TOP PICK OF THE WEEK
Drive My Car
**** After you see Drive My Car, you will never look at snow, suspension bridges or stages the same way again. When you see the world through the searching eyes of director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi, there is no such thing as mere scenery. There is only the living fabric of the places and objects that envelop Yûsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima) and Misaki (Tôko Miura), whose compassion and complexity are a world unto themselves. Most of the film is set in Hiroshima, where Yûsuke is directing a production of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Misaki is assigned to be his driver, but their relationship transcends the divide between the front seat and the back. During drives, conversations and surreal yet strangely believable adventures, their reserve gradually erodes as they reveal their losses and their inner lives to each other, building to a cathartic climax that leaves you at once shattered and soaring. The film, based on a novella by Haruki Murakami, isn’t afraid to face the agony of grief and loneliness, but Hamaguchi’s obvious love for his characters suffuses the entire journey with life-giving warmth. A tender, hopeful coda set during the pandemic could have been cringe-worthy, but like every moment of the movie, it’s worth believing in because Hamaguchi’s sincerity is beyond question. “We must keep on living,” Yûsuke tells Misaki. With those words, he speaks not only to her but to us. NR. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Fox Tower, Hollywood Theatre.
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Dog
*** Dog follows the basic road-trip structure that audiences have known since The Odyssey, but when you like who you’re riding with, that’s irrelevant. The film stars an infectiously charming Channing Tatum as Jackson Briggs, a former Army Ranger, and a beautiful Belgian Malinois dog named Lulu (played by three different dogs) who accompanies Briggs down the Pacific coast to the funeral of a fellow soldier. Along the way, they encounter a colorful collage of characters and misadventures that strengthen their bond. In contrast to some cringeworthy scenes featuring on-the-nose political commentary, the matter-of-fact way the film handles the effects of trauma is extremely powerful—there’s no pandering as you watch both man and dog deal with their pain in the quiet way that so many are forced to. As the co-director of Dog, Tatum proves that no one knows how to use him as well as he does—and makes the film a treat for anyone who’s ever had a pet with a lot of “personality” and a fun ride for anyone else who wants to come along. PG-13. RAY GILL JR. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.
Kimi
*** The latest from director Steven Soderbergh, Hollywood’s most prolific shape-shifter, opens with a swipe at relevance. Locked in her Seattle apartment with crippling pandemic anxiety, tech worker Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) discovers a Kimi recording (think Siri or Alexa) of a possible violent crime. By reporting it, she’s thrust into a spiral of tech malfeasance: shady IPOs, hackers and surveillance. But once the movie’s thriller elements accelerate, David Koepp’s script resorts to tired tropes, borrowing shamelessly from Rear Window, Blow Out, The Firm and even Koepp’s own Panic Room screenplay. No points for originality, but Soderbergh’s eternal wit and curiosity elevate the material. She portrays Kimi (voiced by Betsy Brantley) as both latent and central—a paradoxically powerful MacGuffin—while visually and thematically capturing Angela’s domestic existence. She’s curated a stylish, spacious, gentrified apartment (complete with untouched vinyl, guitars and gathering areas), but for all her elegant taste, the animating force in her world is Kimi, a pink gadget identical to millions of others. Clear-eyed tech observations suit Soderbergh, who’s traded Ocean’s romps and Oscars for intelligent, inexpensive streaming efforts (No Sudden Move, Let Them All Talk) that drop without fanfare every eight months or so. If Kimi’s best moments keenly probe the behavior of the housebound, it’s no wonder. In 2022, that’s where Soderbergh finds us all. R. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. HBO Max.
The Batman
** “What’s black and blue and dead all over?” In The Batman, the Riddler (Paul Dano) poses that question to the Dark Knight (Robert Pattinson), but blacks and blues don’t figure into the film much—visually, morally and emotionally, it’s a gray movie. While director Matt Reeves brought a majestic mournfulness to the Planet of the Apes series, he seems utterly lost in Gotham City. His nearly three-hour film is less a narrative than a mechanistic survey of a political conspiracy that the Riddler wants to expose—the story starts after the murder of Bruce Wayne’s parents not just because we’ve seen it before, but because Reeves is more interested in plot than pathos. Even the soulful, sultry presence of Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman can’t liven up the film—she and the Batman flirt so chastely that if it weren’t for a few F-bombs and clumsily staged fight scenes, Reeves could have easily gotten away with a G rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. When Christopher Nolan was directing the Dark Knight trilogy, he tore into the Batman mythos with fervor, whereas Reeves just seems to be lackadaisically marinating in misery—especially when the film attempts an embarrassingly halfhearted critique of Bruce and the rest of Gotham’s 1 percent. What’s dead all over? The Batman. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Academy, Bagdad, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Cinemagic, City Center, Eastport, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Pioneer Place, St. Johns, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.
