Review: "Victoria and Abdul"

All hail the Dame!

Judi Dench, who can really do no wrong, is in supreme form in her latest picture, once again taking on the role of Queen Victoria (after 1997's Mrs. Brown) and reuniting with that fine filmmaker Stephen Frears (who directed Dench to Oscar nominations for Mrs. Henderson Presents... and Philomena).

Victoria and Abdul is a truly splendid picture, even better than those three aforementioned films, not exclusively a showcase for its leading lady but also her irresistible leading man.

The picture opens on Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), a young clerk who ventures from India to participate in the Queen's Golden Jubilee. At this point toward the end of her reign, the Queen is lonely, in poor health and restless with the stuffy inner circle around her. She takes an immediate liking to the kind and handsome Abdul, a development that hardly sits well with the household's racist snobs.

As outside parties vie, to negligible success, to tear the duo apart, their alliance only strengthens, as Abdul instills in the Queen a greater sense of purpose and sunnier outlook on life.

Frears, whose Florence Foster Jenkins mostly left me shrugging my shoulders last year, has hit a real home run here - this is his finest, most satisfying endeavor since another Dame, Helen Mirren, floored us all with The Queen. Kudos to all crew involved, who have crafted one of the year's lushest, most sumptuous pictures.

The heart and soul of the film, of course, are Dench and Fazal, who have heaps more chemistry than what you'll find in 99 percent of romcoms these days. This turn is right among the top-tier of Dench performances, alongside the extraordinary likes of Mrs. Brown and Notes on a Scandal. But the real revelation here is really Bollywood star Fazal, who has a warm and winning screen presence and, like the audience, seems completely in awe of his co-star.

This year's race for the Best Actress Oscar looks poised to be a chaotic one, with a dozen or more turns in serious contention for nominations. Pretty please, Academy, don't forget Dench (and Fazal, while you're at it).

A

Review: "Battle of the Sexes"

Before Battle of the Sexes, there was When Billie Beat Bobby, the 2001 ABC television movie that first documented that legendary 1973 tennis match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs.

That effort, a deservedly forgotten one at this point, was a sanitized comedy that barely scratched the surface on either of their lives. With the usually great Ron Silver woefully miscast as Riggs and Holly Hunter valiantly trying (to little success) to liven up the proceedings as King, the picture was a pretty piss-poor tribute to one of the all-time great events in sports history.

Now, nearly two decades later, we have a big-budget feature film on King vs. Riggs, headlined by an Oscar-winning actress (Emma Stone), two other Oscar-nominated performers (Steve Carell and Elisabeth Shue) and an Oscar-winning screenwriter to boot (Simon Beaufoy).

The result, Battle of the Sexes, is an improvement over When Billie Beat Bobby, albeit only modestly so. This is not, I suspect, going to be the toast of the Oscars next year.

As the picture, directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, opens, World Tennis magazine founder Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman) leads King and other female tennis players in bolting from the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association, which has proposed a tournament in which the female winner would get a tinsy winsy fraction of the prize the male winner would receive. They form their own tennis tour, which draws heaps of attention, including from none other than Riggs.

Riggs, once a tennis superstar in the 1940s and now 55 years old and a hopeless gambling addict, is hungry for a comeback. His first "Battle of the Sexes" against the snobby Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee) proves a walk in the park. Riggs ups the ante, with a far larger prize at stake, and draws the attention of King, whose personal life has been a topsy turvy one ever since falling head over heels for her hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough). The rest, of course, is history.

There's a lot to like in Battle of the Sexes. For one, the performances are terrific and convicing, with Stone in far more compelling form here than last year's La La Land. Silverman is a delight as the team's imperious promoter and Austin Stowell is a nice find as Larry, King's unconditionally supportive husband. The picture also perfectly captures the look and feel of the time. 

At the same time, there's a tonal uneasiness in the sitcom-level comedy of the Riggs scenes and the tenderness and sensitivity of much of the King material. Other supporting players, especially Shue (as Riggs' perturbed wife) and Bill Pullman (as Jack Kramer, head of the Tennis Association), look completely lost at sea, saddled with thankless, thinly written roles. But perhaps most egregious of all, the big final showdown just isn't as exhilarating or inspiring a sight as it should be, as portrayed here.

The performances and palpable '70s nostalgia make Battle of the Sexes an entertaining-enough endeavor but it might be best just to check out a documentary on Billie vs. Bobby instead.

B

Review: "Our Souls at Night"

Not long ago, in anticipation of this long-awaited reunion, I went back and revisited 1967's Barefoot in the Park, the Neil Simon comedy that saw Jane Fonda and Robert Redford in the most purely adorable forms of their careers.

Barefoot, I'm afraid, hasn't aged so well. Sure, Fonda and Redford look fabulous and Mildred Natwick is a scene-stealing hoot in her Oscar-nominated turn as Fonda's mama, but it's really among the more thin and turgid Simon works. The star wattage only keeps it alive for so long.

Our Souls at Night, the first Fonda-Redford picture since 1979's The Electric Horseman, is, I'm pleased to report, a real charmer, a modest but sweet film that often soars on the chemistry of its leads.

One evening, Fonda's Addie pays a visit to her neighbor, Redford's Louis. Both are widowed and lonely and, despite living near each other for decades, never really got to know each other. Addie has an initially uneasy proposal, that it might be nice if she and Louis slept together on occasion. That is, not for sex but for company and companionship.

