Meewella | Critic

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QuickView: Anora (2024)

“When you give me health insurance, workers’ comp and a 401K, then you can tell me when I work.”

Ani

Sean Baker opens Anora with an extended riff on Pretty Woman as New York stripper Ani catches the attention of a Russian oligarch’s son, Ivan, and the pair spend a wild week together. Baker skillfully places the viewer amongst the strippers, explicit visuals paired with a transactional approach to punters in a vibe not dissimilar to Hustlers. Mikey Madison proves a far more engaging lead, however, and the film soars due to her range and captivating presence. Particularly when Ivan sweeps her off to Vegas, Baker avoids the temptation to glamourise depictions of affluent excess by lingering on them, instead deploying a technique of quick cuts that make it feel fleeting and meaningless. Following this romantic tryst, Anora unexpectedly shifts in tone when Ivan’s parents send Armenian heavies to drag their son home — rather than turning dark, however, it instead surprisingly segues into screwball comedy with incompetent goons and a hilariously feral Ani. The back half of the film unfolds over the space of about 24 hours in a search for Ivan and the aftermath, much of the humour derived from the gangsters’ threatening behaviour failing in the face of New York belligerence. Underlying this is the dramatic nuance Madison brings as we can see Ani silently calculating or processing the new details she is learning about Ivan. Impressively, when Baker chooses to revert to drama, he succeeds in delivering a poignant closing that feels earned unlike so many comedies.

9/10

QuickView: Yannick (2023)

“I can’t waste a day on this disaster.”

Yannick

A rebellious French comedy, Yannick seeks to deconstruct the relationship between artist and audience through a disgruntled theatregoer whose heckling derails a low quality play. Its success relies on Raphaël Quenard as the disruptive Yannick, with charm, grievance, and agitation behind his turbulent behaviour. Although there is an ebb and flow to audience sympathy for the characters, Yannick still feels too long at just 67 minutes — either because the premise does not provide sufficient material or because the film can no longer wrong-foot the viewer by the second half. Nevertheless, it succeeds in holding up an entertainingly distorted mirror to the dramatic arts and the purpose they serve.

7/10

QuickView: Drive-Away Dolls (2024)

Drive-Away Dolls posters

“I’ve had it with love. I know bards and troubadours are high on it, but I don’t believe it’s relevant to the modern 20th soon to be 21st century lesbian.”

Jamie

Ethan Coen’s first feature as a solo director is a delirious sapphic road-trip set in 1999 but frequently adopting the sensibilities of exploitation movies from the decades prior. Drive-Away Dolls follows two friends on a trip to Florida, pursued by inept criminals seeking to recover a briefcase hidden in their car. In terms of classic Coen styles, it leans more toward the screwball comedy of Burn After Reading than its crime thriller elements, while visually blending eccentric antagonists, lesbian dive bars and raunchy sequences into a Lebowski-esque 90-minute fever dream. At its heart is the central friendship between Margaret Qualley’s uninhibited fast-talking Texan and Geraldine Viswanathan as her reserved and repressed best friend — your enjoyment likely hinges on how you connect with these characters and the film’s earnestly tender moments between them. Particularly by Coen standards, Drive-Away Dolls feels rough around the edges but it brings a fresh energy to its atypical queer romance and seems primed for cult appreciation rather than mainstream success.

7/10

QuickView: Anon (2018)

“We can’t control what we can’t see. We require persistent identity.”

Josef Kenik

Writer-director Andrew Niccol’s science fiction projects use their individual conceits to explore modern societal issues but they tend to be overshadowed by his astonishing debut, Gattaca. Although his script has intriguing ideas about privacy, Anon is closer to the unfulfilled potential of In Time. Set in a near future of pervasive augmented reality and surveillance where everyone’s vision is recorded and stored, a detective finds himself investigating a series of murders by a hacker who has found a way to conceal themselves and hijack what others see. The augmented reality visuals are stylishly subdued with text overlays that will be familiar to those who have played Watch Dogs. Coupled with Amir Mokri’s cold cinematography in a world that feels sparsely populated, the stylistic choices distance the audience from the characters on screen — this was occasionally effective in heightening the voyeurism of looking through another person’s eyes but it was largely disengaging, similar to my criticism of Sharper. Ultimately Anon works as a brief and efficient thriller, but it does not have a great deal to say about privacy and surveillance beyond the inevitable tension between the individual and those in control.

