The Room Next Door. Based on the novel What Are You Going Through by Sigrid Nunez, the screenplay by Pablo Almodóvar is dull and undercooked with stilted dialogue. What could've been a unflinchingly moving and profound movie that explores life, death, friendship and happiness, it barely scratches the surface. There are far more powerful films about assisted suicide like The Sea Inside. Almodóvar seems more concerned about engaging the audience's eyes with stylish set designs, cinematography, and costume designs rather than providing a window into Martha and Ingrid's heart, mind and soul. Why leave the audience at such a cold distance from them? There's a hint of suspense during the last thirty minutes as Ingrid tries to figure out how to avoid getting into trouble for knowingly allowing Martha to take the euthenasia pill. Of course, she claims that she was unaware and lies that Martha didn't tell her the real reason why Martha asked her to be with her in her upstate NY home. The ending, with its heavy-handed use of symbolism, feels anticlimactic and rushed. No matter how hard Tilda Swinton and Julianne Moore try to breathe life into their roles, they don't quite manage to accomplish that task because they're undermined by the weak screenplay. At 1 hour and 46 minutes The Room Next Door is shallow, contrived and sugar-coated with style over substance. It opens in select theaters via Sony Pictures Classics.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      The leaders of wealthy democratic nations meet at a G7 summit where bizarre incidents happen and they get stranded in the middle of the woods in Rumours. The screenplay by co-writers and directors Guy Maddin
Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson is a wickedly funny, surreal, cerebral and Buñuelian political satire. The world leaders include Hilda (Cate Blanchett), Germany's Chancellor, Edison (Charles Dance), the US President, Sylvain (Denis Ménochet), the President of France, Maxime (Roy Dupuis), Canada's Prime Minister, Cardosa (Nikki Amuka-Bird), the UK's Prime Minister, Tasturo (Takehiro Hira), Japan's Prime Minister, Antonio (Rolando Ravello), Italy's Prime Minister and Celestine (Alicia Vikander), the European Commission's Secretary-General. The plot goes batshit crazy, like most plots do these days, as it veers toward horror and sci-fi. The less you know about the twists, the better, but it does require a lot of suspension of disbelief.
      Guy Maddin and his co-directors maintain a campy, off-kilter tone that takes a while to get used to, but it never feels uneven or clunky. Beneath the surface, the film has a lot to say about politics and class. If you combine Triangle of Sadness, The Exterminating Angel and Dr. Strangelove, you'll get something along the lines of Rumours. On a purely aesthetic level, the cinematography, lighting and use of color add plenty of visual style and atmosphere. At 1 hour and 44 minutes, it opens nationwide on October 18th, 2024 via Bleecker Street.
Number of times I checked my watch: 1
      In The Seed of the Sacred Fig, Iman (Missagh Zareh), a judge living in Iran, suspects that his wife, Nahjmeh (Soheila Golestani), and two daughters, Rezvan (Mahsa Rostami) and Sana (Setareh Maleki), stole his missing gun. The screenplay by writer/director Mohammad Rasoulof begins as a slow-burning, understated and meandering psychological thriller before morphing into a more conventional and heavy-handed action thriller. Rasoulof trusts the audience's patience and doesn't dive right into the meat of the story right away. He spends a lot of time with exposition and subplots, like a friend of one of Iman's daughters who gets gravely injured during a protest and his wife and daughters tend to her wounds. If Iman doesn't find his gun that suddenly disappeared, he'll be sent to prison. The pace moves slowly initially and then speeds up, especially during the very grim and dark third act that feels more like a Hollywood thriller than There aren't any surprises, though, and most of the ending can be easily predicted from a mile away. That said, the natural performances and exquisite cinematography are among the film's strengths. However, it's never a good thing when you can feel the weight of the running time. At 2 hours and 46 minutes, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is a well-acted and well-shot psychological thriller, but overlong, meandering and ultimately disappointing without enough surprises. It opens on November 27th, 2024 at Walter Reade Theater and Film Forum via NEON.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
      Iris (Isabelle Huppert), a mysterious French woman, lives in Korea with a roommate, Inguk (Ha Seongguk), and teaches French to Wonju (Lee Hyeyoung) in A Traveler's Needs. When she's not teaching her French, she walk around with her and her husband (Kwon Haehyo) at a park, reads poetry, drinks a Korean rice wine called makgeolli, and pretends to be her roommate's French tutor when his concerned, controlling mother (Cho Yunhee) arrives. Writer/director Hong Sang-soo has made yet another breezy, undercooked and meandering film with very little dramatic tension and dry, observational humor. How many times can you laugh at Iris drinking makgeolli, though? She clearly has issues with alcoholism which the story doesn't even bother to explore and, instead, uses it for laughs. The only moments of poignancy are there poems that Iris encounters and tries to translate into French. The pace moves very slowly, just like in the director's previous films. Fortunately, Isabelle Huppert's charismatic performance helps to keep the audience somewhat engaged. At a running time of 1 hour and 30 minutes, which feels more like 2 hours, A Traveler's Needs opens at Film Forum on November 22nd, 2024 via The Cinema Guild.
