Cherry (2021) - Avenger vs Opioids

CHERRY is the feature film adaption of Nico Walker’s 2018 novel of the same name. The drama about an Army medic turned drug addict and bank robber is brought to your AppleTV+ screen from the director duo behind the latest two Avengers films. Tom Holland stars as Cherry, a college dropout who impulsively joins the Army after his girlfriend breaks up with him. Cherry swiftly gets back together with his ex, but it’s already too late to back out of his commitment to the Army. He returns riddled with the traumatic experience of the war in Iraq and rapidly develops an addiction to opioids and struggles to keep afloat as a war vet in his mid-20s.

Joe and Anthony Russo return to a Non-MCU-film after seven years and four movies over at the big mouse. Backed with fewer dollars in the budget but stacked with notable star power as Tom Holland once again tries his hardest to drop his London accent for an American one. Holland’s performance is quite solid and from what I can tell - being Swiss - also on point with his American accent. Cherry also stars Ciara Bravo in her biggest role to date. Whereas Holland left an overall good impression Bravo missed more often than not, resulting in a moderate amount of unconvincing scenes. 

Arguably, this is less on her and more on the overcrammed narrative that repeatedly falls short in selling rather abrupt character developments. At almost two and a half hours of runtime Cherry is certainly not a short film and quite honestly might have been better served in the form of a mini-series. However, the long run-time would probably be shortened by over 15 minutes if the overuse of slow-motion sequences were less frequent. The sudden shifts in aspect ratios and fourth wall break alongside the few and far between Wes Anderson-like staging and framing add up to an overall tonal mess that is structured into five chapters, which I assume was taken from the novel, for no apparent reason other than those cool red title cards.

On the whole, Cherry tries to tell an engaging narrative whilst poking fun and highlighting some of the flawed systems in the US. Although the attempt is very much noted and respected, there is not enough substance to let the narrative flow fittingly. What we get is a Coming-of-Age love story, war drama, cheeky fourth-wall-breaking character study on PTSD and drug addiction in addition to a Scorsese-esce rise and fall of a bank robber. It's just a bit much.

Conclusively, Cherry tackles PTSD and opioid addiction from a narrow field of view and rests a bit too comfortably on its bankable lead and directors creating a ball bath of cinematic ideas for them to play in to leave more to be desired. Nonetheless, it’s a big win for Apple TV+. One that will hopefully bring some new subscribers to the streaming service.  

Cherry is entertaining, easy to look at and its sweeping camera movements and charismatic lead will probably be enough to please most audiences. It uses its lack of character depth in the form of a rather fast-paced plot. 

2.5/5

Cherry releases on Feb 26 in cinemas and will be available to stream on March 12 on Apple TV+

Judas and the Black Messiah (2021)

Review on Quiet on Set Podcast HERE

Shaka King tackles the story of Fred Hampton, the deputy chairman of the Black Panther Party in this historic Drama-Thriller accurately titled JUDAS AND THE BLACK MESSIAH. The Warner Bros production hits theatres on February 12 (wherever they’re open) and will be available to stream for 30 days on HBO Max. Judas and the Black Messiah focuses mainly on Bill O’Neal, an informant who is forced to work with the FBI to escape from a decade-long prison sentence for impersonating an officer and lifting cars. He soon finds himself in the midst of the already exhausted Civil Rights Movement that suffered the loss of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. just a few years prior.

Daniel Kaluuya (left) as Fred Hampton & Lakeith Stanfield (right) as Bill O’Neal

Lakeith Stanfield plays the conflicted and often helpless Bill O’Neal with phenomenal moral ambiguity as he climbs ranks in the Black Panther Party and thereby increasing his value to the federal agencies. Stanfield has a way of portraying his multilayered and complex character with his eyes alone which does a great deal in humanizing what many simply regard as a sell-out, betrayer, or a Judas. Daniel Kaluuya IS Fred Hampton. He absolutely nails this performance on a level that is on par with Denzel Washington in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X (1992). Hampton is young, driven, and selfless. A man on a mission. King doesn’t shy away from presenting the radical side of Hampton or the Panthers either.

It balances the ambiguity of characters’ intent and results quite effectively. As a result, whatever atrocities and injustices were committed, we have history to look back onto to judge who was right or wrong. Hoover, for instance, played by Martin Sheen, is simply a clear-cut villain from start to finish, which accurately displays this monster of a man. The far more interesting dynamic and dramatic tension comes from Fred and Bill as they grow a bit closer. To its own benefit, the film never falls into traps of sentimentality or overdramatizing events and allows this to be a thriller that has you tensed up even if you are aware of the ultimate devastating outcome of Hampton's way too short a story. Jesse Plemons as FBI agent Roy Mitchell, Bill O’Neal’s contact person, has his own smaller arc in the form reversed version of Bill’s journey.

