Anxiety-addled auteur Ari Aster strays even further from his horror foundations with Eddington, a satirical contemporary Western set during the heat of the covid pandemic in May of 2020. For a filmmaker who’s never shied away from provocation, his latest epic may be his most superficially provocative to date but the attempt to instigate this time around feels markedly impersonal and hollow. Going into this movie, I certainly wasn’t expecting Aster to have a panacea for our perpetually divided country but I was at least hoping he’d have some nuance within his lockdown-era lectures. What I found instead were cartoon characters and soft targets from a filmmaker uninterested in giving voice to the majority in the middle and choosing instead to give even more attention to the loudest mouthpieces on either end of the political spectrum.

Reuniting with Aster from the 2023 tragicomedy Beau Is Afraid, Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe Cross, the in-over-his-head sheriff of the fictional town in New Mexico that gives the film its name. Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, their mayor Ted Garcia (Pedro Pascal) has enforced a masked mandate that has been embraced by some in town but ruffled the feathers of others. Cross is decidedly in the latter camp and after a showdown with Garcia at the supermarket, Cross spontaneously announces a bid to challenge him in the upcoming mayoral race. The announcement comes as a shock to Cross’ wife Louise (Emma Stone) and her mother Dawn (Deirdre O’Connell), who’s been living with the Crosses since the beginning of the year. As Joe ramps up his campaign, tensions within the community rise amid growing social and political movements that the sheriff and his office attempt to stave off.

If Aster wanted to make a more biting satire of American life, he could have filled Eddington with characters that at least have degrees of subtlety and more closely resemble how real people struggled in the early days of covid. But there’s very little shading in the way that the citizens of Eddington are rendered across two and a half hours, even though time certainly allows for more characterization. We spend the majority of the runtime with Phoenix, obviously a tremendous actor stuck mumbling through one of his least compelling roles to date. From go, Joe Cross is a blowhard and a dunderhead, even though he’s nominally the film’s protagonist. Perhaps by design, it’s difficult to root for anyone in Eddington but as Cross’ political strategy veers into overtly criminal activity, he becomes even less sympathetic.

On the periphery, storylines about conspiracy theorists and social justice warriors come and go as Aster takes drive-by pot shots as members of both groups. Austin Butler turns up as a cultish life coach seizing the instability of the moment to indoctrinate folks into his grift but he barely sticks around long enough to make much of an impression. Character actor Clifton Collins Jr. pops in as an incoherent vagrant resembling the hostile drifters that attacked Beau outside his apartment building in Beau Is Afraid. I realize Aster seems to be terrified by a lot of things but the way he depicts homeless people as perpetually dangerous and violent in his movies makes it seem like he especially has issues with that particular demographic. Only Micheal Ward, portraying a trainee in the sheriff’s office, registers as an actual person capable of thoughtfulness and acuity before the plot dictates he be shuffled around the chessboard.

If Aster wants to make a divisive movie about divisive times, I have no problem with Eddington carrying a prevalently pessimistic tone but if you’re going to be this cynical about human nature, you have to be smart about it too. From time to time, we’ll get glimpses of the social media echo chambers being fed to our characters through their phones and we can glean insight as to why everyone is so fractured and unwilling to trust one another. But when the characters put their devices away and outwardly express themselves, it almost always goes to the most obvious point of caricature. Aster has stated that he wrote Eddington while “living in hell” doomscrolling during lockdown and the results certainly point to someone terminally online trying and failing to make sense of their feelings. Had he baked sourdough bread or gone for a walk instead, perhaps we would’ve gotten a worthwhile movie out of it.

Score – 1.5/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Coming to theaters is The Fantastic Four: First Steps, a superhero film starring Pedro Pascal and Vanessa Kirby, involving a quartet of astronauts-turned-superheroes as they protect the Earth from a planet-devouring cosmic being and his herald.
Also playing only in theaters is Oh, Hi!, a romantic dramedy starring Molly Gordon and Logan Lerman, following a young couple in the midst of a situationship on their first romantic weekend getaway as it goes awry in a most unexpected way.
Premiering on Netflix is Happy Gilmore 2, a sports comedy sequel starring Adam Sandler and Julie Bowen, bringing back the titular golfer as he comes out of retirement 30 years after winning his first Tour Championship so he can pay for his daughter’s ballet school.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