5/10

QuickView: Miller’s Girl (2024)

“You can’t blur the lines, and then expect me to see a boundary when I suddenly cross it.”

Cairo Sweet

Tackling the heavy subject of inappropriate student-teacher relationships, Miller’s Girl has literary pretensions that outstrip writer-director Jade Hadley Bartlett’s subtlety. Her deployment of Daniel Brothers’ evocative cinematography serves to romanticise the developing relationship between middle-aged Miller and his student Cairo. Martin Freeman was reportedly uncomfortable filming some scenes with Jenna Ortega given their age difference, but in truth there is little salacious on screen — their chemistry is cerebral, varying between titillating and ridiculous. Ortega is absorbing though her performance has notable similarities to Wednesday, an emotionally detached and intellectually isolated youth. Her screen presence is enough to maintain engagement even as it becomes clear that Cairo’s provocations lack motivation. Miller is more obviously a flimsy sketch, a failed author demeaned at home by his wife, entranced by a restless waif. Without any genuine emotional core, Miller’s Girl is never more than pseudo-sordid fluff.

5/10

QuickView: The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024)

“If Hitler isn’t playing by the Rules, then neither shall we?”

Winston Churchill

A heavily fictionalised portrayal of Operation Postmaster, a covert WW2 mission to disrupt Nazi U-boat resupply and allow the USA to cross the Atlantic and join the European theatre, Guy Ritchie delivers a pulpy action espionage film with plenty of crowd-pleasing Nazi killing. Ritchie plainly wants Ungentlemanly Warfare to be considered alongside Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, even using a score filled with Western motifs to accompany his band of violent rogues. Although he attempts to ratchet tension in dialogue-heavy scenes with with Nazi officers, they feel closer to cutscenes from the recent Wolfenstein games and the cartoonish Heinrich Luhr poses no threat to Hans Landa’s standing in sinister cinematic villains. The Wolfenstein comparison is apt for the action too, with a hulking Alan Ritchson equally comfortable brawling or sniping with a bow, though Ritchie is oddly reserved when it comes to gore despite the high body count. Henry Cavill — once considered a prime contender for James Bond — is cast as one of the main inspirations for Ian Fleming’s character, and he brings a devilish charm to the dauntless Gus March-Phillips. This is the second time Ritchie has provided Cavill with a Bond-adjacent role, after casting him as Napoleon Solo in The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. The sun-soaked African espionage is enjoyable, manging to conjure a little of Casablanca in casino-owner Heron, though the pacing stumbles in expository dialogue. The third act, an assault under cover of night, is a dimly lit affair that proves considerably less engaging — the result is an underwhelming culmination to film that had succeeded through bombast.

6/10

QuickView: Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

“Suck it Fox! I’m going to Disneyland!”

Deadpool

The future of the Merc with a Mouth was uncertain following Disney’s acquisition of Fox, his brand of snarky violence seeming an odd fit for the more cohesive sensibilities of the MCU. Yet, as Marvel continues to flounder in a post-Endgame world, Deadpool’s irreverent return is a shot in the arm even as it looks more to the past than the future. The Time Variance Authority provides a neat excuse to resurrect Wolverine without doing (too much) disservice to his send-off in Logan, an issue addressed directly in the opening scene. However, those hoping that this will advance the MCU’s multiverse plot will be sorely disappointed as Deadpool treats the Avengers with adoration but the bloated franchise with comedic disdain (“You’re joining at a bit of a low point”). Deadpool & Wolverine excels in witty dialogue and absurd physical comedy, unfolding like an ultraviolent sketch comedy as the unlikely pair — the loquacious and the laconic — interact with a swathe of characters on a journey through loosely-connected scenes to save Wade’s timeline. This sadly jettisons the majority of the series’ returning cast for most of the running time in favour of an intellectual property playground. The action is sufficiently rousing, but embracing both characters’ accelerated healing factor also robs the fights of even short-term peril, the opening sequence being the most creative and memorable. Littered with surprising cameos, the film serves as a fitting send-off to Fox’s early investment in Marvel properties before their imminent MCU reboots, though it does little for the characters themselves who are disposable meta-references. This is insubstantial cinema trading on nostalgia like No Way Home, a trick already wearing slightly thin, but as a comedy I laughed more frequently than I have at any recent film.