In addition to a quite successful second feature directing effort, Shaka King furthermore delivers a fantastic original screenplay with Will Berson, Kenneth Lucas, and Keith Lucas as his collaborators. The frequent Steve McQueen collaborator Sean Bobbit (12 Years A Slave/Widows/Shame/Hunger) packs award-worthy shots into the tightly structured narrative and Sam Liscenco’s (Uncut Gems/Good Time/Eight Grade) Production Design reanimates late 60s Chicago in a stunning manner. 

Judas and the Black Messiah doesn’t take your hand along the way and avoids dumbing down characters based on real people for a simpler plot. There might not be a courtroom full of people clapping, seemingly creating a false sense of having overcome a complex and layered issue. (Trial of the Chicago 7). Judas and the Black Messiah, on the contrary, packs a devastating real ending after Fred’s already exasperating assassination that left me speechless and depleted.

Daniel Kaluuya (top) as Fred Hampton & Lakeith Stanfield (center) as Bill O’Neal during a powerful speech

Shaka King’s Judas and the Black Messiah packs the best performances from both Stanfield and especially Kaluuya in addition to being a thrilling portrayal and humanization of an iconic figure from the Civil Rights movement. Additionally, it’s a dire reminder of the countless criminal and ruthless acts committed by the FBI.

4/5

The Aristocats - 52 Years in 52 Weeks

The Aristocats (1970)

Welcome back to 52 Years in 52 Weeks. Each week in 2021 we’ll watch a film I’ve never seen before starting in 1969 moving one year forward every week.

This week, I watched The Aristocats from 1970. Wolfgang Reitherman directed this feline family adventure from Disney. Reitherman is also (at least partly) behind other Disney classics like 1961’s One Hundred and One Dalmatians, 1959’s Sleeping Beauty, and 1970’s The Rescuers, which I believed to be connected to The Aristocats because the mice looked similar in my mind. But I guess that just makes me the racist equivalent for rodents. But I’ll leave the racial stereotyping to the experts over at Disney. More on that later. Reitherman co-directed these films but he’s arguably best known for 1973s Robin Hood and 1967’s The Jungle Book. All the films mentioned are available for streaming on Disney+. What the service might lack in original new programming it inarguably makes up with its rather impressive backlog

Phil Harris, who voices Baloo and Little John in Jungle Book and Robin Hood respectively, does the voice for the most memorable character from the Aristocats. O’Malley. It’s impressive how creepy yet still charming Harris manages to be as the stray cat that helps The Duchess and her three kittens on her way back to their wealthy home.

The plot is fairly simple. When Adelaide Bonfamille leaves all her liquidities to her cats, her butler decides to get rid of them in an effort to inherit his employer's money that he believes to deserve. Funnily enough, Edgar is too dense to realize that he would still get all the money as cats...can’t...spend...money. I know. Mind. blown. But that rather simple world-view runs through the entire plot of The Aristocats. Intense over the top action chase scenes and the occasional song is all we get from the movie. It never tries to be more than a simple - ignore the partly intended terrible pun - cat and mouse game. 

I personally found most jokes to be more miss than hit. For example, the geese characters feel particularly random and unnecessary. Maybe it’s because I just can’t stand the upper-class way of talking from the 40s-70s. Particularly the Duchess is a great example of that. I just can’t stand the way she talks. Perhaps that’s just a ‘me thing’ but I find it distracting. In the context of the story, it makes sense to have an upper-class cat speak in an upper-class manner. It’s just so annoying. But honestly, Thomas O’Malley’s constant ‘baby’ is equally irritating and predatory, to be frank. 

The Aristocats is a movie that’s supposed to be light-hearted. With Thomas O’Malley strolling along the riverside taking the family on an adventure. I just don’t connect as well with movies that I feel like don’t have a purpose or reason to exist. This might be cynical but I dislike cookie-cutter versions of stories that are way too familiar without adding much to anything. You could argue that the purpose of a movie like this is simply to entertain and I’d have to agree. Lots of studio films exist purely for that reason and don’t need any themes on top of that. But I wasn’t even entertained by anything happening in the plot. As you’d expect from a family film, its conclusion is predictable and the moments in between, at least to me, are not charming or memorable enough to leave a good impression. 

