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THE ROYAL HOTEL
*** Director Kitty Green’s follow-up to her acclaimed #MeToo office drama The Assistant (2020) fully arrives during its first bartending scene. Two young women—American tourists who say they’re Canadian—are slinging drinks on their first night temping at a remote Australian mining bar. In Green’s hyper-observant style, it’s a disquieting ecosystem: leathery men yelling dirty jokes, fighting, leering, shouting for swill from all 270 degrees of the bartop. Hanna and Liv (Julia Garner and Jessica Henwick) also live above this pub. They are truly not in Kansas, uh, Canada anymore. As subsequent scenes showcase the local charm and the desert’s vastness, Green plays with genre as much as her audience. Is this about to be The Australian Chainsaw Massacre? Or wait, no…Eat Pray Love? That spectrum, though, is dependent on Hanna and Liv’s fluctuating feelings of safety, and The Royal Hotel is constantly noting how the bar owner (Hugo Weaving) does and doesn’t contribute to his employees’ security. One drunken night’s ally is the next night’s enabler—and Liv might enjoy a 24/7 rager while Hanna’s discomfort coils ever tighter. In the end, there’s no chain saw, but the onslaught of threat—tangible, perceived, what’s the difference at a certain point?— fries your every last nerve ending into red Outback dust. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.
BOTTOMS
**** Imagine Superbad led by an all-female, mostly lesbian cast of characters and you can picture Emma Seligman’s Bottoms, which stuns in its originality and hilarity. Best friends PJ (Rachel Sennott) and Josie (Ayo Edebiri) have one goal for the upcoming school year: sleep with the hot cheerleaders they’ve been pining for. Through a gut-busting comedy of errors, the pair start a self-defense club as a ruse to get closer to their crushes, a premise packed with blink-and-you’ll-miss-it comedy (before the audience can finish laughing at one joke, Sennott and Edebiri have delivered another horribly hilarious line). Be warned: The humor isn’t for the faint of heart. Bottoms doesn’t adhere to the #GirlPower comedy rule book (in one scene, a group of girls all slowly raise their hands when Sennott asks, “Who here has been raped? Even gray-area stuff?”). But if you can handle the edgy jokes that would get a Tumblr user canceled in a heartbeat, Bottoms will make you laugh until you cry in the best way possible. R. ALEX BARR. Cinema 21, City Center, Fox Tower, St. Johns Twin.
CASSANDRO
**** Superhero origin stories typically emanate from exotic places and extraordinary individuals. Filmmaker Roger Ross Williams (best known for the documentary Life, Animated) has brought a very different journey to the screen with Cassandro. The true-life tale of how Saúl Armendáriz (Gael García Bernal), a gay amateur wrestler from El Paso, Texas, became a Mexican lucha libre wrestling superstar in the 1980s, Cassandro digs deeper than truth, justice and the American way to find a neglected community that yearns for a hero. Williams’ attention to detail fiercely grounds the film—and an especially moving performance by Bernal as Armendáriz, like Mickey Rourke’s Oscar-nominated turn in The Wrestler, possesses an emotional gravity that makes winning the final match an afterthought (Armendáriz’s quest exceeds his initial desire for personal fame, inspires admirers and smashes archaic ultra-masculine barriers). For Armendáriz, wrestling as an exótico (a luchador in drag) in a fixed sport meant he wasn’t allowed to win anyway. His wrestling alter ego, Cassandro, is born from such slights, delivering an exhilarating ride that allows for character flaws without asking for forgiveness. This origin story isn’t about acquiring powers; it’s about discovering the strength to achieve a victory that transcends “winning.” That’s Cassandro’s superpower. NR. RAY GILL JR. Living Room.
THE CREATOR
*** In The Creator, there’s much ado about a child-shaped AI superweapon named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles). Yet the film’s actual secret weapon is Gemma Chan (Crazy Rich Asians, Eternals), who plays a pro-AI activist named Maya. There she is, standing on a beach in a streaming white dress, drawing you into her serene anguish as easily as a planet ensnares a moon. No wonder the memory of her haunts Joshua (John David Washington), an American soldier who married her during an undercover operation in Asia. Treachery and tragedy parted them, but five years later, a pair of elite warmongers (Allison Janney and Ralph Ineson) present Joshua with a cruel pact: Help slaughter Alphie and he’ll be reunited with Maya. Hailed as the liberator of a race of oppressed androids, Alphie looks like a religious icon; when she uses her powers to obliterate military tech, she presses her hands together, as if in prayer. You get the feeling that director Gareth Edwards (Rogue One) would be happy to let the entire film drift into the realm of prayers and dreams, given his love of moody flashbacks and his noncommittal handling of the action scenes. Edwards isn’t great with actors either—Washington, who was sharp and tender in Tenet and BlacKkKlansman, here seems hazy and uncertain—but he has created an impressively hushed, serious meditation on humanity born from machinery. The Creator may not fully come to life, but at least it understands that life, in all its forms, is precious. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, City Center, Eastport, Fox Tower, Joy Cinema, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Wunderland Milwaukie.
