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*** Even at its best—with relatively kind peers, teachers and families—middle school is hell. Adolescent socialization starts and, immediately, it’s an irreversible cascade for Léo (Eden Dambrine) and Rémi (Gustav de Waele), two best friends from the Belgian countryside. We first see them at summer’s end, as gangly mirror images dashing joyfully through Léo’s family flower farm. Their childhood bond is so “close” that, any hint of burgeoning romance notwithstanding, they are indeed experiencing a kind of love. But a relationship this unself-conscious can’t repel schoolyard scrutiny and early teachings in masculine insecurity. Some of the ensuing change to Léo and Rémi’s friendship is sudden and frankly unbelievable, calling into question what story writer-director Lukas Dhont really wants to tell (precariously, he’s searching for a universal experience within a distinct trauma). Yet Close, an Oscar nominee for Best International Film that is clearly inspired by Celine Sciamma’s intimate coming-of-age portraits (Tomboy, Girlhood), remains involving and intimate throughout—and it’s arguably a playbook for how adults should treat children. Maybe they just do middle school better in Belgium. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21.
INFINITY POOL
*** Brandon Cronenberg hardly runs from his father David’s towering horror legacy; junior’s latest is a turbo-charged entry in what’s become a family label. Infinity Pool sees a vacationing couple (Alexander Skarsgård and Cleopatra Coleman) accidentally commit a crime. Per their fictional host country’s laws, they face a choice: to be executed or pay handsomely to have a clone made for said execution. That sounds comically high concept, but Cronenberg doesn’t wallow in the how or why. Instead, Infinity Pool grows funnier as it evokes the depravity of Brandon’s previous films, Possessor and Antiviral. Skarsgård (the Swedish Adonis last seen barbarically flexing in The Northman) is debased, becoming a dead-eyed, melting sculpture—with assistance from newly anointed horror icon Mia Goth (X, Pearl), who shrieks here like a cockney Olive Oyl and tries to top her personal-best freakout mugs. Sure, Infinity Pool isn’t fully convincing on an intellectual level. (Would imposter syndrome transform into liberating mania if you watched yourself die? Ooooooo.) But the larger spasmodic experience outweighs any half-baked philosophy with its bass-drum score, orgiastic interludes, and body horror apparently hereditary to the Cronenbergs. Infinity Pool may not blow minds, but it reliably explodes heads. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin.
NO BEARS
*** Recently released after being imprisoned for practicing his art, Jafar Panahi risked everything to make No Bears—as the celebrated director has whenever picking up a camera since the Iranian government banned him from making films in 2010. In No Bears, as with This Is Not a Film and Taxi before it, Panahi autobiographically prods the very meaning of cinematic intervention and political filmmaking. In dual plots, we catch glimpses of a fictional movie Panahi is directing about two lovers attempting to flee to Europe, and then Panahi himself visiting a remote village where his photography stirs controversy among locals. Particularly in its rural setting, No Bears focuses on the excessive pleasantries and age-old traditions that constitute community equilibrium in the shadow of unseen revolution and violent crackdown. That obliqueness can be frustrating to sit with, as we observe characters talk circles around life-altering decisions, basic individuality, and fear of government reprisal. No morality police appear in the film—no bears either, though they’re rumored to prowl the village outskirts—but the title speaks volumes. These are the hovering threats that keep humanity fearful and hopeless. To judge or valorize anyone for staying, leaving or making peace in their country is not Panahi’s place. Far be it for the viewer either. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.
KNOCK AT THE CABIN
** M. Night Shyamalan’s Knock at the Cabin is the peanut butter and jelly sandwich of thrillers: It checks all of the boxes the genre requires, but leaves the palate yearning for more as the aftertaste of mediocrity lingers. Parents Eric (Jonathan Groff) and Andrew (Ben Aldridge) whisk their nature-loving daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), away to the woods for a family vacation, but are met with four strangers knocking at their door, all wielding horrifying homemade weapons and spouting end-of-days premonitions (they include Rupert Grint, who emerges from his silver screen hiatus with a bang, and Dave Bautista in a powerhouse performance that is a far cry from his previous testosterone-fueled roles). As for production, the film’s two cinematographers, Jarin Blaschke (The Witch, The Lighthouse, The Northman) and Lowell A. Meyer (Topside, Thunder Road), have crafted a handful of ingenious images that would have taken even Hitchcock’s breath away (especially a masterful POV shot in which Grint is pummeled with a barrage of fists). Unfortunately, the plot, adapted from the novel The Cabin at the End of the World, is an inch deep and a mile wide. Plenty of interesting questions are posed throughout Knock at the Cabin (the film revolves around a nauseating moral dilemma), yet it concludes without providing a compelling or coherent response to any of them. R. ALEX BARR. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Cinemagic, City Center, Eastport, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.