small review for each of the new movies I’ve seen this last month in the order that I saw them.
Starting with:
Mothers’ Instinct
Camp is back!
This thriller follows two mothers and housewives in the 1960s, Alice (Jessica Chastain) and Céline (Anne Hathaway). After Alice is unable to save Céline’s son from an accident that results in his tragic death, her historic anxiety brings on an intense paranoia. She becomes convinced that Céline blames her for the death of her son and is out to get her murderous revenge.
The twists and turns of this movie are absolutely delicious and keep you guessing the whole way through. Of course, it all hangs on the performances of our two lead actresses who chew up the scenery like no one’s business. Chastain becomes more and more panicked and unhinged as her mental health slips throughout the movie and she tries to maintain control. Hathaway on the other hand excellently pivots throughout her performance as we try to figure out if what Alice sees is true. She plays a grieving widow, to an evil villain, to an understanding friend and you never really know where you are. It’s tantalizing!
What this movie really reminded me of was the ‘psychobiddy’ genre of movies from the 1960s that began with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane (1962). When older actresses like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford found roles were drying up due to misogyny and ageism in Hollywood, they found new life in horror films playing deranged and murderous older women. Obviously, things aren’t quite as bad today for older actresses (though ageism isn’t totally gone) and we have ozempic now to keep everyone looking tight, but this still feels like a modern-day version of that strategy. Hathaway and Chastain are both in their 40s, so they’re around the point when actresses usually get cast in more and more ‘motherly’ roles. So to take that and use it to capitalize on the recent internet trend of calling older women ‘mother’ and lead a movie is very smart. It totally paid off.
The trailer got a lot of traction when it debuted but I unfortunately haven’t seen a lot of people talking about the movie since it actually came out. I’m not sure general audiences are ready for this level of camp but I just know gay Twitter is going to latch onto this whenever it hits streaming and I can’t wait. I’d definitely recommend getting a group of friends together to watch this film whenever you can because you’ll have a whale of a time!
Back to Black
I said no no no.
This biopic follows the career of the late Amy Winehouse (Marisa Abela) from the conception of her first album to her tumultuous relationship with her husband Blake (Jack OConnell) and her mega success with her second album.
Honestly, biopics, especially of musicians, have been done to death at this point and they all feel exactly the same, unless they do something totally out there and conceptual like I’m Not There (2007). Biopics only really serve to get awards for the actors who are ‘transforming’ into the subject and perhaps give the audience some new information they didn’t know about them. But Amy’s story has already been told, and in an Oscar-winning film at that, the 2015 documentary Amy.
So when I saw the trailers for this movie it looked god awful but to be honest it wasn’t as bad as I expected. As I said singer biopics tend to all follow the same beats and structure and this is very much that, it was standard of the genre but it didn’t actively bother me. It was entertaining and informative enough to keep me engaged, but it’s definitely something you could put on at home rather than going to the cinema for.
I think the major problem is the casting of Abela. I don’t want to rag on her too much because she clearly worked very hard on this role and her singing was pretty good as far as Winehouse impressions go. She just simply didn’t capture what made Amy so special. She didn’t have that bite and cheeky humour that I come to expect from the singer. She seemed more like an innocent deer in the headlights throughout the film, and often felt like she was speaking in slow motion to get the accent right.
The film itself is pretty mid (and I think Amy herself would have had something to say about it) but if you wanna learn more about her then you can check it out when it’s streaming somewhere. Personally, it got me listening to all of Amy Winehouse’s discography again and remembering what a real talent she was, so I can at least thank it for that.
Civil War
America has a problem
This movie is set in a dystopian near-future America, where the president is serving a third term in the midst of a violent civil war. We follow Lee Smith (Kirsten Dunst), a renowned war photographer and journalist Joel (Wagner Moura) as they attempt to travel to DC to interview and photograph the president before he gets captured and executed by rebels! They are joined by aging veteran journalist Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and young budding photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny).
