Quick takes on Little Fish and other films

Cowboys is a very good film staring longtime character actor Steve Zahn as Troy. The movie opens with Troy ranging through the woods of northern Montana with his young son Joe. We quickly learn that Troy has kidnapped Joe from his estranged wife Sally (Jillian Bell). Another surprise hits when we learn that Joe is actually Josephine, a young transgender who always felt like a boy trapped in a girl’s body. Troy is a man’s man and was skeptical when Joe broke the news to him, thinking Joe was just a tomboy, but Joe was insistent. Sally never bought in, leading to a rift in the family, and thus Troy’s flight with Joe, heading for supposed freedom in Canada. To make matters worse, Troy is bipolar, and only keeps his wild mania phases under control with medicine, which he loses early in their trip. As the cops edge closer to the father and son, Sally has to come to terms with the person Joe is. Typically a movie like this as the mother be the “good guy” and the rough-and-tumble dad having to change the way he thinks, and it was interesting to see that script flipped. ★★★½

Little Fish, which started production in March 2019, ended up being a bit prescient, about a plague that hits the world. The one in the film is almost scarier than the one we got. Called NIA, it attacks your memories. All ages are affected, and there is no cure. Some lose their memories instantly in the middle of an activity, but most slowly succumb over time, in an Alzheimer’s kind of way, until the victim is left walking and talking with no memories of their friends or loved ones. In this environment, the film focuses on Jude and Emma (Jack O’Connell and Olivia Cooke) a young married couple who have already seen one of their best friends become a stranger, and now Jude is showing symptoms. At first he forgets little things, like an argument they had previously, but they both know it will get worse. Jude is an avid photographer, so the couple try taking photos and labeling them to help Jude remember, but that’s just a stopgap. It’s a terribly depressing film, and sure makes you want to hug your partner and cherish the moments you have. Fantastic acting by the entire cast, and a wonderful, heart-wrenching film. ★★★★

Regular readers of my blog will know that I’m a sucker for films from China. Better Days is my latest viewing, and it focuses on school bullying. A senior in high school, Chen Nian is next on the hit list from the mean girls, after their previous favorite target has just committed suicide. Chen Nian has a lot of cards stacked against her: her single mother is involved in illegal businesses for cash, trying to keep the family afloat so Chen Nian can get through school and into college. A bright student, Chen Nian hopes to ace the college entrance exams and get into a good school and better the family situation. The new bullying may end those hopes. Chen Nian finds an unlikely friend in Liu Beishan, a local hooligan who takes a liking to Chen Nian when she is the first person in a long time to show him kindness. When Chen Nian’s mom is forced out of the city after a bad deal, Chen Nian even starts to live with Liu Beishan in his hovel, and he starts to escort her home from school to keep the bullies away. Things go awry just weeks before the exam day though, when Liu Beishan is delayed, and Chen Nian is forced to walk home alone. The girls attack, beating her, cutting her hair, and stripping her clothes from her, all on camera. For a good portion of this film, which runs over 2 hours, I thought it was just an average tale of school bullying, but as the relationship developed between Chen Nian and Liu Beishan, that bond became the glue in the film and was riveting in the final third. It’s a raw and emotional film about the dangers of school bullying, and how modern technology has made it easier for bullies to terrorize their targets. ★★★★½

I could not get into Fire Will Come, and do not understand some of the praise heaped on this film. It’s a quiet, introspective movie about a man who is released from jail after having set a fire that did major damage to the countryside around his home in Galicia, a rural area in northern Spain. He’s guarded and keeps to himself around his aging mom and neighbors, knowing many of them resent him for the hurt he caused. That’s the whole movie in a nutshell. It features some beautiful camerawork and scenes, but to say that the film moves at a snail’s pace is an understatement. I guess it is about isolationism? I don’t know, and honestly don’t care enough to think too much on it. If it was any longer than its 80 minute runtime, I would have cut out early. ★

I saw a trailer for Coma, a sci-fi film out of Russia, before COVID, and have been wanting to see the movie ever since. My desire held even after so-so reviews starting hitting. I finally got a chance to see it, and while it isn’t great, it is a fun couple hours for sci-fi lovers. It’s about a world shared by everyone around the world when they are in a coma. The newest inhabitant, “the architect,” is there after a car accident, and he’s been hunted down by some other humans to join their group. Apparently he’s sort of a “chosen one” in a very Matrix-like way (and the film shares more than that similarity — it’s almost a straight rip-off). The bad guys in this world are called reapers, and they are former humans who are kept on life support in comas in the real world, even though the are brain dead. They are drawn to the living and want to snuff out their life. The real mastermind behind the architect’s involvement is revealed towards the end. The movie not great: it has shoddy acting by every single character, and even worse dialogue, but the visuals are truly inspiring. The coma world is made up of memories, all connected, and they blend together as memories do: a mural of a beach on a wall becomes an actual beach; half-formed buildings and animals move around because that’s all that the person remembered; and characters jump sideways to other platforms and city blocks in an Inception kind of way. The eye candy brings a 1-2 star film up to a 3 for me. ★★★

• TV series currently watching: Servant (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy