Quick takes on Crimes of the Future and other films

Benediction is the latest from highly acclaimed director Terence Davies (I’ve only seen one other, A Quiet Passion, which I hated, but more are on my radar). This one too is based on the life of a poet, this time Siegfried Sassoon. The film begins during World War I, and Siegfried, despite being a decorated officer for bravery on the front, has just published his A Soldier’s Declaration, in which he decried war and refused to further participate in it. A move like this would normally be treasonous, but his powerful family gets him sent to a hospital instead of to jail, and there, Siegfried finds his first love. A gay man living at a time when, while not exactly having to keep his private life secret, he couldn’t live openly, the film follows his relationships, with glimpses to his later life as well, dealing with the fallout of those relationships. The film features brilliant acting with Jack Lowden principally as Siegfried, as well as Peter Capaldi as the older version, but the plot is light, and honestly grew old as it went along. I think Siegfried is supposed to be portrayed as a man unlucky in love and unable to find happiness, but he and his lovers all come off as brash, narcissistic assholes, who demean each other and themselves, and he doesn’t get any wiser with age. ★★½

Petite Maman is the newest film from Céline Sciamma, star director of international hit Portrait of a Lady on Fire a couple years ago. This is a less daring and, unfortunately, less impactful movie. The film opens on eight-year-old Nelly, who is at a home with her mother, cleaning out her grandmother’s room after her death. Nelly is upset that she didn’t give her grandmother a proper goodbye, as no one knows when your time is up. Nelly and her mother, Marion, go to grandma’s house to clear it out, joined by Marion’s husband/Nelly’s dad. Overcome with emotion after the first night sleeping there, Marion leaves suddenly the next morning, before Nelly wakes up. Nelly joins her dad and tries to help clean up, but grows bored and heads out to explore the woods behind the house. In doing so, she stumbles upon a fellow little girl, with the coincidental name of Marion. When it starts to rain, Marion leads Nelly to her house, which is surprisingly, an older version of Nelly’s grandmother’s house. As Nelly realizes that going through the woods takes her back in time to when her mom was her age, she realizes she can get to know this person, who is sometimes an absent, depressed mother to her, as well as see her grandmother again. A cute story, but it lacks the emotional punch of Portrait. ★★★

Samaritan is a standalone superhero film staring Sylvester Stallone. He plays “Joe Smith,” a man hiding from his past, but the film focuses on the 13-year-old boy living in an apartment across the plaza, named Sam. Sam has grown up on the stories of the city’s great superhero Samaritan, who died fighting his evil twin brother Nemesis 20 years old. Rumors have always circulated that Samaritan survived the fight but went into hiding, and Sam has come to suspect that Joe is him, especially when Joe easily fends off bullies attacking Sam one day. At the same time, the criminal underbelly of the city is ready to step up their game. Headed by the villainous Cyrus, who wants to take up Nemesis’s mantle again, the bad guys want to light the match that will get the city’s poor, struggling with unemployment and lack of opportunity, to revolt and tear the city apart. Joe wants to stay out of the bigger struggle, but when he can no longer hide his powers, he is forced to come out and take on Cyrus to save Sam. No one will argue that this is great cinema, and the acting is rough pretty much throughout, but it is entertaining (even during the moments where you have to roll your eyes). Unfortunately a bit too predictable, but a lot of these types of action movies are. And at a swift 90ish minutes, it is just the right length for an action flick. ★★★

The newest Pinocchio is dazzlingly beautiful, and exceedingly boring. It stars Tom Hanks as Geppetto and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth as the voice of the titular wooden boy, in the Disney’s live action remake of a cartoon classic. It’s a fairly close adaptation, with some new songs to fill it out and “update it.” Updates it didn’t need, as the original cartoon is obviously a classic that every child has seen for the last 80 years. Just because modern technology allows us to “pretty  it up” doesn’t mean that we should. The film is dull, lacking the magic that the original brought. For the film that originated the song “When You Wish Upon a Star,” the iconic tune that has become Disney’s de facto signature song, this film’s deficiencies are glaring. ★

Crimes of the Future is David Cronenberg’s newest, and it is also his fourth collaboration with Viggo Mortensen (A History of Violence was particularly good). This film hearkens back to earlier Cronenberg pictures, especially the body horror aspect, though it bears no resemblance to Cronenberg’s 1970 film of the same name. This movie takes place at some unknown point in the future, when mankind is evolving over the course of a generation or so. Humans have started living without pain or any kind of infectious disease; things like hand washing have become a thing of the past. This has led to surgeries being able to be performed without anesthesia and, in fact, body modification has become rampant, since anyone can have things done anywhere by anyone, with no fear of pain or infection. Saul Tenser (Mortensen) and his partner Caprice (Léa Seydoux) are leading figures in public performance art. Tenser has what is called “accelerated evolution syndrome), which makes his body quickly and constantly produce vestigial organs, which Caprice surgically removes in public. They are approached by a government agency, the National Organ Registry, who is seeking to document new organs cropping up in the populace, led by Wippet (Don McKellar) and Timlin (Kristen Stewart). At the same time, an underground movement is attempting to disprove the government’s stance that these organs are dormant and that humans aren’t truly evolving, by bringing forth the case of a young boy, Brecken, who was murdered by her mother after he was discovered eating (and, presumably, digesting comfortably) plastics. Lots of freakishly weird stuff in this movie, not the least of which society’s movement away from “old sex” to couples getting turned on by cutting into each other. It’s a stomach-churning film at times, but one that does morbidly fascinate. ★★★½

• TV series currently watching: Yellowstone (season 3)
• Book currently reading: Anthem by Noah Hawley