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SHE CAME TO ME
**** There’s no way to describe the plot of She Came to Me—moody opera composer (Peter Dinklage) falls for lusty tugboat captain (Marissa Tomei)—without it sounding like a joke. Yet somehow, writer-director Rebecca Miller finds earnest emotion amid joyous absurdity, fashioning a tender romantic drama with a few acidic flourishes. Looking dapper beneath a mountainous goatee, Dinklage stars as Steven, whose in-the-works opus is marred by a “temporary blockage.” The cure? Capt. Karina Trento, whose fearsome sexual powers inspire him to write an opera about a murderous, ax-wielding siren of the high seas. Weaving a web of mythic coincidences, Miller intertwines Katrina and Steven’s affair—he’s married to Patricia (Anne Hathaway), a therapist—with a subplot about two young lovers (Evan Ellison and Harlow Jane) forced apart by a statutory rape allegation from a racist stenographer (Brian d’Arcy James). Parts of She Came to Me are as uproarious as Miller’s Maggie’s Plan (2015), not least of all Patricia’s funny, moving quest to become a nun. Plan, however, was merry and mocking, whereas She Came to Me is a purehearted paean to true love, be it vibrant and youthful or weathered and real. A climactic elopement aboard Katrina’s tugboat is like something out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and like the Bard, Miller (yes, she’s Arthur’s daughter) reveals humanity through flights of fancy. Are we all just composers and captains looking for love? If so, the joke’s beautifully on us. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Clackamas, Fox Tower.
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. Fox Tower, Studio One.
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+.
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. Bridgeport, City Center, Living Room, Vancouver Mall.
STRANGE WAY OF LIFE
*** At just over a half-hour, it’s tempting to consider Strange Way of Life an episode of an old Western quasi-anthology broadcast from an infinitely queerer universe. Made under commission from Saint Laurent, Pedro Almodóvar’s soulful, frothy amuse bouche could’ve easily glided along familiar tropes with the droll grace of seafoam suede-bedecked Silva (Pedro Pascal), who crosses paths with Sheriff Jake (Ethan Hawke) for the first time since their extended south of the border fling decades ago. Though Almodóvar famously opted against helming Brokeback Mountain two decades ago, echoes of that film swirl about SWoL’s tale of the aging gunslingers’ heated reunion. Blessedly, customary dithering over social stigma and repressive barriers are blithely evaded in favor of true mano a mano passions fueling climactic duels. At its Cannes premiere, Almodóvar teased that SWoL could be a prelude to an eventual feature, but however charming the protagonists, extending the narrative further would almost certainly engender diminishing returns. As Jake foresaw all those years ago, even the most alluring entanglements between intrinsically mismatched partners can prove over time all too easy to quit. R. JAY HORTON. Cinema 21, City Center, Movies on TV.
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.