Sundance 2020

[Chris Knipp]

COLMAN, HOPIKINS IN THE FATHER

THE FATHER (Florian Zelle)r. This film about dementia starring Olivia Colman as daughter and Anthony Hopkins as mentally declining dad Benjamin Lee of the GUARDIAN declares the scariest picture at Sundance this year. More terrifying than the best horror movie - which would probably be AMULET, though he doesn't mention it. Lee gives THE FATHER, with its sterling cast, 4/5 stars. The film, a stage-to-film adaptation in English by French writer and playwright Zeller, puts us, the viewers, in the mind of the man who's losing his, with things losing their identity and sense, which reminds one of the French Oscar nominated animated short, MÉMORABLE. Owen Gleiberman's Variety review calls Hopkins' work here a "tour de force" and this "a brilliant, mercurial, and moving performance." Sounds like one of the year's best, potentially, one combining human relevance and stylistic innovation. And all in 97 minutes! I'm in.

BAD HAIR (Justin Simien). A comedy-horror film mixing Brian De Palma with PUTNEY SWOPE, says Eric Kohn in INDIEWIRE, by the makier of DEAR WHITE PEOPLE. A woman gets a hair weave on advice to help her in her music career: then the hair develops a mind of its own. But Kohn thinks Simeen tosses in too many genre elements and BAD HAIR (a much-used title, by the way) is a "ludicrous ’80s-spiced supernatural B-movie" that "doesn’t know when to quit, much like the demonic weave at its center." Other critics were more favorable, and the film has a 65% Metascore now.

WENDY (Benh Zeitlin) by the maker of BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, 7 1/2 years later, is a variation on "Peter Pan" that a few notable critics truly loved, including David Erlich of INDIEWIRE ("a gorgeous reinvention") and Todd McCarthy of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER (Every frame of the film is excitingly alive and freshly conceived") - but others thought just a replay of the director's debut, whose look and style isn't surprising anymore (Metascore so far a pretty dismal 59%). Jordan Hoffman (GUARDIAN) says this is a Peter Pan fantasy "that never grows up into an interesting film." We'll have to see for ourselves. I had somewhat mixed feelings about BEASTS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD, but who could not be taken by its lush handmade originality?

PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN (Emerald Fennell): Carie Mulligan headlines in this ambitious debut about revenge. The film goes into rich, shocking detail about the sexual abuse and repression that led the protagonist to drop out of medical school. She begins as a drunk, but ends as an avenger. HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S Todd McCarthy explains. He calls this "a gutsy and pertinent debut." Brian Tallarico of ROGER EBERT.COM, who tells a bit too much if you haen't seen the movie yeet, says this is "as confident as its protagonist." This has been much reviewed (Metascore 74%) and is coming out April 17. Trailers are in theaters now.

[Chris Knipp]

Sundance documentaries.


DREW DIXON IN ON THE RECORD

THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS (Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw)). Is about truffle hunting dogs and the old northern Italian men who hunt white truffles with them. It's an obscure topic, but a very delicious one. Executive produced by Luca Guadagnino. Tomris Lafry in VARIETY says this "oozes a cinematic perfume both delightful and distinctive" and calls it "this year's HONEYLAND." That would make it one of the top docs of the year.

ON THE RECORD (Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering). details accusations of sexual misconduct and assault by THE music mogul Russell Simmons, primarily from the point of view of the former music executive Drew Dixon, who was driven out of the industry by harassment. Oprah Winfrey, who produced and arranged a distribution by Apple, suddenly withdrew it all, leaving the filmmakers to seek a distributor at Sundance. She admits Simmons pressured her to withdraw her4 support, yet claims that was not the reason she did so. According Jake Cole of the Toronto GLOBE AND MAIL the film received "a huge ovation" when shown two days ago. Simmons vehemently denies all allegations from more than a dozen women. Owen Gleiberman in his VARIETY review calls this film "powerful, traumatic, and convincing." No wonder Oprah abandoned it.

HILARY (Nanette Burstein). VARIETY'S Caroline Franke says "The Hulu docuseries on Hillary Clinton and the 2016 election, which premiered at Sundance, is more ambitious than it is revealing."

TAYLOR SWIFT: MISS AMERICANA ( Lana Wilson) is the other big personality explored in a Sundance doc premiere, about the outspoken singer songwriter - an activist on women's rights and female empowerment - though the buzz may be that it's a letdown, or just like Taylor Swift is always playing herself, even offstage, so the film never gets behind the managed image. So says Leslie Felperin of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER. So this one is more ambitious than revealing too.