And what’s worse than a truly bad movie? A mediocre, boring one. And that’s what The Aristocats is. 

Also giving a cat with Asian features chopsticks to play the piano is at most unexpected but not really funny. In the overall context, that scene simply serves as a colorful, musical pitstop halfway through the movie before they ultimately assimilate to the aristocratic lifestyle at the mercy of an old, white woman.

Maybe I’m reading into this too much but there is that disclaimer at the start of the film that Disney puts in front of some of their older releases deemed controversial. 

Ultimately The Aristocats is a rather weak entry in the long list of animated Disney classics. But at least it’s better than all of the recent ‘live-action’ remakes, but from the recent trend of Disney redoing literally their entire 90s golden age of films, it’s only a matter of time until they’ll produce the inevitable remake for this one.

Next week we’ll watch Spielberg’s feature-length debut Duel.

EMMA.

After Clueless (Amy Heckerling, 1995) comes Autumn de Wilde’s adaptation of the Austen novel Emma. The explanation for her stylized title ‘EMMA.’ is, so de Wilde to RadioTimes, “There’s a period at the end of Emma because it’s a period film”. So it is only right that this version of Emma is set in its original setting; England in the early 19th century.

Spoiled young woman Emma lives with her widowed father (Bill Nighy) alone in a big country house in Highbury. In her daily boredom, she soon discovers that she can entertain herself by playing matchmaker. She engineers the marriage between her beloved governess and a widowed man. But as she is now deprived of the only motherly figure she knows, she turns her attention to naive girl Harriet Smith, whom she declared her companion. Despite knowing that Harriet is in love and courted by a local farmer, Emma coaxed her into refusing Mr. Martin and instead orchestrates a relationship between the vicar Elton and her, whom Emma thinks more fitting. The plot thickens when Emma is soon made aware of the fact that not all her arrangements will work out in her favor. Her neighbour and brother-in-law Mr. Knightley is the only one to be mindful of her vanity and naiveté. At that same time, Emma finds herself attracted to good looking Mr. Frank Churchill, while it is rumored that Knightley himself is taken by the accomplished Jane Fairfax. Being at the center of all these events, Emma gets tangled up quickly.  Capering about in the lavish society, she is ultimately confronted with the question of growing up, assuming responsibility for her actions and finding her place in the world. 

Autumn de Wilde’s directorial debut puts a quirky, rom-comesque spin on the already comedic original story. Watching this film wasn’t a completely different experience than watching Clueless, apart from the admittedly gorgeous setting and decor they pulled off. At times it actually felt like they recast Clueless and then had them dress up and talk fancily. In a good way though. It is definitely an enjoyable film, albeit not outstanding. The cast was splendid, with Bill Nighy portraying a valetudinarian old man (quite honestly one of his better roles) and Johnny Flynn being his cuddly and adorable self through his character of Knightley

De Wilde artfully juggles with banter and benevolent bestialities to deliver a nicely dressed up film. 

If you have read the novel it is definitely fun seeing this film I believe. And if you have loved and worshipped Paul Rudd in Clueless as I have growing up (still do tbh), then don’t worry, Johnny Flynn (almost) does him justice. I think you don’t even have to love period pieces to like this film.

Should I see Emma? Go see it if you wanna know what this famous novel is about (always good to know what people are talking about) and like a quirky movie.

★★★☆☆

Film Release (Switzerland): 5.3.20 - Film Release (Australia): 13.2.20 - Film Release (USA): 6.2.20

Film Data: Director: Autumn de Wilde - Writers: Elanor Catton, Jane Austen - Cast: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Josh O'Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves - 124’ - 2020 - UK - Universal Pictures

Photo and Video: © Universal Pictures International Switzerland. All Rights Reserved.

Onward

The world used to be filled with all sorts of magic but the rise of technology made magic redundant in many ways. New Mushroomton, a small town in which all sorts of creatures like dragons, giants, dwarfs and elfs co-exist, has adapted to a magic-free lifestyle and opened the door for modern technology to take over. Most inhabitants of New Mushroomton do not even believe in magic anymore, as everything fantastical in their world has been made fictitious. In doing that, they completely negated their once magical history.

Onward is the 22nd feature film from Pixar and Dan Scanlon’s second Pixar film after 2013’s Monster’s University, the prequel to the critically acclaimed Monster’s Inc. from 2001. 

