Your Weekly Roundup of New Movies: “After Yang” Is a Sublime Sci-Fi Indie

What to see and skip while streaming or going to the theater.

After Yang

TOP PICK OF THE WEEK

After Yang

**** I once heard a film critic say all great movies are about being a human being who loves other human beings. That holds true in After Yang, but the film is also about being a being who loves other beings, human or not. Set in an unspecified future, it chronicles the quiet grief of Jake (Colin Farrell) and Kyra (Jodie Turner-Smith), who are mourning the death of their robotic “son,” Yang (Justin H. Min). Jake believes Yang can be revived, but he’s more interested in using a device called a reader to immerse himself in Yang’s experiences—including his secret romance with a clone named Ada (Haley Lu Richardson). Ada’s longing and loneliness haunt After Yang—your heart shatters as you watch her hold it together, even when her eyes threaten to unleash a sea of tears—but somehow, the film leaves you burning with hope. Adapting a short story by Alexander Weinstein, writer-director Kogonada (Columbus) fuses his deeply felt screenplay with sublime images, like a cosmic vista that represents Yang’s consciousness. When Jake falls into one of Yang’s recollections, a pale dot enlarges, becoming a memory. Therein lies the wondrous idea that defines the film—that a moment, whether beautiful or ordinary or both, can be a star. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Hollywood.

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Turning Red

**** In Turning Red, the latest kinetic gem from Pixar Animation Studios, 13-year-old Meilin (voiced by Rosalie Chiang) howls, “I’m a gross red monster!” Given her age, you might think she’s talking about pimples, but Meilin is speaking literally—when her emotions rise, she transforms into a fuzzy red panda. It’s a metaphor, but for what? Puberty? Coming out? Discovering a furry fetish? Audiences are likely to put forth dueling perspectives, which is a sign of the film’s smarts—it’s too sweeping and mythic to be confined to a single interpretation. Meilin’s mother, Ming (Sandra Oh), wants to perform a ritual to banish the panda in her daughter’s soul, but Meilin cheerily and firmly tells her, “My panda, my choice, Mom,” a characteristically loaded line from a studio that specializes in serving up allegorical baggage for all ages. Both kids and adults will appreciate that Turning Red, directed by Domee Shi, revels in Meilin’s panda-mode exultation—she beats up a bully and bounds across rooftops—but above all, the film is for girls Meilin’s age. As a triumphant “Pandas, assemble!” climax suggests, Turning Red, the first Pixar film with an all-female creative leadership team, wants them to feel both entertained and seen. PG. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Disney+.

Drive My Car

**** After you see Drive My Car, you will never look at snow, suspension bridges or stages the same way again. When you see the world through the searching eyes of director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, there is no such thing as mere scenery. There is only the living fabric of the places and objects that envelop Yûsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Misaki (Tôko Miura), whose compassion and complexity are a world unto themselves. Most of the film is set in Hiroshima, where Yûsuke is directing a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Misaki is assigned to be his driver, but their relationship transcends the divide between the front seat and the back. During drives, conversations, and surreal yet strangely believable adventures, their reserve gradually erodes as they reveal their losses and their inner lives to each other, building to a cathartic climax that leaves you at once shattered and soaring. The film, based on a novella by Haruki Murakami, isn’t afraid to face the agony of grief and loneliness, but Hamaguchi’s obvious love for his characters suffuses the entire journey with life-giving warmth. A tender, hopeful coda set during the pandemic could have been cringeworthy, but like every moment of the movie, it’s worth believing in because Hamaguchi’s sincerity is beyond question. “We must keep on living,” Yûsuke tells Misaki. With those words, he speaks not only to her but to us. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Fox Tower.