After having success adapting Stephen King novels Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep to the big screen, writer and director Mike Flanagan goes to the King well once more with The Life Of Chuck. Besides departing from the horror genre, what sets his third King film in a row apart from the previous two is that the source material this time is a novella, a part of the 2020 compilation book If It Bleeds. But just because the story is shorter doesn’t mean it’s short on big ideas and weighty themes, all of which Flanagan wrings out from the 100 or so pages for his cinematic rendering. With a sprawling cast filled with faces that have popped up throughout Flanagan’s oeuvre, it’s an existential drama that will land as life-affirming and soul-stirring to some but predominantly hit me hollow, despite its best efforts and intentions.

Told in three acts that move in reverse order, The Life Of Chuck opens things on a dire note, introducing us to high school teacher Marty (Chiwetel Ejiofor) trying to hold the attention of his students as the world seems to be falling apart. Constant news of cataclysmic weather events and a worldwide internet outage has folks more divided and scared than ever, prompting Marty to reach out to his ex-wife Felicia (Karen Gillan) for comfort. As they join hands for what seems to be the end of the world, billboards and TV ads crop up everywhere, thanking a man dressed in accounting garb named Chuck (Tom Hiddleston) for “39 great years”. We then flash back to pivotal moments in Chuck’s life, those marked by love, loss and lighting up the dance floor with some electric moves.

Structurally, The Life Of Chuck begs us to ask the questions who is Chuck and how does his story relate to the end of the known universe but Flanagan seems content to let us stew for a while. The film’s first act — well, technically the story’s final act — is both portentous and pretentious, introducing myriad characters who wander around waxing philosophical in staid tones appropriate for dreary mood. I admire Flanagan starting this tale out on such unapologetically apocalyptic terms, rivaling the terror he brewed up with his The Haunting series on Netflix, despite this not overtly being a horror movie. But the unnerving pall cast over this opening chapter is completely at odds with the obstinately chipper demeanor of the two sections that follow.

The middle act of The Life Of Chuck might be the shortest of the three but is no doubt the linchpin of the film’s marketing and showcase for the film’s implicit “dance like no one’s watching” thesis. It also finds Nick Offerman filling us in on character detail via voiceover, initially helpful given the tonal switch-up but gradually doing too much of the heavy lifting that Flanagan should be doing as a storyteller. It turns out Chuck only has 9 months to live due to a brain tumor and while he’s away on an accounting conference, he’s taken to dance in front of a drummer busking on the streets of Boston. Thanks to La La Land and The Eras Tour choreographer Mandy Moore, the moves that Hiddleston puts on are genuinely impressive and mostly help us shake off the seemingly overwhelming sadness present in the segment previous.

That leads us to Act One, subtitled “I Contain Multitudes”, with all the professed profundity that Walt Whitman reference may connote. We learn of Chuck’s tragic loss of his parents at age 7, causing him to live with his grandparents, played by Mark Hamill and Mia Sara. What follows is effectively a montage of opportunities taken and paths unexplored as we see Chuck transition from boyhood into young adulthood. There are indeed some touching moments but the sentimentality is at odds with a narrative that feels conspicuously thin. I assume Flanagan wants his audience to come away with questions like “what does it all mean?” as opposed to “what was the point of that?” Stephen King novella adaptations Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption proved that the prolific writer’s shorter stories can work on-screen but The Life Of Chuck can’t quite find its own rhythm.

Score – 2.5/5

New movies coming to theaters this weekend:
28 Years Later, starring Jodie Comer and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, is a post-apocalyptic horror film following a group of survivors from a zombie-like Rage virus as their carry out their lives on a small island until one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland.
Elio, starring Yonas Kibreab and Zoe Saldaña, is a science fiction adventure involving a young space fanatic with an active imagination who finds himself on a cosmic misadventure where he must form new bonds with alien lifeforms and navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions.
Bride Hard, starring Rebel Wilson and Anna Camp, is a female-led action comedy which finds a mercenary group taking a lavish wedding hostage but meeting their match with a maid of honor who is actually a secret agent ready to defend her best friend’s wedding at any cost.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup

Now playing at Cinema Center, the new comedy Friendship isn’t technically an adaptation of the sketch show I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson but it’s about as close an approximation as we’re likely to get. Across three seasons, the Netflix series has found a considerable audience since debuting in 2019, filled with bizarre and profane vignettes that creator and star Tim Robinson may have first dreamed up during his three-season writing stint at SNL. It’s a show that leans heavily into the awkward and absurd, often featuring characters who are unable to navigate social situations and whose trepidation typically triggers outlandish consequences. If you don’t like this brand of humor, this film will be an unpleasant experience. If you delight in “cringe comedy”, then this movie is likely to be your new best friend.