Tom Holland and Chris Pratt team up once again, this time not to fight Thanos but to voice the elf brothers Ian and Barley Lightfoot. On the day of this 16th birthday, Ian receives a present from his Dad that passed away when he was very young. A magical staff and a spell able to bring his Dad back for one whole day. But the spell goes wrong and only brings back the bottom half of their father, so the brothers are forced to embark on an adventurous quest to find an artifact powerful enough to complete the spell and bring back the rest of his body.

Pixar has always been strong at pulling at the audience’s heartstrings and it has gotten to a point where it has become a cliché to cry when the lamp is done stamping on the ‘I’ and the consecutive story starts to play out. I found myself at a dilemma with this because although moments of the third act did manage to make my eyes quite watery, I do not think this is one of the stronger Pixar outings. The story told in Onward is one that I feel quite personally attached to because of a similar life experience that I had with my father. The brother relationship is another one that I relate to quite a bit, as I have a little brother around the same age as Ian. Therefore, I was really connected to the relationships between the characters, rather than the plot itself. Unfortunately, there is quite a bit of spectacle over substance in the film. This film could have had an even bigger focus on its well-established character relationships, but it went for action-packed chase scenes instead. Ian is a blank canvas, as most protagonists in those types of stories are, in order for people to relate to him. His character traits are; being socially awkward, sad about his father’s death and not believing in himself. But apart from that, he does not resemble someone that would exist outside of this story. 

Fact: Pixar makes the prettiest looking movies. After last year’s gorgeous Toy Story 4, comes Onward with a colorful, quirky animation style that is incredibly detailed. The comedy mostly worked as well, the highlight being all the Weekend at Bernie’s and literal ‘Daddy-only-legs’ humor coming from Wilden, Ian and Barley’s dad.

Onward is filled with moments that are universally relatable to young viewers like believing in yourself and appreciating what you have. As an adult, you pick up on when the filmmakers try to put those moments in and although I noticed when it was happening, it did not feel forced or preachy. When films are able to incorporate inspiring and touching messages into their films without bringing the story to a screeching halt, I applaud them for that. Because a lot of animated movies tend to cater to their target audience way too much. Although, there are a few tense moments in Onward that I wish were not played and broken for lazy attempts at comedy.

Should you see this film? Yes, if you have enjoyed Pixar films in the past, Onward will certainly not disappoint. If not, who are you and who has robbed your childhood that you don’t enjoy Pixar

Onward is an enjoyable family film that will make you laugh, cry and hug your loved ones.

★★★⋆☆

Release Date (CH): 05.03.20 - Release Date (Australia): 02.04.20 - Release Date (US): 06.03.20

Film Data: Director: Dan Scanlon - Writer: Dan Scanlon, Keith Bunin, Jason Headley - Cast: Chris Pratt, Tom Holland, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer, Mel Rodriguez, Ali Wong, Lena Waithe, John Ratzenberger, Tracey Ullman - 103’ - 2020 - USA - Pixar - Walt Disney Company

Photo and Video Source: Walt Disney Company Switzerland

About Endlessness by Roy Andersson

A waiter that forgets that he is pouring wine and lets it run over the glass and onto the neatly ironed tablecloth. A woman in a train station taking off her shoes, because the heel is broken. A caring father who stops in the pouring rain to tie his little daughters shoe laces. These are some of the scenes that stuck with me for a while after seeing this film. Roy Andersson’s new film About endlessness (Om det oändliga) is a manifesto of human existence. 

In the 76 minutes we are presented with thirty-two static shots. If we go along with the mythological analogy of life being a thread, then Andersson weaves a whole tapestry with his thirty-two threads. Because even if every single shot would work as it’s own little universe, they all still depend on one another to make up that thing we call living. Seemingly banal scenes from everyday life follow one another, one not given more attention than the other. They are all roughly of the same length so that a scene with german soldiers marching towards their death sentence is given the same weight as a woman enjoying champagne in a restaurant. And that is exactly Andersson’s statement; in the big tapestry that I will now call existence (because analogies), both scenes have always existed right next to each other, they both happened all the same, one as absurd as the other. 

In a scene where a highschool boy explains the theory of thermodynamics to his friend, Andersson slips us a possible explanation for his film. “You are energy, I am energy, and both of our energies will never cease to exist; they can only be transformed into something new.” So in his movie, Andersson moves from scene to scene will all of them constantly being transformed into something new in front of the backdrop the notion of ‘endlessness’, because ultimately ennui will always be the same, doesn’t matter what form it is portrayed in. 