REBUILDING PARADISE (Ron Howard) The Sundance blurb: "On November 8, 2018, a spark flew in the Sierra Nevada foothills, igniting the most destructive wildfire in California history and decimating the town of Paradise. Unfolding during the year after the fire, this is the story of the Paradise community as they begin to rebuild their lives." Leslie Felperin's HOLLYWOOD REPORTER review calls this "A sincere and skillfully assembled tribute to a community's fortitude."

THE DISSIDENT. ( Bryan Fogel) Explores the gruesome disappearance of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal l Khashoggi. Fogel won an Oscar for ICARUS. In VARIETY Todd McCarthy says this one is "a first-rate documentary about a scandalous political tragedy."

[Chris Knipp]

Swoony nostalgia.


TESSA THOMPSON, NNAMDI ASOMUGHA IN SYLVIE'S LOVE

SYLVIE'S LOVE (Eugene Ashe) is another rave (four stars) from GUARDIAN'S Benjamin Lee, which he calls a "heartfelt period romance" that's 'a thrilling throwback." Set in New York in the summer of 1957, it's about the romance of a woman working in her father's record store with a saxophone player who wanders in looking for a Thelonius Monk record and winds up working there too. This is a "tribute to the glossy studio romances of the 50s and 60s" with black lead characters - and from former musician Ashe, a lot of smart period music, chiefly jazz. Leslie Felperin in HOLLYWOOD REPORTER says this "will send grandparents and fans of Golden Age cinema swooning with nostalgia." Fifties production values are scrupulously recaptured. The story background is softened and made "anodyne," she says, but if you put that aside, you're "in for a treat."

[Chris Knipp]

Three strange ones.


ETHAN HAWKE IN TESLA

TESLA (Michael Almereyda) is a biopic starring Ethan Hawke whom Almereyda worked with in 2000 in his radical re-imagining of 'Hamlet', as the inventor Nikola Tesla, still a subject of much interest today, who died penniless in a hotel in 1943. Amy NIcholson reviews it in VARIETY. David Finch muse Kyle MacLachlan plays Tesla's rival Thomas Edison. David Erlich in INDIEWIRE finds this filmn "equally inspired by "Derek Jarman, Henry James, and certain episodes of 'Drunk History.'" He says it's more a musing on the life than biopic.

NINE DAYS (Edson Oda). Peter Debruge of VARIETY says this Brazilian first film is unique, dealing with character itself rather than individual characters, is a film of "dizzying conceptual ambition." It appears to focus on a kind of purgatory where people are judged. Eric Kohn of INDIEWIRE thinks this a "dreary slog" that "never quite realizes its potential." Anthony Kaufman of SCREEN DAILY thinks it a "standout debut." Here's an interview where he talks about creating the screenplay: CLICK. Mike D'Angelo in a review for subscribers did not buy into it, found inconsistencies, felt it rips off Koreeda's AFTER LIFE, didn't share the audience enthusiasm at all, and gave it a 41 rating.

SURGE (Aneil Karia) has an airport worker on the heading into a "full-fledged psychotic breakdown" played by Ben Whishaw. This expands on the 2013 short film BEAT by young Brit filmmaker Karia, which also featured Whishaw. LIttle more than unrestrained rifs by Whishaw and lengthy tracking shots, says Fionualla Halligan of [ISCREEN DAILY[/I], though Karia is clearly talented, "a touch of the jangling nerviness that the Safdie brothers." Peter Bradshaw of GUARDIAN found it an "intriguing essay in mood," but felt the feature length for the film "tests the material."

[Chris Knipp]

Misfires.


ANNE HATHAWAY IN THE LAST THING HE WANTED

FOUR GOOD DAYS (Rodrigo Garcia) is a drama starring Glenn Close as the mother of a 31-year-old heroin addict played (and made up to look a total wreck) Mila Kunis, who is given a precious chance to beat her addiction with a special medication. Both Owen Gleiberman of VARIETY and David Rooney of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, not to mention an even more blunt writer for the NEW YORK POST, conclude as Rooney says, that this "never quite gets beyond its inspired-by-a-true-story, issue-driven TV movie-of-the-week template."

THE LAST THING HE WANTED (Dee Rees) is a disastrous adaptation of the Joan Didion novel about a conflicted journalist of the Eighties, which must have seemed a great idea, with its literary source and "a stacked cast of Oscar winners and nominee" led by Anne Hathaway, but it turns out to be not a "charmless catastrophe" as some are claiming, but it's "strangely incomplete," due to material that doesn't adapt. So says Benjamin lee in his GUARDIAN review. A Netflix production that might have done better as a miniseries. Mike D'Angelo in another of his subscribers' reviews found this "a truly epic failure" and rated it a horrible 22."Not the kind of bad movie that's guilty fun to watch, but the maddening kind that just makes you say 'Huh? Whaa?' over and over again." "A misfire," "a complete letdown" and otherwise a failure, say all the critics.