Number of times I checked my watch: 4
      Co-directors Stephen Maing and Brett Story follow the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) as they struggle and battle against Amazon to unionizw in their Staten Island warehouse in Union. They opt for a fly-on-the-wall approach like the films of Frederick Wiseman, but it's rather dry without any thoroughness or fair and balanced perspectives. Merely focusing on the ALU isn't enough. By not having access to Amazon's perspectives, Union feels myopic and incomplete. It also squanders many opportunities to humanize its workers other than letting the audience know that some workers wake up very early to get to work. What's wrong with getting to know some of the workers beyond their experiences fighting to unionize? This is the kind of doc that could and should make the audience enraged, gripped and/or engrossed, but it fails to accomplish those important goals while also failing to find the right balance between entertaining the audience and provoking them emotionally as well as intellectually. At 1 hour and 42 minutes, it opens on October 18th, 2024 at IFC Center.
Number of times I checked my watch: 4
      Youth (Hard Times) is the second part of the Youth trilogy after Youth (Spring). Director Wang Bing focuses his attention on young workers at textiles workshops in the province of Zhili, China. Once again, he opts for a laissez-faire, fly-on-the-wall approach sans talking-head interviews or expositional texts. The texts that do appear on the screen are the names of the workers, their age and which province they're from. If you're hoping to get to know any of them beyond their workplace, you'll be disappointed. What the film effectively sheds light on, though, is the sleaziness of the textile company that hired these young people who clearly work very hard. They dehumanize their own workers and, in some cases, neglect to pay them or just come up with excuses not to pay them. So, in a way, this is a human rights documentary although not one that's very enraging or provocative. Why don't they go on strike or at least form a union? By unflinchingly showing the workers' frustrations, the film allows the audience to empathize with them. Youth (Hard Times) isn't a documentary for audiences with a short attention span who lack patience because it does clock almost to the 4-hour mark and move at a snail's pace occasionally, so it requires a lot of patience. Patient audiences will be rewarded the most. At a running time of 3 hours and 46 minutes, it opens on November 1st, 2024 at Metrograph via Icarus Films.
Number of times I checked my watch: 4
      Youth (Homecoming) is, thankfully, the last part of the Youth trilogy about young textile workers in Zhili, a province in China. Director Wang Bing focuses on the workers' preparing to go on a break for the 2016 Chinese New Year. Two couples end up getting married while the audience is there to witness their joyous festivities. For the most part, Youth (Homecoming) is mildly engaging without being profound, provocative or very moving. Like the previous films, it tests the audience's patience because of the lengthy running time and the occasionally sluggish pace. There's also nothing exceptional about the cinematography, editing or anything else that would've added style and/or made the film more cinematic. At 2 hours and 32 minutes, Youth (Homecoming), directed by Hans Petter Moland, opens on November 8th, 2024 at Metrograph via Icarus Films.
Number of times I checked my watch: 3
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