7/10

QuickView: Palm Springs (2020)

“Today, tomorrow, yesterday — it’s all the same.”

Nyles

Palm Springs is the another addition to the recently expanding genre of time loop movies that owe a debt to Groundhog Day but, where many are merely derivative of the 1993 progenitor, Palm Springs succeeds in finding its own voice. Its greatest strength is a risk, trusting the audience’s intelligence by starting in medias res but doing so covertly — we swiftly discover that protagonist Nyles has already experienced this day many times before and the our knowledge is more closely aligned with Sarah (Cristina Milioti will be most recognisable from How I Met Your Mother) who is drawn into the loop. Palm Springs assumes cultural knowledge of Groundhog Day to allow exploration of the moral implications which emerged in its critical dissection over the subsequent decades. As disillusioned wedding guests, Milioti and Samberg are charming even in their characters’ more chaotic moments and they have plenty of chemistry, whilst a sense of mystery is introduced through the intermittent appearance of a homicidal J.K. Simmons. What makes Palm Springs such a delight is the variety on offer as it explores the multifarious psychological edges of this familiar fantastic circumstance, by turns nihilistic and joyous, calm and unhinged.

8/10

QuickView: Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

“Honey, I know it’s hard to hear this, but your dad and I had a long talk and we agreed it would be best for all of us if you would just stop being who you are and doing the things you love.”

Mary

There is always a certain level of mythologising in any biopic but Weird has an Andy Kaufman level of disinterest in audience expectation as it frequently dispenses with the truth entirely. This feels appropriate for a man whose career has been built upon flamboyant oddity and parody, now reworking his past into a world in which his signature accordion is treated like an illicit drug. Daniel Radcliffe is perfectly cast at the centre of this surreal experience, continuing his predilection for absurd roles. Toby Huss provides strong support as his overbearing father, supplying much of the film’s emotional stakes. By contrast Evan Rachel Woods’ cartoonish take on Madonna finds less purchase. Yankovic appears briefly as a music executive who rejected him, with a host of celebrity fans and friends providing cameos that outsize the film’s $8 million budget. The script — written by Yankovic and director Eric Appel — acknowledges criticisms of parody being lazy, before proceeding to assert irreverently that several of Yankovic’s famous parodies were originals copied by other artists. Some of the film’s most amusing sequences parody movie tropes like the genius being struck by inspiration, in this case arising from mundane events like making a sandwich or eating cereal. Radcliffe performs a number of songs but Yankovic’s own vocals are dubbed over, less as a necessary choice than because it was the approach taken in Bohemian Rhapsody. This highlights the primary intention of Weird, which is to be a reactionary breath of fresh air amongst the recent glut of musician biopics that have grown stale and formulaic. It comfortably achieves this goal — weird if not always wonderful.

7/10

QuickView: Lost Bullet (2020)

“I have the best drivers. You’re going to give them the best cars.”

Charas

Cars, criminals and crooked cops: Lost Bullet mixes these key ingredients to concoct a lean action crime thriller with a hefty dose of French style. Stuntman and actor Alban Lenoir is French action cinema’s answer to Jason Statham as the honourable criminal/mechanic Lino, down to the stubble, close cropped hair and permanently squinting gaze. Plucked from prison to modify cars for a specialised police unit so that they can combat “go-fast” drug smugglers, it is a simple recipe for car chases and kinetic fistfights. Lost Bullet’s focus rarely wavers, trimming the fat from stereotypical Hollywood action fare whilst still providing enough characterisation to keep us invested as Lino seeks to clear his name. If you experience any enjoyment in creative vehicular destruction, Lost Bullet is a pleasant surprise that is well worth your time.

7/10

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"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

(CC) BY-NC 2003-2023 Priyan Meewella

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