Highlights and (lowlights) from the end-of-year screener pile
Belated thoughts on 'Here,' 'In the Summers,' 'It Ends With Us,' and more.
This time of year, of course, we critics cram and watch all the movies we missed up until now, for awards voting and top ten list purposes.
I’m nearing the end of this process, although it really never ends, and there are always more and more movies to watch. I might think I’m done until some film I’d never heard of before gets mentioned on the top ten of a critic I respect, or gets nominated for a Golden Globe, or a previously impossible-to-find screener suddenly becomes available.
Here are a few notable films I’ve watched from the screener pile which, this year has mostly been digital and metaphorical, as opposed to an actual pile of discs.
Here
This film, which came and went quickly earlier this fall, brought back the Forrest Gump crew: Director Robert Zemeckis, stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, screenwriter Eric Roth, and even composer Alan Silvestri, providing a score that’s remarkably similar to his Gump music.
What it adds up to is a gimmicky drama — it covers about 200 years on one piece of land, most of it the house occupied by Hanks and Wright’s family, all presented as one status shot. At times, it’s hokey as can be, and very much the kind of movie in which out-of-context clips are shared and made fun of on Twitter. But when it’s on, it’s very on.
Also: While I won’t go into too much detail, this might be the first movie I’ve ever seen that was offered as a hard-to-find easter egg on the studio’s own for-your-consideration platform.
In the Summers
The directorial debut of Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio, In the Summers didn’t get much of a release, but it’s been a big word-of-mouth sensation among critics. It’s the story of an estranged father who is visited by his two daughters — one of whom later transitions to male — for four summers, in a small New Mexico town.
This is a tremendously touching film, about a flawed, alcoholic father struggling to relate to his children, and intermittently succeeding. There are fantastic performances from Sasha Calle and Lio Mehiel, as the oldest versions of the two offspring.
It Ends With Us
This movie, which hit Netflix this week, has been massively controversial for a variety of reasons, starting with reports that star/producer Blake Lively clashed on set with director/co-star Justin Baldoni.
I can’t speak to any of that, but I can say that the film is a tonal mess, mostly presented as a romantic comedy, although it’s really almost entirely about domestic violence. It doesn't help that Baldoni appears to go out of his way to photograph himself as a golden god, when he’s really the villain.
It did, however, enjoy Jenny Slate as the best-friend character, and would have preferred a whole other movie about her character.
Matt and Mara
This movie debuted at the Toronto Film Festival, and got some positive notices, and I expected I wouldn’t get a chance to see it until sometime in 2025. But then it opened at the Philadelphia Film Society the following week. I missed it then, but caught a screener later.
One of many outstanding Canadian films this year, this one, directed by Kazik Radwanski, follows Mara (Deragh Campbell), a mostly unhappily married woman who starts spending time with an old friend named Matt (Matt Johnson, from the BlackBerry movie.)
It sounds like it should be a standard love triangle plot — the plot makes it sound like something Michael Douglas might have starred in in the ‘80s — but that’s not really what this is, more something a bit more complicated. I really can’t wait to talk about this one with people.
Exhibiting Forgiveness
Written and directed by Titus Kaphar, this is a beautiful drama about a successful artist (Andre Holland) who reunites with the ex-addict father (theater actor John Earl Jelks) who he can’t quite bring himself to forgive.
A Sundance debut that didn’t get much of a release, this film accurately conveys that this type of story isn’t nearly as neat and easy as the movies usually make it look.
Christmas Eve in Millers Point
I kept thinking Tyler Thomas Taormina’s film would turn into a certain type of film — the kind where relatives get together under one roof at the holidays to yell at each other — but it never really did, to its credit. If you were expecting the episode of The Bear with Jon Bernthal throwing the fork, that’s not what this is.
Sure, a few of the subplots go nowhere, and I don’t know if I can believe Ben Shenkman is someone who celebrates Christmas. But it’s a delight, mostly about character and atmosphere rather than plot.
The great Eephus, one of my favorite movies of the year, was produced by Taormina and directed by Carson Lund; here, Lund is the cinematographer and Taormina the director.
Nutcrackers
Speaking of Christmas movies that star prominent Jews…
This is an odd project, directed by David Gordon Green – who’s done both much better and much worse — and Ben Stiller’s first starring movie project in almost a decade. It was the opening film of the Toronto Film Festival yet is being dumped on Hulu with little fanfare, a couple of weeks before Christmas.
It’s a film that feels like it’s from 1989, with Stiller playing what used to be called a “yuppie.” He’s a city slickster, estranged from his family, who goes to visit his four nephews on an Ohio farm, following the death of his sister and her husband and finds himself caring for the boys. Do you think his hostile exterior will melt away, he’ll bond with the hellions, and he’ll rediscover the meaning of family? Have you ever seen a movie before?
Not much funny happens here — scenes, where he and the kids talk about penises, seem straight from ’80s comedy — and the film doesn’t even bother putting Stiller in put-upon suitor mode, the thing he’s best at, with Linda Cardellini’s child services representative.
Poolman
This movie, Chris Pine’s directorial debut, got awful reviews when it arrived in the spring, but I found it kind of fun. It’s very much in the Long Goodbye/Big Lebowski/Inherent Vice tradition of stoned L.A. mystery-solving.
Pine also called in favors from lots of famous friends, including Danny DeVito, Annette Bening, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Ray Wise- but the highlight is Stephen Tobolowsky, as a politician who has adopted a secret drag persona in an all-male Golden Girls revue.