Robinson plays Craig Waterman, a marketing exec “living the dream” in suburbia with his wife Tami (Kate Mara) and their teenage son Steven (Jack Dylan Grazer). A piece of misdelivered mail leads Craig to meet Austin Carmichael (Paul Rudd), a meteorologist living down the street with whom Craig develops a strong bond upon meeting. Where Craig is more cloistered and spends most of his evenings sitting in his La-Z-Boy, Austin is comparatively more free-spirited and gigs out with a local rock band after his night shift as weatherman. The two hang out in a group of Austin’s friends but a handful of vibe-killing faux pas from Craig cause Austin to scale the relationship back considerably. Predictably, Craig doesn’t get the message and commits a series of increasingly poor decisions in an attempt to rekindle the spark with Austin.

Much like Adam Sandler comedies of the 1990s, the success of Friendship for viewers will depend on how heavily one buys into the schtick of the intentionally abrasive protagonist. Tim Robinson’s persona is effectively a deconstruction of the everyman type, someone who can converse appropriately with friends or co-workers up to a point until they hit an obstacle. Where more emotionally enlightened folks may try to delicately traverse or politely withdraw, this guy digs in with temerity and crashes through the metaphorical road block. It’s a comically exaggerated form of what we all do in our brains when we butt up against social conventions that elude us; we can’t do this in real life but it sure is fun watching someone else try. Naturally, the scenario of one friend “breaking up” with another is a perfect premise upon which to implement this character.

What makes Friendship work so well at feature length is how director and writer Andrew DeYoung keeps finding new avenues to send Craig down without betraying the central dilemma. Much like the hidden tunnel system that Craig and Austin tread through during one of their initial hangs, there are many places this story could go and still arrive at a fitting and earned conclusion. Whether it’s a misjudged pitch to the town’s mayor for a PR refresh or a psychedelic trip with hilariously banal results, DeYoung sees the comic potential for this put-upon putz within innumerable crannies in the storyline. There are also moments centered around male bonding that don’t have to do with Craig’s incompetence and are just funny on their own terms. Men don’t usually sing Ghost Town DJ’s tunes spontaneously a capella in the round but, come to think of it, maybe they should.

Robinson also has support from reliable players who aren’t typically known for comedy — this style of comedy, anyway — but plug into the narrative nicely. Paul Rudd starts off with the cocksure poise of his field reporter character from Anchorman before revealing shades of darkness and doubt. Kate Mara is similarly playing things straight off Robinson in what could be considered a thankless role but she keeps finding surprising ways to make it her own. I Think You Should Leave regular Conner O’Malley pops up for a brief but memorable scene; the way he chooses to finish up an impromptu toast at a party is the hardest I’ve laughed in a theater all year. Those who are already put off by Tim Robinson’s specific comedic styling will not be won over by Friendship but those who already beat the drum for him will find even more here to love.

Score – 4/5

New movies coming this weekend:
Playing in theaters is Ballerina, an action thriller starring Ana de Armas and Anjelica Huston, spinning off from the John Wick series to tell the story of a specific “Ballerina” assassin who sets out to seek revenge after her father’s death.
Also coming only to theaters is The Phoenician Scheme, a spy comedy starring Benicio del Toro and Mia Threapleton, following a wealthy businessman as he appoints his only daughter as sole heir to his estate before becoming the target of scheming tycoons.
Premiering on Hulu is Predator: Killer Of Killers, an animated sci-fi action film starring Lindsay LaVanchy and Louis Ozawa Changchien, involving three of the fiercest warriors in human history as they become prey to the extraterrestrial hunters known as Predators.

Reprinted by permission of Whatzup