Knives Out

First Hit: An enjoyable investigative romp with a group of very capable actors in an old fashion story.

This film reminded me of an old fashion crime drama, sort of like a “Clue” game. What makes this movie work is the way these capable actors tell this tale of crime and deceit in both a comedic and dramatic way.

Marta Cabrera (Ana de Armas) is an in-home nurse who has also befriended her only client, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer). Harlan is very wealthy from writing eighty successful mystery novels. His health is failing, hence the need for Marta. Marta has become his only true confidant because the rest of the family, except his daughter Linda Drysdale (Jamie Lee Curtis), totally lives off his generosity.

Linda and her husband Richard (Don Johnson) live in Harlan’s home and don’t fully escape from Harlan’s largeness because he funded Linda’s successful real estate business. They have a son Hugh Ransom Drysdale (Chris Evans), who is arrogant, flippant, and smart while living off an allowance from Harlan.

Harlan’s home is large and his mother, Great Nana (K Callan) lives with him. She doesn’t talk and sits in a wheelchair throughout the film but plays an important role in the story. Other family members who are living off Harlan’s wealth and success include; Walt Thrombey (Michael Shannon), his wife Donna (Riki Lindhome) who run Harlan’s publishing company. Joni Thrombey (Toni Collette) who is Harlan’s deceased son Neil’s wife, and their daughter Meg (Katherine Langford), who receive an allowance from Harlan for Meg’s schooling. Each of them are taking advantage of Harlan and during the film’s story, each of these ways are explored more fully.

The family has gathered to celebrate Harlan’s 85th birthday. During this party, most of the family, we learn, have discussions with Harlan about his largeness towards them.

The next morning, after the party, the housekeeper Fran (Edi Patterson) finds Harlan dead in his study with his throat slit, it appears to be a suicide.

However, someone has anonymously hired Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) a famous southern investigator to find out if it was murder or suicide. Blanc, working with the police, begin to unravel the mystery as to why Blanc was hired to be involved.

The police are convinced it was suicide, but the extraordinary questioning skills of Blanc and his inquisitive mind of solving puzzles begins to shed a different light on Harlan’s death. Slowly, and methodically, his interviews begin to piece a different story together.

One of the funnier parts of the interviewing process by Blanc, we learn that Marta cannot lie. If she lies, she throws up. There are a couple hilarious, slightly gross, scenes of this.

When the lawyer comes and the Will is read, everyone gathers to find out that Harlan has left everything, I mean everything, to Marta. The family doesn’t know what to do, or how they will survive, or do they?

Craig is hilariously fantastic as the investigator Benoit Blanc. His slow southern drawl and idiosyncrasies, during the interviews using the piano, are spot on funny and pointed. Evans is perfect as the conniving Ransom. His ability to be both charming and evil are perfect. Armas is sublime as Marta. Her expressions of the fear of doing something wrong, her caution because having a mother who is illegally in the country, and also wanting to do the right thing for Harlan are excellent. Curtis is outstanding as the daughter who wants more. Shannon is terrific as the son who thinks he’s in charge of Harlan’s business but really is just a pawn. Collette is perfectly flighty and conniving as the social influencer and thief in the name of her daughter Meg. The rest of the cast is equally good in making this a wonderful romp. Rian Johnson wrote and directed this fun filled mystery and got the best out of everyone for their roles.

Overall: This was a perfect, fun filled, and enjoyable movie to sit through.

Hereditary

First Hit: A rather complex or complicated horror film that worked reasonably well.

This is a dark film and attempts, in its own way, to pose question about evil being hereditary. The story revolves around the horrible death of Charlie (Milly Shapiro). She is killed in an accident (or is it) when her brother Peter (Alex Wolff) is driving her to the hospital.

Although this scene is early in the film, the strangeness of the family and their dynamics are shown because Annie (Toni Collette), the mother, makes models of the house and other things in her work studio. Charlie sleeps outside in a tree house that's very cold. The main house itself is way out in the country and is given the feeling of being a bit dark. Peter is shown to be somewhat ambivalent about life, school, and spends a lot of time high on pot.

We learn later that this Annie’s accurate models are her art and livelihood. Her husband, Steve (Gabriel Byrne) is rather stoic about the family’s oddness and acts as the solid foundation of the family.

After Charlie’s death Peter and Annie have fights blaming each other for Charlie’s death while Steve tries to referee these fights.

Annie meets Joan (Ann Dowd) who speaks with her about losing a child and quickly becomes Annie’s confidant. But things become more bizarre and sinister when Joan teaches Annie about how to conjure up the spirit of her deceased Charlie.

From here the film takes some bizarre turns and outside of the strong performances, the story is not believable or, in the end, horrifying.

Collette is amazingly and bizarrely strong in this role. She’s required to portray a wide range of feelings and emotions and she does this very well. Wolff is the other prime role and his lack of outward rage was either script driven, or he didn’t have the ability to share this. His actions after the accident didn’t seem to fit the event and that was disconcerting to me. Byrne was OK as the stoic father who rarely ventured out of this role’s comfort zone. Shapiro was good in her short-lived part. Dowd was excellent as the friendly helpful person who also had a dark side. Ari Aster wrote and directed this film. I trust he got what he wanted but for me, the horror in the film was the shocking accident that killed Charlie, the rest was just oddly bizarre.

Overall: This film was unique in its storytelling that had strong performances.