However, Andersson’s film is not necessarily a pessimistic one. We recognize the beauty in the bleakness and the sublime in what is senseless. “Isn’t it all still fantastic?” “What do you mean?” “All of it.” (oh hey, a scene where the sentimentality doesn’t bother me for once but actually fits perfectly)

As well as introspective, this film is deeply comedic too. You can’t help but chuckle at the sheer pointlessness. You laugh because you’ve been there, you realize how utterly ridiculous it all is in the end. A good moment was, when the panicked priest who lost faith in God gets shuffled out of the doctor’s office because they’re closing and the psychiatrist has to catch the bus - with endlessness and a never ending time frame being the whole theme of the film. 

While watching the film I kept asking myself: “How is he going to end this film, how does one even do that?” Turns out, exactly like that. I think Andersson couldn’t have closed the ‘story’ better than the way that he did. Because, as is shown in different scenes during the film, we are always on our way, quite literally and metaphorically. We are on trains, we wait for buses and we walk to birthday parties in the pouring rain. Maybe we are on our way to realizing what we believe in or, more fittingly, do not believe in. And, sometimes, we just get stuck in transit.

So should you go see this film? Yes absolutely. Go in with the expectation that this is going to be a slow-paced, bleak-coloured and quiet little film and you will love it. Maybe not. But please do and don’t tell me if you didn’t. Goodbye (yes, this is to be read as a quote from the film)

★★★★☆

Release Date (Switzerland): 05.03.20 - Release Date (US): 12.06.20

Film Data: Director: Roy Andersson, Writer: Roy Andersson - Cast: Magnus Wallgren, Lisa Blohm, Kristina Ekmark, Martin Serner, Jessica Louthander, Tatiana Delaunay, Anders Hellström - 76’ - 2019 - Sweden/Norway - Xenix Film distribution

Mare

Mare lives an ordinary life in the rural part of Croatia. She loves her family, but she also strives for more freedom and self-determination. Her husband works at the local airport, but nevertheless, Mare has never flown anywhere her entire life. Similarly, her family life is not satisfying and it gets quite stressful with three teenage children and a husband that is not the best at communicating. When a young man suddenly enters Mare’s life, he reanimates her joie de vivre and consequently turns her world upside down.

Marija Škaričić

The ‘Zürcher Hochschule der Künste’ graduate Andrea Štaka (Das Fräulein, Hotel Belgrad) writes and directs her fourth feature film and reunites with Marija Škaričić (A Wonderful Night in Split, What is a man without a Moustache?) as the lead. Marija Škaričić won best actress for her performance in Andrea Štaka’s Das Fräulein at the Sarajevo Film Festival.

Mare premiered at the 70th Berlin Film Festival in the Panorama Section. The film was shot in a small town of Dubrovnik in Croatia and a Swiss-Croatian production.

Director Andrea Štaka

Even though I usually enjoy slow-paced films, I could not help but feel a bit bored with Mare. There is quite a bit of repetition of similar scenes that capture the mundanity of everyday life, but ultimately are rather meaningless to the overall story. This gave me the impression of simply ‘filling up time’ instead of moving the characters or the plot along. The performances from the primary and secondary characters were all fine. I was positively surprised by the actor that played Mare's oldest son, who kept on walking the thin line of almost over-acting without ever actually fully crossing it.

As the first few scenes of the film play out, you might wonder why it looks so old and grainy. Turns out the film was entirely shot on 16mm film on the Arri 416. The aesthetic grew on me and gave it the raw realness Štaka was going for.

Marija Škaričić, Goran Navojec

I left the cinema rather disappointed for a reason that I cannot fault the movie too much. It is, however, a slight spoiler, so if you wish to go into this without knowing anything more then the premise, skip ahead to the rating now. 

There is no real conclusion to the main conflict. All parties are just there - partly aware of what is going on - and then it just ends. I get that the inconclusiveness of an open-end is supposed to reflect real life, but I find it frustrating after seeing plenty of thematically similar scenes that were leading to a more active confrontation. 

If you enjoy slow-paced films with down-to-earth realistic characters then Mare just might be for you.

The film will be in Swiss theatres on March 12th.