Lucy and Desi

*** This Amy Poehler-directed documentary should be seen as more of a splendid tribute than a probing documentary about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Archival footage, rare home videos, and audio recordings provide a touching intimacy, but these glimpses into their personal lives are as deep as the movie goes, outside of some passing mentions of traumas with the details “yada yada’d” over. This works well since there isn’t enough runtime to touch on the deeper elements with the respect they deserve, and because that’s not the story Poehler seems to want to tell. The star-studded interviews (Bette Midler, Carol Burnett, Charo) are full of the effusive praise you’ve come to expect from celebrities pontificating about each other, but interlaced with enough of their personal stories to keep things interesting. Poehler expresses a reverence for her subjects by falling back on repeated use of emotive background music and storytelling crescendos usually reserved for a cathartic conclusion, but the film ultimately comes together nicely. She has created a dazzling love letter to one of her heroes and a shimmering entry point for those discovering two trailblazers whose influence still resonates. PG. RAY GILL JR. Amazon Prime.

The Batman

** “What’s black and blue and dead all over?” In The Batman, the Riddler (Paul Dano) poses that question to the Dark Knight (Robert Pattinson), but blacks and blues don’t figure into the film much—visually, morally and emotionally, it’s a gray movie. While director Matt Reeves brought a majestic mournfulness to the Planet of the Apes series, he seems utterly lost in Gotham City. His nearly three-hour film is less a narrative than a mechanistic survey of a political conspiracy that the Riddler wants to expose—the story starts after the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents not just because we’ve seen it before, but because Reeves is more interested in plot than pathos. Even the soulful, sultry presence of Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman can’t liven up the film—she and the Batman flirt so chastely that if it weren’t for a few F-bombs and clumsily staged fight scenes, Reeves could have easily gotten away with a G rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. When Christopher Nolan was directing the Dark Knight trilogy, he tore into the Batman mythos with fervor, whereas Reeves just seems to be lackadaisically marinating in misery—especially when the film attempts an embarrassingly halfhearted critique of Bruce and the rest of Gotham’s 1 percent. What’s dead all over? The Batman. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Cinemagic, City Center, Eastport, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.

Cyrano

** Cyrano de Bergerac, 19th century French playwright Edmond Rostand’s soul-devouring saga of wit and beauty, is a tragedy, but not because it ends with a death. It’s about the tragedy of things unsaid, which is why it’s bizarre that playwright Erica Schmidt and members of The National reimagined it as a stage musical. A play about characters failing to express themselves hardly suits the most expressive of all genres, but that didn’t stop director Joe Wright, who has transformed Schmidt’s baffling revision into a baffling film. Peter Dinklage perfectly embodies Cyrano’s swashbuckling flair and punishing self-doubt, but he’s no match for the deadening lyrics of the songs, which feature flimsy platitudes like “I need more!” and unintentionally laughable laments like “So take this letter to my wife and tell her that I loved my life.” What little power the film possesses comes from its cast, which includes Haley Bennett as Roxanne, whom Cyrano loves in silence. Almost 15 years ago, Bennett stole the spotlight from Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore with her portrayal of an ethereal pop princess in Music and Lyrics, but her charisma harmonizes seamlessly with Dinklage’s in Cyrano. The songs may stink, but with dialogue and emotions, the actors create a duet of yearning and regret that could make Rostand’s ghost weep. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Eastport, Clackamas, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Progress Ridge, Studio One.

Huda’s Salon

** This West Bank-set espionage drama opens on Israel’s so-called separation wall, reinforcing that the events of the film occur in a cauldron of sorts. Suspicion and oppression are stirred by invisible forces until they self-perpetuate, as filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad (Paradise Now, Omar) spotlights a baffling treachery based on true events. Huda (Manal Awad), a Palestinian salon owner, blackmails a client named Rema (Maisa Abd Elhadi) for the Israeli secret service, erecting a fence within the story itself. One half of the film focuses on Huda’s blackbox theater-style interrogation by a Palestinian intelligence leader, while the other is devoted to Rema debating whether she can tell her jealous husband that she’s being blackmailed. That mirrored structure should offer character insight, but script contrivances evacuate its promise. Huda’s interrogation too loudly and conveniently informs Rema’s domestic debacle, allowing for only flickers of organic drama between husband and wife. The gist, sharply explicated but thuddingly shown, is how state violence and conservative oppression prey on women until they prey on each other. While Awad is memorably doe-eyed, however, the movie becomes bogged down in the sociopolitical backstory of why she jeopardized her community. It’s a portrait of a traitor, but with a big dialogue box where her face should be. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.

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