Hearts Beat Loud

First Hit: It was an obvious feel good movie and it worked reasonably well.

Frank Fisher (Nick Offerman) is a failing vinyl record store owner in Brooklyn, NY. He’s raising his biracial daughter Sam (Kiersey Clemons) alone and she’s just about to go away to UCLA enrolled in their pre-med program.

He seems stuck in his record store and in an early scene, he lights up a cigarette while standing behind the cash register. When his only customer points out that it is against the law to smoke, Frank doesn’t care. The customer leaves and in view of Frank and the audience, he makes the vinyl record purchase from Amazon via his phone.

Frank is staying in Brooklyn because his mother Marianne (Blythe Danner) is struggling in her old age. At one point, early on, he’s called to pick her up from a small store because she was caught shoplifting. His Brooklyn store is also near where his wife died while riding a bicycle.

Frank and his wife were in a band together and his first love is performing music. To satisfy his urges, he and Sam do jam together when she’s not studying. The audience gets treated to some of their work together.

Besides having strong, yet mixed, feelings about heading to UCLA for school, Sam is leaving her dad in his failing record store, and is falling in love with Rose (Sasha Lane) who is a local artist. Rose is her first love and is encouraging Sam to follow her passions.

Jamming one day, Frank and Sam tape a song Sam has written. Frank, without Sam’s permission, uploads the song onto Spotify under the band name of, “We’re Not A Band.” Somehow the song ends up on the Spotify Indie Play List.

Encouraged that Sam has real talent, Frank attempts to keep his daughter around by telling her she has a real talent and they could make a go of it in the music business.

Because the store is failing, he decides to tell his landlord Leslie (Toni Collette) that he’s vacating the space. His closest friend, local bar owner Dave (Ted Danson), tries to help Frank get over the hump of closing down the business.

The stories and sub-plots in this movie are: Frank's failing record store and inability to support Sam’s college tuition, Marianne’s failing health, Sam moving to California, Rose and Sam’s relationship, Frank’s feelings for Leslie, Dave’s love of trees, and most of all the music that Frank and Sam make together.

Offerman was OK as the father. For some reason it was difficult for me to really feel his angst towards his situation. This difficulty could have been partly due to the script and direction versus his ability. I did sense his character's love for music. Clemons was wonderful. I thought that she did a great job of showing her love for her father, leaving home for the first time, and falling in love. Danson was fun as the long time Brooklyn barkeep and Frank’s friend. Collette’s role was interesting because she was very cagy about her feelings for Frank, as a friend and landlord. Lane was fantastic as the struggling artist who fell in love with Sam. Danner was excellent as Frank’s mom who was slowly losing her ability to function in the world. Marc Basch and Brett Haley co-wrote this script that lacked some background story but created wonderful interactive dialogue. Haley also directed this effort and it was generally on target.

Overall: The songs brought forth joyful emotion and were definitely a bright spot in this film.

The Way Way Back

First Hit:  Very well acted film about a very young man finding his self-esteem and himself.

There are lots of young men who have had or are having the feeling of just being worthless and not of value.

At the opening of the film, Trent (Steve Carell), Pam (Toni Collette), Steph (Zoe Levin) and Duncan (Liam James) are headed to Trent’s summer beach house for an extended vacation. Duncan is asked by Trent, his mother’s boyfriend, what is his number?  “How do you rank yourself between 1 and 10?” Duncan doesn’t want to answer, is clearly irritated with the question, and reluctantly responds with “6”, “I’m a 6” he says. 

Trent laughs off this number and immediately says “I think you’re a 3.” Then he tells him why he’s a 3 and none of it is helpful to young Duncan. In fact it puts yet another wall between him and Trent. He hates being in this situation, wants to be with his dad (who now lives with young girl in California) and hates that his mom has chosen this man to be with.

They drive up to the house, the neighbor Betty (Alison Janney) is waiting to “get the party started”. Betty is divorced and has two kids Susanna (AnnaSophia Robb) and Peter (River Alexander). Trent and Betty invite other neighbors Kip and Joan (Rob Corddry and Amanda Peet respectively) and their regression into too much drinking, smoking dope, and sexual dalliances begins.

To get away from the adult madness, Duncan starts taking off every day on a bike just to get away. Eventually he finds his way to the area’s "Water Wizzin" which is a water park. Here he meets Owen (Sam Rockwell) who immediately sizes Duncan up and makes it his business to help the kid find his way.

All through this film we are given views into the incongruent nature and behavior of parents and the effects on young teenage kids who are also looking to find their way into adulthood.

James is sublime. He fully captures the boy who has little self-esteem. His walk, look, and manner of speaking are spot-on perfect, a truly outstanding performance. Collette, is very good as Duncan’s mom who would like to trust a man in a relationship again and goes beyond her comfort zone to find out if the relationship with Trent will work. Carell is very good as the jerk guy who is trying to be friends with Duncan but asserting his alpha maleness to keep control of things. Levin is good as Trent’s daughter who doesn’t like what she is seeing and wants to grow up too soon. Robb is very strong as the girl who reaches out to Duncan and is touched by his path. Rockwell is extraordinary as the guy who never grew up but wants to help young guys find their way. Janney is very good as the nosy, drinks too much, and innocently flirtatious neighbor. Nat Faxon and Jim Rash wrote and directed this film and their spot-on screenplay and direction brought this film home elegantly.

Overall:  This is a wonderful film and truly a joy to watch.