The Batman
(Matt Reeves)
How do you reintroduce a character who defined and dominated superhero movie culture for more than 30 years? You do it by going back to basics, with a movie that takes the Batman back to his origins as a brilliant detective with unlimited resources and an extraordinary tolerance for pain. The Batman offers the most human-scaled take on the character to date, trading the polish and scale of Christopher Nolan’s films for a grimy, grotty palette of smeared reds and thick blacks. Director/co-writer Reeves and star Robert Pattinson find a sympathetic take on Bruce Wayne: he’s almost a non-entity, still living in his childhood trauma and only comfortable around people when wearing literal armour – while Jeffrey Wright and Andy Serkis balance his intensity with compassionate, supportive turns as Jim Gordon and Alfred, respectively. Paul Dano brings a seething, sociopathic energy to the usually cartoony Riddler, Zoë Kravitz gives Catwoman an unpredictability and impatience that’s downright feline, and Peter Sarsgaard, John Turturro and an unrecognizable Colin Farrell turn up in key roles. But what really distinguishes The Batman from previous Bat-movies is the way Reeves’s vision makes room for both Bruce Wayne and Batman to grow: this is a movie about a nightmare who’s learning how to be a hero. 175 min. Now playing in theatres everywhere. NNNN (Norman Wilner)
Bootlegger
(Caroline Monnet)
Documentary filmmaker Monnet’s first dramatic feature is a study of two very different women tied to an Algonquin reserve in northern Quebec: Mani (Devery Jacobs), who’s come home to do some crucial research for her master’s thesis after many years away, and Laura (Pascale Bussières), the town’s source of illegal alcohol, who’s feeling understandably threatened by an impending referendum to repeal prohibition. Monnet’s background explains Bootlegger’s precise sense of the spaces and places its characters inhabit: even the transition from the steel and glass of Mani’s academic surroundings to the vast wilderness of her
ancestral home carries an unspoken weight. The film’s sense of character is equally considered, with Jacobs’s Mani struggling with languages she feels she’s forgotten to reconnect with her own people and Bussières’s flinty Laura reflexively rebuffing any attempts to get past her defenses. And then there’s Raymond (Jacques Newashish), a local member of the band council who’s connected to both women – and carrying more pain than anyone deserves to. Shot by Nicholas Canniccioni and scored by Jean Martin and Tanya Tagaq, this is a powerful debut with a distinct artistic voice. 80 min. Subtitled. Now available on VOD platforms. NNNN (NW)
My Brilliant Friend Season 3: Those Who Leave And Those Who Stay
(Daniele Luchetti)
The third season of HBO’s adaptation of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Quartet was delayed because of the pandemic, and that extended break was fortuitous. The time allowed young leads Margherita Mazzucco and Gaia Girace – both in their teens – to mature into their roles, and let the series’ original showrunner Saverio Costanzo pass the reins over to Luchetti, who creates a distinctive and more casual style to reflect the material’s changing era.
It’s now the 1970s, and both narrator Elena (Mazzucco) and lifelong frenemy Lila (Girace) are well into young adulthood, although their situations couldn’t be more different. After the success of her first novel, Elena marries the well-connected scholar Pietro Airota (Matteo Cecchi) and moves to Florence, where she soon becomes pregnant with their first child; Lila, by contrast, is still in Naples working under terrible conditions in a meat factory while raising her son with platonic friend Enzo (Giovanni Buselli). Against the backdrop of the women’s movement, Elena is beginning to feel the constraints of her marriage and get a more detached perspective on her lower-class upbringing. Although there’s a dip in tension in the middle episodes, the finale is very satisfying (there are echoes of Ferrante’s The Lost Daughter), and it bodes well for the show’s final season. Subtitled. Mondays through April 18 on Crave. NNNN (Glenn Sumi)
Fresh
(Mimi Cave)
This hot-button horror movie – starring Normal People’s Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa, a young woman who learns her amazing new boyfriend Steve (Sebastian Stan) does, in fact, see her as nothing more than a piece of meat – aims to blend the self-aware ingenuity of Get Out and the self-satisfied provocations of Promising Young Woman, mixing arch irony with buckets of artfully aestheticized gore. And if director Cave or screenwriter Lauryn Kahn had pushed a little further into their central metaphor – or, paradoxically, buried it even deeper into the narrative – Fresh might have been more memorable. Instead, the movie is just crushingly obvious, laying out all of its subtext as text while quietly telegraphing every last one of its twists. Edgar-Jones and Stan are terrific, to the point that the movie immediately flatlines whenever it cuts away from them, and there’s a grain of a great idea about how men are trained to see women only as things to consume while women must learn to internalize the risks of being vulnerable… but it’s left as unexplored as everything else. 114 min. Now streaming on Disney+ Canada. NN (NW)