★★⋆☆☆

Film Date: Director: Andrea Štaka - Writer: Andrea Štaka - Cast: Marija Škaričić Goran Navojec Mateusz Kościukiewicz Mirjana Karanović Ivana Roščić Zdenko Jelčić - 84’ - Croatia/Switzerland - 2020 - Distributor (CH): Frenetic Films

Photos and Video rights: FRENETIC FILMS and Ona Pinkus

Just Mercy

Your life is still meaningful,
and I’m going to do everything I can
to keep them from taking it.
— Bryan Stevenson

Just Mercy tells the powerful story of Bryan Stevenson, played by Michael B. Jordan (Black Panther, Creed), a young lawyer set out to represent the ones that cannot afford it. Instead of money, he fights for justice for the wrongly condemned prisoners on Death Row. The Harvard graduate moves to Alabama, which has a prison with a track record of never releasing a convicted felon from its facility before execution. Water McMillian (Jamie Foxx - Baby Driver, Django Unchained) is one of those innocent prisoners sentenced to die on the electric chair for supposedly killing an 18-year-old girl. But a closer look at the evidence makes it obvious that the single witness testimony - given by a convicted felon with a motive to lie is incorrect. What follows is an exploration into the many injustices that the lower class has to face with a corrupt and racist government.

The extended cast included Brie Larson (Captain Marvel, Room) as Eva Ansley, who supports Bryan Stevenson (Jordan) in his endeavor. Something that never gets explored or explained in the film is how they afford to work for their clients free of charge even as their company grows. While this doesn’t affect the story that we focus on, but it was something I was personally interested in. Rob Morgan (Mudbound) as Herbert Richardson and O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) as Anthony Ray Hinton are the two prisoners on death row that share the neighboring cells with McMillian.

The story is based on true events and therefore covers quite a bit of historical ground throughout its runtime. We get introduced to the character McMillian in Alabama in 1987. A few years later Stevenson and McMillian’s paths cross for the first time as Steveson takes on the task of helping prisoners on death row.

Micheal B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson and Jamie Foxx as Walter McMillian

Just Mercy is another one of these films based on a true story that has a wide range of interesting characters to pull from in its over two-hour-long runtime. But somehow still leaves so much untold. I mean that in a positive way. There is more to these characters than what we see on screen because it would not fit into a film narrative like this. The death penalty is certainly a controversial topic that is relevant to this day, as the US stills legalize the death penalty in over half of its 52 states. Including Alabama.

What could have easily been a preachy, pandering movie about prisoners on death row surprised me with the nuance and moral ambiguity it was able to illustrate. A major weak point was, however, a few moments on unconvincing performances that felt like actors reading their lines instead of them playing their characters. But the positives outweigh the negatives here, especially because Jamie Foxx is great in every scene he’s in. Brie Larson’s southern accent is one of the few humorous things coming out of this rather serious historic drama.

If you’ve been holding off on seeing films in 2020, this is the first one (not counting Swiss release dates for Knives Out and Little Women) that I can whole-heartedly recommend to pretty much anyone. Even though the runtime is well over two hours it doesn’t feel long due to the great pacing that knows when to linger and when to move on. Another standout is the cinematography by Brett Pawlak which puts you right into the scene with these characters, walking that fine line of connecting us with the characters without presenting information in a polarizing way.

I recommend the book written by Stevenson himself of the same name, Just Mercy, which chronicles McMillain’s as well as many other cases.

★★★★☆

Just Mercy is a solid film with heartfelt moments that you will connect with when you least expect it.

Micheal B. Jordan as Bryan Stevenson and Brie Larson as Eva Ansley

Swiss Release Date: 27.02.20

Australian Release Date: 23.01.20

Film Data: Director: Destin Daniel Cretton - Writer: Destin Daniel Cretton, Bryan Stevenson, Andre Lanham - Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Foxx, Brie Larson, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Rafe Spall, Rob Morgan

Photo and Video: © 2020 Warner Bros. Ent. All Rights Reserved.

Queen & Slim

Think you’ve been on a bad tinder date? Well, think again, because Queen & Slim has come to change your mind.

We meet Queen and Slim, an African-American couple, having their first date at a cheap diner. It does not go very well, so they decide to leave and Slim offers to give Queen a ride home. The two aren’t getting along very well and it’s clear that they won’t see each other again. Until a police officer pulls them over. We, as viewers and the duo are then confronted with an agitated police officer, who isn’t calming down. After an altercation, the police officer takes a shot at Queen, grazing her leg, and Slim shoots the police officer in self-defense. 

What do you do? Stay and possibly spend a lifetime in prison? Or do you run and risk everything for the slight possibility of fleeing successfully?

Queen, a criminal defense attorney, decides that in this case, it’s better to run.

