Review Roundup

Welcome to this month’s FREE Friday newsletter! At the end of every month, I drop a list of what I’ve been working on.

Without further ado:

F1 is about teamwork, and also Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt in F1 (Warner Bros.).

“It’s not about the money.” So, what is it about then? For racer Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) in F1, it’s about that feeling you get when you drive, the one that makes you feel like you’re flying. The movie itself – a bang-up, invigorating summer blockbuster – tries to give us that same feeling. For the most part, it excels, particularly when it comes to director Joseph Kosinski’s ability to tell a story within an action sequence. But the film would also like you to believe that it’s about teamwork, and finding middle ground, and coming together to achieve a common goal – and that’s where F1 butts up against its star and his persona in rather interesting ways.

The meaning of life in The Life of Chuck

Annalise Basso and Tom Hiddleston in The Life of Chuck (NEON).

There’s always been an earnest quality to Mike Flanagan’s work, one that comes through most strongly in the best moments of shows like The Haunting of Bly Manor and Midnight Mass. For as chilling as the horror can be, the emotional, thematic questions those shows explore is what truly sets them apart – and The Life of Chuck is interested in exploring one of the more heady of those questions: what makes life meaningful?

As sweet and buoyant as The Life of Chuck is, it does not pretend that meaning only comes from joy. “Life affirming” is the phrase that keeps popping up around this film, and it is – but finding meaning in our lives is far more complicated than simply finding happiness.

Materialists can’t wring the romance out of the perils of modern dating

Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal in Materialists (A24).

Billed as a rom-com but more successful as a take down of modern dating, Materialists is a scathing rebuke of the mechanisms in place that force us to treat dating like a job interview, highly critical of how the algorithm has ruined the romance of the endeavor. But, when Materialists tries to get a little romantic itself, it runs into issues.

Ballerina and the empty task of fighting like a girl

Ana de Armas in Ballerina (Lionsgate)

It’s not that Ballerina (officially called From the World of John Wick: Ballerina, because God forbid the audience have to figure out anything for themselves) isn’t good. In fact, the action is pretty rad, drawing everything that works so well about the John Wick franchise as a whole. But the story surrounding that action falls flat, falling into pitfalls that plague so many movies about female action heroes, and drawing on a girl power narrative that it does nothing to earn. Much like Eve at the end of the film, I am tired.

The Phoenician Scheme and a goofy second chance

Benicio del Toro in The Phoenician Scheme (TPS Productions/Focus Features).

The Phoenician Scheme isn’t the first Wes Anderson film about broken men and broken families (The Royal Tenenbaums is all over this thing). It’s familiar territory for Anderson, but, as the old adage goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it definitely ain’t broke. Despite treading familiar territory, The Phoenician Scheme is both darker in its construction and sillier in its execution than Anderson’s more recent output. It’s a black comedy with a twinkle in its eye, a flighty, fantastical romp about the struggle for one man’s soul – is it really too late, or can this heartless mogul find his second chance?

Bring Her Back is all shock, no value

Jonah Wren Phillips in Bring Her Back (A24).

I feel roughly the same about Bring Her Back as I do Talk to Me, filmmakers Danny and Michael Philippou’s first film. It’s quite an upsetting movie with some good performances, and the Philippous have a real eye for practical effects and nastiness. But, there’s not too much going on underneath that grimy sheen. I appreciate the Philippous’ commitment to the visceral and the creativity of the premise. But, while Talk to Me is about as nasty as it gets, Bring Her Back is going for something far more sentimental by its end, and it doesn’t earn the depth of emotion it wants to achieve.

Jane Austen Wrecked My Life navigates new romance through an old lens

Camille Rutherford in Jane Austen Wrecked My Life (Sony Pictures Classics).

Even if Jane Austen does wreck all of our lives just a little bit, this movie believes in the power of shooting for that type of romance anyway. With strong performances and achingly lovely chemistry between the film’s two leads, Jane Austen Wrecked My Life is about a woman learning to confront the world as it comes at her, and learning that perhaps, Jane Austen still has a lot to teach the modern heroine.

Shoshannah Stern on her documentary Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore

(L-R) Shoshannah Stern and Marlee Matlin in Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore (Kino Lorber).

I recently got the chance to speak with filmmaker Shoshannah Stern about her new documentary, which takes a closer look at the life of Marlee Matlin, the first deaf person to win an Academy Award. Matlin was 21 years old when she won the Best Actress Oscar and was immediately thrust into the spotlight, asked to represent an entire community on her own. She’s incredibly raw and vulnerable in the documentary, and Stern was very open with me in our interview.

Thanks for reading! I’ll be taking Friday off next week for the 4th of July, but I’ll see you Monday for some movie recs.