Pieces Of Her
(Minkie Spiro)
An adaptation of the 2018 novel by Karin Slaughter, this Netflix thriller series stars Bella Heathcote as Andy Oliver, a 911 call-centre dispatcher in a sleepy Georgia town where nothing ever happens. But when a violent incident lands Andy’s mother Laura (Toni Collette) in the hospital and splashes both their faces all over the media, Andy’s life is up-ended by the revelation that her mother is not who she believed her to be – and both their lives are in danger. It’s a solid premise, and though Pieces Of Her looks and sounds like quality television – it’s been produced with some intelligence, Heathcote and Collette are supported by interesting actors like Jessica Barden, Omari Hardwick and Terry O’Quinn, and people die violent deaths on a regular basis – it’s incredibly dull. Heathcote’s miserable Andy sleepwalks through her investigation, while Collette’s barbed Laura couches everything she does in cryptic ambiguity, the better to keep viewers hitting the “next episode” button. It might have worked as a movie, with a faster pace and fewer scenes of people driving around looking concerned. But as an eight-episode, seven-hour experience, Pieces Of Her simply isn’t worth your time. All eight episodes streaming now on Netflix Canada. NN (NW)
Jockey
(Clint Bentley)
As a physically and emotionally worn jockey, Clifton Collins, Jr. gives one of those pained, soulful and stoic performances you’ve seen plenty of times before. Think The Wrestler or Crazy Heart, modest indies where iconic stars Mickey Rourke and Jeff Bridges respectively play men whose glory days are well behind them. Casting vets like Rourke and Bridges as men grappling with their legacies was a wink to audiences of course, giving those actors a chance to remind everyone how great they are. Collins doesn’t have that cache. He was always a supporting player, which means this leading role is finally giving him the room he deserves. But it doesn’t benefit from the subtext that made those aforementioned movies so overrated. So we’re left with a fine performance from Collins, holding every scene as Jackson Silva, who is pushing past his physical limit while confronted with a younger jockey (Moises Arias) who claims to be his son. The film has a lovely sense of place, immersing us in the off-track routines of the jockey community. That specificity goes a long way while the tender moments are just far too obvious and familiar. And Jockey’s idea of a visual theme is shooting most scenes during golden hour; because Jackson’s in the twilight of his career, get it. 94 min. Now playing at the TIFF Bell Lightbox. NNN (Radheyan Simonpillai)
Available on VOD
Ascension
Documentary directed by Jessica Kingdon
Asking For It
Kiersey Clemons,Vanessa Hudgens, Alexandra Shipp; directed by Eamonn O’Rourke
Blacklight
Liam Neeson, Aidan Quinn, Emmy Raver-Lampman; directed by Mark Williams
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
Bootlegger
Devery Jacobs, Pascale Bussieres, Jacob Whiteduck-Lavoie; directed by Caroline Monnet
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play, digital TIFF Bell Lightbox
Drive My Car
Hidetoshi Nishikima, Toko Miura, Masaki Okada; directed by Ryusuke Hamaguchi
Licorice Pizza
Alana Haim, Cooper Hoffman, Bradley Cooper; directed by Paul Thomas Anderson
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
The Long Walk
Yannawoutthi Chanthalungsy, Noutnapha Soydara, Por Silatsa; directed by Mattie Do
Nightride
Moe Dunford, Joana Ribeiro, Gerard Jordan’ directerd by Stephen Fingleton
Scream (2022)
Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette; directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
The Souvenir, Part II
Honor Swinton-Byrne, Tilda Swinton, Richard Ayoade; directed by Joanna Hogg
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
The Tiger Rising
Dennis Quaid, Queen Latifah, Katharine McPhee; directed by Ray Giarratana
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
West Side Story
Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose; directed by Steven Spielberg
Apple TV, Cineplex, Google Play
Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema
Documentary series directed by Mark Cousins
Streaming guides
Everything on streaming platforms this month:
Film festival
Kingston Canadian Film Festival
The annual celebration of Canadian cinema retains its virtual component for another year, meaning everyone gets the opportunity to feast on new and recent homegrown productions at their own convenience. Catch Bretten Hannam’s Wildhood, Michael McGowan’s All My Puny Sorrows or Thyrone Tommy’s Learn To Swim in advance of their Toronto theatrical openings, gorge on the wealth of short films – national and more local, two programs apiece – or reconnect with the late Jean-Marc Vallée’s 2005 breakout drama C.R.A.Z.Y. in a new digital restoration. That’s just a sampling; check the website, you’re bound to find something worth watching.
Through March 13 at kingcanfilmfest.com