DOWNHILL (Nat Faxon, Jim Rash) is an unnecessary remake of the 2014 Swedish film by Ruben Östlund FORCE MAJEURE about the man who fails his family at a moment of truth, then dodges the issue. The American version stars Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Owen Gleiberman of Variety says it "stays true (enough) to the original" but. . . I am, personally, very leery of remakes unless, of course they are creative ones like Jacques Audiard's brilliant creative remake of James Toback's FINGERS, THE BEAT MY HEART SKIPPED. True "enough" doesn't do it. The GUARDIAN'S Benjamin Lee calls this "redundant" and gives it a paltry two stars. It's a widespread view that this remake doesn't justify itself.

[Chris Knipp]

Winning comedy and a surreal anthology of shorts.



SAVE YOURSELVES! (Alex Huston Fischer and Eleanor Wilson) is a survivalist rom-com about a goofy Brooklyn couple who go north to escape their internet addiction and miss the beginnings of an alien invasion. It's a comedy that's "hilarious from start to apocalypse" according to VARIETY'S Amy Nicholson. Mike D'Angelo in a supbsribers-only review singles it out for a 64 rating (high for him) and compares it to his favorite part of SHAUN OF THE DEAD. The low-fi aliens are praised by both writers. D'Angelo dscribes them as "a uniquely memorable, often hilarious threat," due to their "innocuously floofy body and deadly frog-like tongue (or proboscis?)," which can penetrate cars, or walls and kill with one stroke.

OMNIBOAT: A FAST BOAT FANTASIA (various) a collection of short films with a nautical focus, is praised by D'Angelo, who gives is a 54, and repoorts this anthology comedy on themes revolving around a boat by multiple hands, including Terrence Nance of AN OVERSIMPLIFICATION OF HER BEAUTY and RANDOM ACTS OF FLYNESS, a collection that he says is wildly uneven but when it's working achieves "sublime absurdity." Anthony Kaufman of SCREEN DAILY says this experimental short film series "repeatedly drifts off course," but several of the pieces "have some good laughs" or "inspired trips of surrealism."

[Chris Knipp]

An appealing Asian American story, a horror film, and a comedy.



MINARI (Lee Isaac Chung) is the "most loved" film of Sundance, says Benjamin Lee of GUARDIAN (not 5 stars but 4/5). It quietly tells director Chung's semi-autobiographical story of Korean-born parents and American-born children making a go of a farm in 1980's rural Arkansas. It comes with great credential - including Brad Pitt's production company Plan B and A24's canny distribution choice. And says Lee, it's "built up considerable steam," and now "been unofficially – and deservedly" dubbed the year's "first truly great movie" and one "we'll be talking about for quite some time." As the film begins the couple leaves California and acquires a large chunk of isolated land in the midwest to cultivate native Korean plants to sell to fellow immigrants. The trajectory is low-keyed, a matter of minutiae, details like the young kids flying paper airplanes saying "Don't fight" when their parents are arguing. This is Chung's fifth film, but it's been a rocky 13-year road to this success VARIETY'S Peter Debruge notes the movie's "deeply personal and lovingly poetic rendering" and the more important because Asian American experience is "vastly underrepresented in Hollywood." The film features BURNING star Steven Yuen, previously known from multiple TV series but also in OKJA and SORRY TO BOTHER YOU among other features. Todd McCarthy of HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, who outlines the plot dynamics, says this is a "modest pic but very human and accessible."

RELIC (Natalie Erika James) is an "unsettling debut" by a Japanese Austrialian fllmmaker, a "slow-burn haunted house movie" tht turns into a "disturbingly effective allegory for the ravages of dementia" -a disease that this time spreads through the entire family. The "compelling performances" headline Emily Mortimer and Bella Heathcote, recounts HOLLYWOOD REPORTER'S David Rooney.

PALM SPRINGS (Max Barbakow) is the comedy that won this year's dubious big bid war, with $17.5 million and 69 cents paid for the vehicle for SNL alum Andy Samberg that AV CLUB's A.A.Dowd thinks this actually may be a winner this time, unlike other previous Sundance bid war winners, because it's really enjoyable and funny. In this story Samberg is trapped along with a woman (and J.K. Simmons) in a GROUNDHOG DAY-style (but more ironic and self conscious) time warp at a Palm Springs California wedding. Dowd says this is a "sweet, madly inventive, totally mainstream romantic comedy, buoyed by inspired jolts of comic violence." But he gives it only a B+, not an A-. Peter Debruge in VARIETY sums up the movie as an "ironic, irreverent and at times insane rom-com" from the "Lonely Island gang" that "does something new with a genre audiences have experienced a million times before."