Quick takes on 5 films

Booksmart is a movie that I didn’t initially care to see. I thought it was another stoner-, drunk-, orgy-kind of high school “coming of age” film that usually bores me to tears. I watched it only because there was nothing else to watch one late night on the streaming. I’m so glad I did; this film is fantastic. It is directed by Olivia Wilde (in her directorial debut) and is about two friends who spent high school playing by the rules and supremely focused on college and what comes next. On the last day of class, Molly is in the gender-neutral bathroom when she hears a couple boys and another girl talking about her. She comes out of the stall to put them in their place, telling them how she is going to Yale and they will always be losers, when her misconceptions are completely shattered. Just when you think, “yeah girl, you tell them!” they tell Molly that they too have been accepted into prestigious schools, or, in one case, has already landed a 6-figure job at Google. Molly is thunderstruck due to her low opinion of these classmates, and quips, “But you guys didn’t even care about high school.” Their reply, “No, we didn’t ONLY care about high school.” Molly and her friend Amy decide they’ve had it all wrong, that this whole time they could have had the best of both worlds, and decide to party it up on their last night of high school before they graduate the next day. It’s a coming-of-age movie for today’s kids, so the language and behavior is a lot rougher than you might expect of a John Hughes film of the 80s, but it is also just as good. Boisterous yet heartwarming, laugh-out-loud funny yet endearing, it has it all. ★★★★

Charlie Says is the story of the Charles Manson murders from the viewpoints of the three most prominent women in the “Manson family.” Two separate timelines are shown: the first starting when “Lulu” (Leslie Van Houten) joins the group, up until the murders go down; and the second showing three years later, when the women are behind bars and a psychologist is trying to help them free themselves from Manson’s influence. From the beginning, the film shows how Manson is able to lure girls to his cult, with promises of leaving harsh lives behind and finding a new existence. But as the film goes, and Manson gets crazier, we begin to wonder how these girls fail to see what he has become. I don’t know how accurate the film is, this all went down before my time and I never read up much on these events, but even if half the film is factually accurate, it’s pretty nuts. There are some good moments and good actors, lead by Hannah Murray as Lulu (Gilly from Game of Thrones), but the movie does suffer from the usual paint-by-numbers syndrome that docudramas tend to, meaning heavy on facts and light on art. The ending also felt very disjointed for me, and there’s a definite lack of cohesion to the whole film. ★★

The Last Black Man in San Francisco is a very well-done film from first-time director Joe Talbot. Jimmy is a poor, homeless black man struggling to find his place in a changing city. He lives on the floor of his friend Mont’s house and works as a caregiver at an old folks’ home, but in his free time, is obsessed with a cool old Victorian home in a well-to-do area of the city. A little old white couple live there, and haven’t maintained the house in years, and Jimmy shows up to do some minor repairs here and their, work that is not welcome by the owners. After a little while though, Jimmy finds them moving out, and discovers the house is being argued over among the family after a death. A realtor tells him that in these kinds of familial disputes, some houses can stay empty for years, so Jimmy hatches a plan with Mont to move in and squat. We finally learn that it was Jimmy’s grandfather who built this house in the 40’s, but his family lost it decades ago when Jimmy was just a kid, due to his father’s drug problem. Things get murkier when the realtor backstabs them and throws them out and lists the house for sale. All of this is against the backdrop of race relations and racial injustices in the city, including a friend of Jimmy’s and Mont’s who ends up shot to death for thugging it up to the wrong person. Front and center is the friendship of Mont and Jimmy. It’s a good movie; if I can find any flaws, I think it is that they try a little too hard sometimes to force some elements, where I think it could have played better if the director had just taken a step back and let the magic happen. While I don’t think everything works, enough does to create a powerful and resonant film. ★★★½

Brittany Runs a Marathon is a film I’ve been looking forward to awhile, and even more so lately as I thought I could relate to the main character, as a person who started walking, then jogging in the last 5-6 months to try to lose a bunch of weight. But this film is a total bore. It’s supposed to be a comedy-drama I guess? It’s about an overweight young woman, Brittany of course, who is told by her doctor that she needs to lose weight. At first she can only run to the end of the street on her block, but obviously we know she builds to a marathon. She has a skinny-bitch friend who, obvious to the viewer but not to Brittany, likes to keep her around to feel better about herself; and she was just getting into a relationship when I gave up on the film. It’s just not funny, despite Brittany trying so hard to make it so. Honestly I found her character annoying and her attempts at humor were like nails on a chalkboard for me. I’ll give a star for the premise, but that’s it. ★

The Wild Pear Tree is a Turkish film directed by Nuri Bilge Ceylan. It is about a young man, Sinan, who has recently graduated from college with a degree in teaching. He studied teaching but actually wants to be a writer, and has already written his first book and is trying to scrape together money to get it published. Sinan has returned to his family in their small, rural town, and immediately starts clashing with them. His father is a teacher as well, and while he was once respected in the community, he has gambled away the family’s money, forcing them to move into a tiny apartment. Sinan is the young, hotshot, cocky college grad, who reminds me of myself (and probably many others) at that time of our lives, when we thought we had it all figured out. He looks down on his dad and his mom (for staying with the father through all this), can’t wait to leave the small town, etc. He even belittles the one local celebrity, a writer, because he thinks his books pander to the population rather than open new ideas. Sinan comes off as a narcissist and a bit of an asshole, but he’s just as conflicted as every flawed human being. He’ll deride his father one minute, and defend him the next. After finally getting his book published and confronting his family over their issues, Sinan, who did not score high enough on his exit exams to land a good teaching job, goes away to perform his military service (which is compulsory in Turkey). He returns a couple years later, hopefully a little wiser, but you’ll just have to watch to see. It’s a beautiful film, and the story does an amazing job of blending realism with Sinan’s poetic dreams. I rarely give five stars to modern films, because I don’t know how they’ll stand the test of time, but this one deserves it. ★★★★★