Queen & Slim marks the directorial feature debut of Melina Matsoukas, who is best known for working with pop stars such as Beyoncé, Rihanna and Lady Gaga on some of their most influential music videos, such as Just Dance, We Found Love, Pretty Hurts, Formation and many others. It’s clear that Matsoukas is excellent at making music videos, but features? Not as much.

The film certainly opens strongly and gives the viewer a promise of a great story. In fact, the first 15 minutes might even be the best part. Instead of living up to this promise, the whole story feels like a veeeery long short film, which is stuck in a timeless continuum. The last 15 minutes of the story managed to pick up my interest again for a great finale, even though it felt a bit cliché, to say the least.

Matsoukas definitely knows how to make a film look beautiful. It has some great shots and is visually appealing, but feels all together very dreamy and unrealistic, which isn’t exactly what the story intends to go for, at least at the beginning. All in all, one could say that the story is mediocre. The execution doesn’t lack in spectacle, but the film is so set on making Queen and Slim icons of the Black Lives Matter movement and all of it so deep, that it just feels forced and overdone. Combine this with bizarre choices in sound editing and the climax pun and it just doesn’t really seem to work. (You’ll know what I mean once you’ve seen it)

Finally, the story all just feels very lucky and unrealistic. The characters never seem to run out of luck. The collaboration of Matsoukas’ directing and the writing by James Frey and Lena Waither just doesn’t mesh well. Matsoukas’ intention is to create an everlasting story, which clearly attempts to become an icon for the Black Lives Matter movement but instead, it just overdoes it and bores. Again, not the first and last 15 minutes though! 

What I personally was able to enjoy most, was the cast. Daniel Kaluuya doesn’t have to prove himself anymore, we all know that he’s a great actor and together with Jodie Turner-Smith the two make a great duo. Also noteworthy are Chloë Sevigny and Indya Moore, the latter giving us some much needed queer representation.

In conclusion, Queen & Slim is a good movie, but it feels more like a stretched out short film. 

★★★⋆☆

Also, next time, consider Canada instead of Cuba. Your chances might be better.

Release date (Switzerland): 09.01.2020

Release date (USA): 27.11.2019

Film data: Director: Melina Matsoukas - Screenplay: Lena Waither - Story: James Frey and Lena Waithe - Cast: Daniel Kaluuya, Jodie Turner-Smith, Bokeem Woodbine, Chloë Sevigny, Flea, Sturgill Simpson, Indya Moore, Benito Martinez - 131’ - USA - 2019 - Universal Pictures

Photo and Video Source: © Universal Pictures International Switzerland. All Rights Reserved.

The Peanut Butter Falcon

Peanut Butter Falcon, the Audience Award in Narrative Spotlight winner at the SXSW Film festival tells the down-to-earth adventure story of Zak, a 22-year-old man with Down syndrome who’s stuck in an elderly home. As well as fisherman Tyler (LaBoeuf) who finds himself in a wild feud with angry crab fishermen from whom he stole their catch. The unlikely pair is forced to work together when Zak, after escaping from the care facility, hides on a boat that Tyler uses to escape from the fishermen. Zak and Tyler embark on a bonding journey towards Florida to fulfill Zak’s life long dream of attending the wrestling school of his idol Salt Water Redneck and becoming a professional wrestler.

The Peanut Butter Falcon is written and directed by the creative team Tyler Nilson and Micheal Schwartz in their directorial feature debut. It stars Shia LaBeouf, Dakota Johnson, and Zack Gottsagen as the main protagonists. This marks Zack Gottsagen’s first feature film performance after writer and director Tyler Nilson discovered the actor at a camp for actors with disabilities and decided to write a story designed especially for him.

LaBoeuf and Gottsagen seem to click well together, which is integral for such an intimate and personal story like this to work. The film has some great moments that feel original and honest, but not all the way through. At a point towards the end of the second act, it starts to tick off the Hollywood plot point boxes and ends rather abruptly. I appreciate the trust in an emotionally intelligent audience because any other Hollywood film might have resorted to a voice-over narrator to explain the essentially obvious plot, and thus making the audience seem incapable of reading emotions themselves. But The Peanut Butter Falcon doesn’t rely on this lazy narrative element.

I especially enjoyed the muted and green-toned color palette which brings out the constantly changing landscape. The camera work is well done and both staging and blocking are conceived in a way that helps convey the story and emotional beats well. This becomes apparent in every scene Dakota Johnson is in as they visually establish the dynamic of the trio in a subtle but effective way.