Cyrano
** Cyrano de Bergerac, 19th century French playwright Edmond Rostand’s soul-devouring saga of wit and beauty, is a tragedy, but not because it ends with a death. It’s about the tragedy of things unsaid, which is why it’s bizarre that playwright Erica Schmidt and members of The National reimagined it as a stage musical. A play about characters failing to express themselves hardly suits the most expressive of all genres, but that didn’t stop director Joe Wright, who has transformed Schmidt’s baffling revision into a baffling film. Peter Dinklage perfectly embodies Cyrano’s swashbuckling flair and punishing self-doubt, but he’s no match for the deadening lyrics of the songs, which feature flimsy platitudes like “I need more!” and unintentionally laughable laments like “So take this letter to my wife and tell her that I loved my life.” What little power the film possesses comes from its cast, which includes Haley Bennett as Roxanne, who Cyrano loves in silence. Almost 15 years ago, Bennett stole the spotlight from Hugh Grant and Drew Barrymore with her portrayal of an ethereal pop princess in Music and Lyrics, but her charisma harmonizes seamlessly with Dinklage’s in Cyrano. The songs may stink, but with dialogue and emotions, the actors create a duet of yearning and regret that could make Rostand’s ghost weep. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Eastport, Clackamas, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Progress Ridge, Studio One.
Death on the Nile
** Movies based on Agatha Christie’s novels always disappoint. However elegantly constructed her puzzles, the quiet pleasures of identifying the murderer from a trifling detail rarely survive cinematic adaptations for the same reason that crosswords aren’t turned into feature films. To that end, director and star Kenneth Branagh somewhat miraculously wrung global commercial success from the ponderous, antiseptic tedium of Murder on the Orient Express (2017) through little more than relentless mustache-twirling and a rogue Belgian accent so lovingly showcased that it practically deserved separate billing. He’s back in the lead role and the director’s chair with Death on the Nile, which crams an enviable, ill-used cast of suspects (Russell Brand, Gal Godot, Annette Bening, Arnie Hammer, Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders) into another archaic emblem of colonial travel. For reasons unclear, Branagh’s semi-depraved epicurean twinkle has curdled toward an oversated misanthropy—even his joy upon spotting dear chum/eventual murder suspect Bouc (Tom Bateman, also reprising his Orient Express role) seems like a practiced affect. Should he return for a third whodunit—Slaughter Aboard the Burmese Dirigible or some such—this dark new Poirot (Noirot?) ought to be interested in why. PG-13. JAY HORTON. Bagdad, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain, St. Johns, Tigard, Vancouver Plaza.
The Worst Person in the World
** In the most memorable scene in The Worst Person in the World, Julie (Renate Reinsve) farts in front of Eivind (Herbert Nordrum). It’s not an accident—the two are engaged in an erotic game fueled by embarrassment—or a mere bodily function. The scene is a cornerstone of Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s quest to create a romantic comedy that scorches the fairy-tale sheen off the genre, much as he cut against horror-movie sadism with the satisfyingly soulful Thelma (2017). The Worst Person in the World follows Julie, who works in a bookstore in Oslo, as she wavers between two suitors—Eivind, a perky barista, and Aksel (Anders Danielsen Lie), a pompous cartoonist. Like her go-nowhere career, her love life is perpetually in limbo, which is both Trier’s point and his problem. He has made a film about aimlessness that is also an aimless film, complete with an unwieldy screenplay divided into chapters—what will it take for filmmakers to abandon that cumbersome gimmick?—and a twist that suggests he secretly wants the entire film to be about Aksel, whose cringeworthy sexism is ultimately overshadowed by a tragic revelation. Trier works mightily to make us understand Aksel’s all too human contradictions, an act of empathy that allows the character to hijack the film. Neither Julie nor Aksel is the worst person in the world, but only one of them has Trier’s full attention. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Cinema 21, Clackamas, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Progress Ridge.