Without too much in the way of hesitation, they do and, slowly but surely, sparks fly. Their relationship is strengthened but later tested by the entrance of Addie's estranged son (Matthias Schoenaerts) and endearing grandson (Iain Armitage).

Souls has a slightly sluggish start and ends on a note that I didn't find entirely satisfying but, on the whole, is quite an enchanting endeavor. Fonda (in a role leaps and bounds different from her dazzling work on Grace and Frankie) and Redford are wonderful as ever and the screenplay, by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, is observant and full of insight.

One other, minor quibble - if you're going to have the legendary Bruce Dern in this thing, why only give him about three minutes of screen time and not even a scene alongside Coming Home co-star Fonda?!

B+

Review: "Stronger"

Come on, Academy, give Jake Gyllenhaal that Best Actor nomination already!

This year, at last, I suspect it actually happens. This is in part due to Best Actor not being the most set-in-stone of affairs (you've got one shoo-in, Gary Oldman, and then a whole boatload of contenders, including Gyllenhaal, Timothee Chalamet, Bryan Cranston, Steve Carell, Daniel Day-Lewis, Tom Hanks and Andrew Garfield, among others, playing jump ball). What I think also helps Gyllenhaal is his latest picture, Stronger, is much more traditionally Oscar-friendly (and, let's be honest, safe) film than the bolder, more idiosyncratic likes of Nightcrawler and Nocturnal Animals.

Stronger, the latest effort from director David Gordon Green (whose eclectic filmography manages to include George Washington, All the Real Girls, Pineapple Express and Your Highness), recounts how the unassuming Jeff Bauman (Gyllenhaal) emerges a national hero after losing both of his legs during the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013. After regaining consciousness following the attack, Bauman is able to assist the FBI in identifying one of the suspects.

Upon his release, Bauman is cared for by his estranged girlfriend (Tatiana Maslany) and doting mother (Miranda Richardson), who aren't always on the same page as to what is best for their loved one. Bauman's road to recovery, both physically and emotionally, moves a grueling one, as a national spotlight is shone on a struggling man who hardly craves such attention.

Stronger is a modest endeavor for the most part, not quite as ambitious or striking as Green's first pictures but for sure more satisfying than his more recent output. What gives the proceedings a crucial lift are the three central performances.

Gyllenhaal, per usual, completely disappears into his role and doesn't resort to the twitchy gimmicks that a lesser actor may have resorted to in this role. Maslany's portrayal also has a wonderful, lived-in feel - it's a warm and honest performance from an actress who'll hopefully land many more roles of this quality on the big screen. And then there's Richardson, an inspired choice to take on the role of Bauman's colorful Massachusetts mama, a scene-stealing force right on-par with Melissa Leo's tornado of a matriarch in The Fighter.

For these three top-notch performances alone, Stronger (which otherwise isn't all that much to write home about) is totally worth a look.

B+

Review: "mother!"

Move over, It. There's a new, genuinely terrifying and all-around amazing horror film in town.

Darren Aronofsky's latest picture, the much-anticipated mother!, is a certifiably batshitcrazy delight that makes the likes of Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan (both of which I adore) look like entries out of the Shirley Temple filmography. It has the feel of a pet project that could have only come to fruition after the filmmaker first proved himself through less idiosyncratic fare.

Without revealing too much in the way of spoilers, mother! opens on Mother (Jennifer Lawrence) and Him (Javier Bardem), a couple leading a reasonably picturesque life, even though their creaky, isolated house, sorely in need of renovation, is making her uneasy and he's got a wicked case of writer's block. One evening, a Man (Ed Harris) drops by. Much to Mother's chagrin, Him invites this stranger, who's in rough physical shape, to spend the night.

The following morning, a Woman (Michelle Pfeiffer), Man's wife, strolls in. Again, Him welcomes with open arms, while Mother is decidedly uneasy about the visitors. Before long, the children of Man and Woman make their entrance and then a whole host of other shit goes down that leaves Mother all the more antsy and Him all the more elated by the attention.

Since this is an Aronofsky picture, you know there are no limits of audacity to which the filmmaker will take this set-up but even his prior films considered, mother! descends into a hell-like direction that is heaps more rattling and violent than even the wildest of expectations.

mother! is a scrumptious feast for Aronofsky fans in so many regards. While not quite as awe-inspiring as his work on Black Swan, Matthew Libatique's photography on the picture is sublime and the proceedings are also a master class in sound mixing and editing. While the latter half of the film is glorious in its unabashed madness, I found the mother! especially riveting early on, as the filmmaker slowly packs the picture with tension and provides his stellar cast with characters and dialogue worthy of their immense talents.

Lawrence, bewildered and exasperated, and Bardem, intense and irascible, have never been better and Pfeiffer is a fabulous, scene-stealing hoot. While I'm skeptical mother! will have the greatest of box office legs or resonate with an Academy notoriously cool on horror cinema, it would be awesome to see all or any of these actors make an awards season run this year.

Right on the same level as Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan (and this year's other great chiller, It Comes at Night), mother! is an absolute must-see for fans of Aronofsky, his cast and horror pictures in general. CinemaScore be damned!

A-