Quick takes on 5 films

Phantom Thread is the latest from director Paul Thomas Anderson, and apparently the last film of renowned actor Daniel Day-Lewis (though at only 60, he’s young enough that I doubt he stays retired). He plays Reynolds Woodcock, a popular dressmaker in Victorian England, making dresses for nobles and royalty. Reynolds has severe mother issues, his mother having died and left the dress business to him and his sister Cyril. Reynolds designs while Cyril runs the business side, and her dominating personality has filled the missing hole in Reynolds life. Reynolds meets a young Anna though, and the two fall in love, and Anna and Cyril end up battling of control of Reynolds. A very well acted period drama, but in the end, if you are hoping Reynolds can overcome his reliability on a strong woman, you may be disappointed, though maybe not in the way you might expect. It’s a fairly straight forward film without some of Anderson’s typical subplots, but a good one nonetheless.

Uncle Drew is an OK comedy centered around the game of basketball, with a cast of current and former professional players. Uncle Drew is a legend in the backyard basketball circuit, but no one has seen him in decades. When a local coach needs to field a team to earn some money in an upcoming tournament, he finds Uncle Drew, who gathers his old crew, and I do mean old. The laughs are mostly of the geriatric variety, and there are some good ones, but the whole movie feels a little paint-by-numbers. Aided by makeup, the “old” team consists of Kyrie Irving, Shaquille O’Neal, Reggie Miller, Chris Weber, and Nate Robinson, and they are pretty good for not being actors, with some jokes lobbed for off-camera laughs (the team reminding Chris Weber’s character that they are out of time-outs near the end of the game). Good for a few laughs, but like most comedies, don’t come expecting anything deep and lasting.

Woman Walks Ahead is based on the true story of a painter, Catherine Weldon, who travels to Dakota to paint a portrait of famed Native American Sitting Bull. She faces opposition from the local military branch, who still seeks a way to legally kill Sitting Bull for his role in the Battle of Little Bighorn. The movie tries to be a sweeping biopic but comes off far too ho-hum. Though the acting by the two leads, Jessica Chastain and Michael Greyeyes, is quite good, the movie feels like it is lacking something. Firstly, it seems to play loosely with the facts, which can be forgiven for a movie, but little things stick out. For a film that takes place on the great plains, there are no vast vistas to behold, and for characters that should be deep and multifaceted, they all seem very one dimensional. Unfortunately a bit of a let down.

The First Purge is a great example of a film not trying to do too much, and knowing what it is. In Woman Walks Ahead, the filmmakers wanted to make a great, deep movie, and failed. For this one, it only wants to show blood and gore with some thrilling action set in, and that it does well. This film, the fourth in the series, shows how the Purge was initiated, that one night a year when all crime, including murder, is allowed, to let people feed their violent tendencies without fear of prosecution. The plot is paper thin, and exceedingly transparent, but if you just sit back and wait for the inevitable bloodshed, it delivers what is expected of it. Not going to win any awards and not going to leave a lasting impression, but an entertaining, mindless romp.

Beast is a fantastic psychological thriller. In a small, tight-nit town in England, a mid-20 something woman named Moll still lives with her parents. Her mom is not kind to her, and Moll has some dark moment in her past that seems to keep her at arms length from the others in their community. The town is on edge because of a series of rapes and murders, with the killer unknown and at large. Moll falls in love with the town bad boy, Pascall, a relationship that is not approved of by Moll’s wealthy mother. When the cops start questioning Moll about Pascall’s whereabouts on the night of the most recent murder, she has to question her own feelings for this man whom she doesn’t really know well, but who is the only person to seem to care for her. As it goes, it seems the more we learn about Moll and Pascall, the more we don’t know who to believe. A really fun movie from first time writer/director Michael Pearce, and Jessie Buckley is eye-arresting as Moll.