Wish You Were Here. The screenplay by writer/director Julia Stiles and Renée Carlino, based on her novel, is a heartfelt and tender romance in the same vein as A Walk to Remember and Love Story. There are no villains except for a silent one: Adam's terminal cancer. To be fair, a few scenes between Charlotte and Adam feel somewhat heavy-handed and maudlin, but those are minor flaws that don't become systemic issues thanks to the nuanced and genuinely moving performances by Isabelle Fuhrmann and Mena Massoud. They have palpable chemistry together, so they're both well-cast. Jennifer Grey and Kelsey Grammer enliven the film as Charlotte's mother and father while providing some much-needed levity. Jimmie Fails, who's in the underrated The Last Black Man in San Francisco, makes the most out of his supporting role as one of Charlotte's dates.
      Overall, Stiles and Carlino do a decent job of providing enough of a window into the heart, mind and soul of Charlotte and Adam to allow the audience to care about them as complex human beings. That window briefly closes, though, during the rushed and sugar-coated third act that doesn't show Charlotte going through the grieving process. If only Wish You Were Here were more unflinching and didn't shy away too much from exploring its darker themes, it would've been much more powerful, profound and emotionally resonating. At a running time of 1 hour and 39 minutes, Wish You Were Here, a solid directorial debut for Julia Stiles, opens in select theaters nationwide via Lionsgate.
Number of times I checked my watch: 2
      Blake (Christopher Abbott) moves his wife, Charlotte (Julia Garner), and daughter, Ginger (Matilda Firth), from San Francisco to the home that he inherited from his late, estranged father, Grady (Sam Jaeger), who has gone missing and presumed dead in Wolf Man. The house happens to be isolated in the middle of a forest in Oregon with no cell phone service. Writer/director Leigh Whannell and co-writer Corbett Tuck add nothing new or surprising to the classic werewolf story. It takes at least twenty minutes of lazy exposition before Wolf Man gets to the meat of the story when Blake transforms into the titular werewolf. Until then, the film offers nothing intense. The intensity begins wanes upon Blake's transformation, but that's also around the time that the film takes a nosedive into inanity and lack of internal logic. Case in point: it makes no sense why Charlotte would think that Blake is merely sick during his transformation. It takes her too long to realize the truth, but by then, the audience is many steps ahead of her. The only strengths that Wolf Man has going for it are the visual effects and some scenes that don't hold back on the unflinching gore. The charismatic leads, Julia Garner and Christopher Abbott, try their best to rise above the shallow screenplay, but they're undermined by the very bland and stilted dialogue. Moreover, is it too much to ask for some comic relief or wit? Every film needs at least a little bit of levity. Unfortunately, Wolf Man ultimately manages to be a gritty, but underwhelming, unscary and inane B-movie masquerading as an A-movie. At a running time of 1 hour and 43 minutes, Wolf Man opens nationwide via Universal Pictures.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3