I think what I enjoyed most about this movie was the way it dug into the dystopia in a way that was so grounded. This kind of environment is one you usually see in zombie movies or after some kind of supernatural disaster, but this was real, it was war. We’re so used to seeing this kind of imagery of destroyed buildings and displaced people in encampments in places like the Middle East or in Europe back in the early 20th century, so to see modern-day America all war-torn was impactful. Obviously, it will probably be a stronger image for Americans as that’s their home, but maybe they’re the people who need to see it most. But I couldn’t help but walk home through London and imagine what it would be like if this was all destroyed around me.
Dunst and Moura’s performances as the lead duo are really fascinating, as they show two outcomes of what being constantly surrounded by war can do to a person. Dunst’s Lee is closed off and hardened by her experiences, never getting emotional or connecting with the horrors she sees but simply capturing her shots. Whereas Moura’s Joel is excitable and nihilistic, turning the fear into thrill instead of taking it in. Both end up hitting breaking point at different points in their journey and in different ways. In the middle of the two, you have Spaeny’s Jessie who at first struggles with the terror she flings herself into, despite Lee’s advice. But as she starts to grow into the task you see her take on the aforementioned traits of both her new mentors, so as they break down she rises up. I really loved Spaeny in last year’s Priscilla so I was excited to see her pop up in something again so soon. And this role is so different I’m already seeing what range she has as an actress. She’s definitely someone to watch.
The one issue I had with this movie is how strangely apolitical it was. Even though it was a movie about a war, they really didn’t do much to explain why the war was actually happening, besides little tidbits in dialogue here and there. There’s obviously a lot of division in the real world of America right now, which this movie clearly took inspiration from (it’s pretty clear that the president was supposed to be vaguely reminiscent of Trump), but it seems like in fear of stepping on real events and dividing and audience they decided to leave things more ambiguous. I understand that decision but the result is it leaves the world building half baked when you don’t really have an idea of what the war is all about and what they’re fighting over.
Despite that, the movie is still very good. As stressful and terrifying as it can be, it’s also extremely exhilarating. The third act in particular is real blood-pumping stuff. It’s one that I think deserves to be seen in a cinema where you can get the full experience without distraction if you get a chance to go.
Challengers
Tennis is sexy again, thank god!
The film follows old friends Art (Mike Faust) and Patrick (Josh O’Connor) as they compete in a challenge tennis match, watched by Art’s coach and wife Tashi (Zendaya). The match is interspersed with flashbacks of how the two met Tashi as teenagers and grew apart over the years as they competed for her affection both on and off the tennis court in a sexually charged love triangle. There’s not a whole lot of decent tennis movies, and I think this is definitely joining the ranks of the best ones. It gives tennis and sex in a steamy little love triangle.
O’Connor and Faist are really great, and very sexy, as the male leads, but make no mistake this is Zendaya’s movie and she eats it up. While Tashi is one of the protagonists, she is very much the villain of the story too. She’s intentionally very unlikable (which is a departure for Zendaya) but not in an overly nasty way, she’s very much a real person. Yes she’s manipulative and she’s cold but you also feel for her at times and you see the humanity in her. She’s the kind of person you’d want to be around but you’d also be very wary of.
I thought this might be a Best Actress Oscar bid for Zendaya when I first saw the trailer, but having seen it I do t think it’s that kind of role. There’s no big transformation or a huge emotional scene you can campaign with, I personally wouldn’t nominate it. If this movie gets enough traction and is still in the conversation next year it could still happen though, which I wouldn’t be mad at. I’m a big fan and I want her to get a nomination sometime. Overall though I think this movie is a bit too youthful and sexy for the Academy’s tastes.
The one thing I didn’t get about this movie was its soundtrack. It heavily relies on loud drum and bass, which is great in the tennis scenes and sexy scenes because it gets your heart pumping. However, they used it every time anything important happened, even if they were just talking, and it got annoying very quickly, especially when they used an abrupt stop to transition to the next scene about 3 times in a row.
I was left thoroughly satisfied by this movie but I’ve always thought tennis was hot. If you want something entertaining and very steamy I’d say definitely check it out.
I’ve said so many times how 2023 was a really excellent year for movies, but I think 2024 is already chomping at its heels. And we’re only 4 months in.
May is typically when the summer movie season begins to pick up and so a few big blockbusters are coming out. I’m excited to see what hits and what doesn’t over the next month and beyond.
Jeremy Greer 