FLORA AND SON
*** Irish filmmaker John Carney returns with another music-based drama, following Once (2007), Begin Again (2014), and his best film, Sing Street (2016). Eve Hewson (Bono’s daughter!) gives a breakout performance as Flora, a vulgar and irresponsible mother living in Dublin with her teenage son, Max (Orén Kinlan). The two struggle to connect, but that changes once Flora finds an acoustic guitar and songwriting brings them together. Carney checks his usual storytelling and character boxes here, even if Flora is a more sour and obnoxious character than audiences are used to from the director. Thankfully, Hewson fills this firecracker with life and anchors the film even as it starts to feel flimsy. Kinlan, on the other hand, gets little to do as Max, but Jack Reynor (as Flora’s ex, Ian) and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (as her guitar teacher, Jeff) shine in supporting roles. Flora and Son may be Carney on autopilot, but the film is sweet and features a standout scene where Flora and Jeff perform a song called “Meet in the Middle” on a rooftop. Surprise, surprise: The filmmaker who introduced us to Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova and can still make musical movie magic. R. DANIEL RESTER. Apple TV+.
FREMONT
*** Donya (Anaita Wali Zada) is a refugee freshly relocated from Afghanistan to the Bay Area after working as a U.S. Army translator. Given the danger and alienation she’s experienced fleeing the Taliban and leaving her family, it’s curious at first that director Babak Jalali renders this hushed, black-and-white dramedy so placid on its surface. Donya is resolute, confident and privately contemplative, especially as she rises to the rank of “message writer” at the San Francisco fortune cookie factory where she works. Yet she is also an iceberg, silently and sometimes inscrutably tolerating the oddballs who attempt to connect with her largely through monologue. Donya’s therapist, for one—Gregg Turkington, eerily similar here to his On Cinema character—can’t stop yakking about White Fang, and her boss (Eddie Tang) constantly tries to impart how proper cookie fortunes straddle both meaning and meaninglessness. These one-sided interactions pile up a little bafflingly until Donya encounters a fellow iceberg, Daniel (The Bear star Jeremy Allen White), a mechanic who brings instant steadiness to the film’s sometimes head-scratching tone and harmony to Wali Zada’s proudly composed performance. In the film, as in life’s loneliest moments, it’s hard to decipher how ill-fitting new relationships can be until the fog lifts and the real thing appears. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Living Room.
ELEVATOR GAME
** The latest horror film from director Rebekah McKendry (Glorious, Psycho Granny) is based on the real-life online phenomenon in which people attempt to travel to another dimension by using an elevator and a specific set of rules. Gino Anania portrays Ryan, a teen whose sister disappeared months earlier after playing the eponymous game—and in an attempt to track down his sibling, Ryan talks a myth-busting group into participating in the ritual (alas, none of them is prepared when they come up against the deadly “Fifth Floor Woman”). The film’s core concept works fine in short form, but as a feature, the idea feels stretched thin. And while the Fifth Floor Woman is admittedly creepy in appearance, her story is surrounded by horror tropes like contorting bodies, salt circles and nursery rhymes. Like an elevator itself, Elevator Game is a functional machine that provides an instantly forgettable ride. NR. DANIEL RESTER. Shudder.
EXPEND4BLES
** After a nine-year hiatus, Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham are back with a new chapter in the Expendables series. The fourth film follows Barney Ross (Stallone) and his team as they try to stop a mercenary named Rahmat (Iko Uwais) from stealing nuclear warheads in Libya for a mysterious terrorist only known as “Ocelot.” While the first three films in the series showed grit and charm as they brought together old and new action stars for B-movie mayhem, Expend4ables is an embarrassing comedown. Stallone looks bored and Barney is barely even in the film; the team gets a new leader in Gina, a completely miscast Megan Fox. Other fresh faces include 50 Cent, Tony Jaa, and, oddly, Andy Garcia, while many of the likable past stars are missing. Jaa and Uwais are amazing physical actors, but here their talents are wasted by messy editing that hides their skills. The only one who gets to shine is Statham, who breathes life into the material as the cocky Lee Christmas. But nearly a decade is too long to wait for the worst and cheapest-looking entry in a franchise. R. DANIEL RESTER. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Plaza.