One aspect that did not work and felt superfluous was the angry fishermen Duncan and Ratboy’s dedication to hunt down and kill Tyler. It felt a bit excessive and over the top. Even though the story has magical moments, they never cross the line to fantastical, it tonally shifts whenever there was another fishermen scene. In my mind, the story would have worked even better without that spectacle of the eventual explosive confrontation between Tyler and the fishermen. However, it was the initial and to an extent seemingly the main drive to keep LaBoeuf’s character moving, which wouldn’t have happened if there was no big conflict when he initially stole their catch that forced him to run away from his home like Zak did.

Should I watch this movie? It’s a great film to watch for anyone who wants to see an uplifting, emotional story that is able to pull on your heartstrings. The main reason I’d recommend it, is Zack Gottsagen’s performance alone, simply because it’s the best performance I have seen from an actor with Down syndrome and is a real delight to watch.

★★★⋆☆

The Peanut Butter Falcon is an adventure movie about friendship and fulfilling your biggest dreams against all odds. It shines the brightest through the performances of Gottsagen and LaBoeuf but falls victim to a rather predictable plot in the latter half and an abrupt ending that prevents it from being a truly great film.

Release Date (Switzerland): 20.01.2020

Release Date: (Australia): 30.01.2020

Film Data: Director: Tyler Nilson Michael Schwartz - Writer: Tyler Nilson Michael Schwartz - Cast: Shia LaBeouf Zack Gottsagen Dakota Johnson John Hawkes Thomas Haden Church Bruce Dern Jon Bernthal Yelawolf Jake Roberts Mick Foley - 97’ - USA - 2020 - Distributor: Impuls Pictures

Photo and Video Source: © Impuls Pictures AG. All Rights Reserved.

Horse Girl

Horse Girl is Writer and Director Jeff Baena’s fourth feature film and launched on Netflix this Friday after premiering at the Sundance film festival in late January. This is the second collaboration between Baena and lead Alison Brie after 2017’s The Little Hours. Horse Girl tells the story of a socially awkward woman with a fondness for art and crafts, horses and supernatural crime shows who increasingly finds herself in ludic dreams that trickle into her waking life.

Alison Brie mentioned in interviews that she was inspired to write this story because of her personal family history of mental illnesses. She questioned if her relatives' conditions could suddenly spark up in her as well. Brie’s performance comes across as genuine, raw and honest. The film, however, is never able to match her performance and dedication. Most secondary characters are one dimensional and never serve a more important purpose function than illustrating Sarah’s (Alison Brie) social awkwardness and lack of self-awareness.

The movie starts off somewhat grounded and reasonable but shifts gears in the latter half towards a crash of an ending. The introduction of our protagonist Sarah, a saleswoman at a crafts store called Great Lengths also takes a great length to introduce us to her unusual quirks and daily life structure. At that point, it becomes clear that the story is relatively slow and panders in awkward social encounters for the sake of awkwardness and spends time on a love interest subplot that does not lead to a meaningful conclusion.

Throughout the film, there are a few hints of good ideas and concepts, but they either get abandoned or lose focus in the often stagnant plot progression. Horse Girl is a sad movie about loneliness and susceptibility to extremist ideas when one’s own sanity is questioned. The basis for an introspective Indie film about mental health is given. The film, however, panders in boring subplots and a confusing main plot that switches genres from a Drama to a Sci-Fi Thriller out of thin air in the third act.

Debby Ryan as Nikki, Jake Picking as her boyfriend Brian and John Reynolds as Darren were all fine but suffered from bad writing for their characters. Especially Darren was quite inconsistent and just a plot device to show Sarah’s rapidly increasing deliriousness. The rest of the cast is good as well, but no one as captivating as Alison Brie’s performance.

Should I see this film? I would not recommend this film to anyone other than fans of Alison Brie as her performance is the best part of the movie. See these movies instead as they deal with mental illness in a more interesting way: One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Shutter Island, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape or Fight Club.

Horse Girl is a sad movie about loneliness and susceptibility to extremist ideas when one’s own sanity is questioned. The basis for an introspective Indie film about mental health is given, the film, however, panders in boring subplots and concludes in a messy nonsensical open-to-interpretation finale.

★★☆☆☆

Release (Global) 07.02.2020

Film data: Director: Jeff Baena - Writer: Jeff Baena, Alison Brie - Cast Alison Brie, Debby Ryan, Stella Chestnut, John Reynolds, Molly Shannon, John Ortiz, Hazel Armenante, Jay Duplass - USA - 2020 - Netflix

Video and Picture Source: Netflix Switzerland All Right Reserved