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TRAIN DREAMS
Most times, adaptation is measured by what the movie changes from the book. But Train Dreams, from Denis Johnson’s acclaimed 2011 novella, focuses on evoking the source text in cinematic terms—the lyricism, pacing and omniscient plainspokenness that belies the mystery of characters’ existence. Clint Bentley (director of Jockey and co-writer of Sing Sing) chronicles the life of woodsman Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton) as fluidly edited incidents backed by third-person narration (by Will Patton). The relentless momentum of Grainier’s outdoor existence is heaven on the senses (look at all that natural light) and hell on the heart. From backwoods Idaho to downtown Spokane, logging season gives way to raising a family with his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), gives way to railroad construction and witnessing horrifying injustices, gives way to obsolescence and introspection. Edgerton, who’s never picked between being a character actor and movie star, delivers a career-best performance. His beard-obscured smiles and pained little look-aways are quietly winsome while he lets the strangers Robert encounters (William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, Nathaniel Arcand) steal their vignettes. Given the scope, Bentley could so easily crank up the epic melodrama, but the best feature of Train Dreams is its commitment to serving Johnson’s prose through slippery understatement. Set against distant wars, new bridges, destructive fires, and 70 years of Pacific Northwest history, Robert’s life is a minute layer in an ecosystem—and no less deeply felt for its place in things. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Netflix.
ETERNITY
Eternity, David Freyne’s first American feature and third overall, shifts away from stories of alienation and self-loathing to tackle a more traditional romantic comedy—albeit a rather high-concept one. After 65 years of marriage, Joan and Larry Cutler both die within a week of each other. Arriving to the afterlife reincarnated into their younger bodies (Elizabeth Olsen, Miles Teller), Joan and Larry are instructed to pick which paradise they’d like to spend the rest of time together in. The only problem is Luke (Callum Turner), Joan’s first husband who died in the ’50s and has been waiting to reunite. It’s up to Joan to decide which of her great loves will be her eternal paramour—a decision made heavier by the Great Beyond’s strict “no takebacks” policy. Our male leads perform well enough, and there’s fun supporting performances by Da’Vine Joy Randolph, John Early and Olga Merediz, but this is very much Olsen’s time to shine. She sells both the film’s comedic beats, and the agonizing and desperation tearing Joan apart. Eternity follows the tradition of painting the afterlife as a mundane bureaucracy—the Junction, a tacky hotel with 1970s décor, advertises utopias like trade-show products (perhaps unsurprisingly, the most popular is “Man-Free World”). The blatant artificiality of the place hits the right note between the banal and the surreal and proves the ideal stage for such an odd yet emotional story. Eternity falls short of perfection—the middle act is overlong for a film with such a predictable ending—but its mature approach to love and relationships and genuine sweetness make it a heavenly visit. PG-13. MORGAN SHAUNETTE. Hollywood, Laurelhurst, Studio One, AMC, Cinemark and Regal locations.
HAMNET
For a movie ostensibly about the throughline between Shakespeare’s life and art—specifically, the death of his young son, Hamnet, and the writing of Hamlet—Hamnet isn’t that interested in Shakespeare, either as a person or as an artist. That’s because it’s really the story of Agnes, his wife. Here she’s imagined as a feisty “witch of the woods,” an expert falconer and herbalist who can see the future. When Agnes tells her son she sees him grown and working with his father in London, I wondered if she was lying or simply wrong. Toward the end, when Agnes sees as Hamlet an actor who looks like a grown version of her dead son, I felt kind of dumb. Hamnet’s screenplay is not subtle; imagine Chekhov had advised writers to have characters say, out loud and repeatedly, “I think somebody is going to fire that gun,” and you have the first act. But the direction is so beautiful, the performances so raw, and the last act so wonderfully realized that I mostly forgave the ham-handedness (I’m sorry) of the writing in much of the first two acts. Hamnet is probably best considered in the tradition of what were once called “women’s pictures” or “weepies,” the kind that used to star Joan Crawford and Bette Davis soldiering forward amid unimaginable tragedy. That might sound dismissive, but a good weepie is powerful stuff. Hamnet may not be subtle, but that doesn’t mean it’s not beautiful, or that it won’t break your heart. PG-13. CHRISTEN McCURDY. Cinema 21, AMC, Cinemark and Regal locations.
WICKED: FOR GOOD
Bedazzling, beguiling, bewitching—Wicked: For Good brings the fairy tale to a resounding crescendo of completeness. Act two opens much darker in spirit than its predecessor, symbolizing the oppression Oz faces. Though the levity of the first film feels distant, Wicked: For Good still displays the glory of modern moviemaking through its spectacularized special effects and powerful musical numbers. Side plots centering on the Cowardly Lion, Tin Man and Scarecrow’s origins enhance the lore of Yellow Brick Road’s world. The sequel boasts two new songs, “Girl in the Bubble” sung by Ariana Grande’s Glinda, and “No Place Like Home,” belted by Cynthia Erivo’s Elpheba. Though neither song steals the show, giving both performing artists a solo moment weaves into the Disney-esque fairy-tale feel of Universal Pictures’ feature. Repeated and reprised melodies in songs like “I’m Not That Girl” and “No Good Deed” hark back to the first film’s enamoring sounds. The Erivo and Grande finale ballad “For Good” is the film’s cherry on top. Grim and glittery, Wicked: For Good has been criticized for being a two-part saga, but a yearlong intermission gave filmmakers the clock-tick they needed to squeeze in all the glory. Go ahead and grab your pink-and-green popcorn. PG-13. NICOLE ECKRICH. Academy, Bagdad, Cinema 21, Empirical, Laurelhurst, McMenamins St. Johns Theater & Pub, St. Johns Twin Cinemas, AMC, Cinemark and Regal locations.
