Quick takes on Beau is Afraid and other films

Tori and Lokita is the latest from the Dardenne brothers, a team I very much enjoy. This film didn’t quite hit the emotional highs of some of their other pictures, but it is still a good one. Tori and Lokita are a pair of African immigrants in Belgium. Though they met during their immigration, they pretend to be siblings, so as to stay together in the system. The two do shady business for a local restaurant owner, who pays them cash for deliveries, both food from the restaurant and drugs on the side, and the occasional sexual favor from Tori. Tori, just 16 years old, is trying to scrounge up enough money to apply for for a residence permit, so that she can get a more permanent job, while also needing to send money back to her family in Cameroon as well as pay back the group that smuggled her and Lokita into Belgium. 11-year-old Lokita isn’t just along for the ride, he will do anything to protect Tori, as he proves when she is forced into watching the restaurant owner’s drug farm for a couple weeks. It’s an emotional roller coaster of a film, about a duo who will do anything for each other, but loses plausibility a couple times. That’s the only reason I’m docking it a bit from the Dardenne’s usual excellence. ★★★½

I went into Gringa because it stars Steve Zahn who, while not necessarily known for his great performances, does have a penchant for showing up in decent low budget films that I enjoy. Unfortunately this is not one of those. The film’s main character is Marge, a teenager with self esteem issues, living with her single mom. When her mom is killed in a car accident, Marge is faced with the probability of going to live with her uncaring grandparents. Instead, Marge decides to head to Mexico to find her estranged father Jackson (Zahn). A failed soccer player, he’s been an alcoholic for all these years, but has recently started coaching a youth team down there and is trying to turn things around. He is amazed to find this daughter on his doorstep, a girl he had all-but forgotten. Marge can help him beat his demons, even as he does the same for her. Nice idea, but the execution is rough. The acting is not bad, even from relatively newcomer Jess Gabor as Marge, but the dialogue is pure cheese and the plot way too predictable, even for a film like this when you can see the ending a mile away. ★½

Gotta be honest, Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret wasn’t on my list to rush out and see. Obviously I’m not the targeted demographic, as a man with one adult child (a son), I have no experience relating to the subject matter. But I’m glad I ultimately watched it. Taking place in 1970 (when the original bestselling book by Judy Blume was written), it follows Margaret Simon, newly moved from the city to the suburbs, as many families were doing at that time. Margaret is 11 years old and comes from a sheltered school, and her eyes are opened to new friends who are in a rush to grow up. They are all at that age where they can’t wait to grow up, but are scared of the changes their bodies will be going through (though they each put on a brave face in front of their friends). Margaret and three others form a club, where they talk about boys, ways to increase their bust size, and promise to tell each other when they each finally get their period. As Margaret turns 12 and all her other friends are getting theirs, she’s feeling left behind. At the same time, Margaret is facing turmoil at home. Her parents, one Jewish and one Christian, raised her to let her choose her own religion when she gets old/mature enough to do so on her own, but Margaret’s grandparents aren’t so thoughtful, and fight over getting Margaret to join their faith. Narrated throughout by a girl talking to a God she’s not even sure she believes in, it is a poignant look at the fears, hopes, and perseverance of a girl “becoming a woman,” at that time in your life when every setback is perceived as a tragedy. A little hokey at times, but really nice film. ★★★½

Beau is Afraid is the latest from young horror filmmaker Ari Aster, whose explosive Midsommar earned acclaim in 2019. I was not a fan the first time I saw it, but it has grown on me in subsequent viewings, and if nothing else, it was the breakout vehicle for Florence Pugh, IMO one of the best in the business right now. Speaking of best, does it get any better than Joaquin Phoenix? He plays Beau, a man with a book full of neuroses, mostly as a result of his overbearing mother. But that was not unraveled early in this 3 hour film; first, we are getting to know Beau. He lives in an comically bad section of the city (to the point of silly, where corpses lay in the street, naked serial killers wander out in the open, and cops ignore it all to chat with local hookers) and fears even leaving his apartment. When a sequence of events gets him out, he is locked out of the building, and a stream of strangers lets themselves in, ransacking his place overnight. After sleeping on the street, Beau returns and calls his mother to let her know he’ll be late for his visit that day. A man answers the phone, claiming to be a UPS driver who just entered this house and picked up the ringing phone, but there’s a woman there who’s just been killed by a falling chandelier. Beau now has to rush there as fast as he can, to see if it was his mom who died, but events keep coming up to delay him. And not just any “events,” we’re talking getting hit by a car, finding himself in a crazy house with a weird family, taking in a “forest theater” production, and a host of other zany adventures. For the paranoid Beau who has anxiety even when stepping out his door, it’s all too much. Along the way, we also see flashbacks to what made Beau the man he is, and learn about his mom and the “one who got away.” As always, strong acting from Phoenix, but the movie has problems, its biggest being that nothing in the entirety of the film ever resolves (even at the end of the 3 hours). For awhile, this continual punishing of Beau drags you in, but after awhile it becomes very tiresome. The ending is so weird too. I can’t tell if writer/director Aster is intentionally leaving it open for interpretation, or just spitting in the face of the viewer. I can’t recall a film I liked so much that I had such little desire to see again. ★★★★

Acidman is a two-hander starring Dianna Agron and Thomas Haden Church as an estranger daughter and father. Maggie hasn’t heard from her father Lloyd in awhile, and hunts him down, only to find that he has become obsessed with UFO’s and making contact with extraterrestrials. That’s the whole movie in a nutshell. A lot of the film explores their clumsy attempts to communicate with each other, after years of burying their feelings, but unfortunately the whole thing is a bore. Agron has done a lot of these low budget indie films lately, but often to better results. In this one, you can watch the first 20 minutes, then skip ahead to the last 20, and really not miss anything. ★

• TV series recently watched: Fleishman is in Trouble (series), Walking Dead: Dead City (series), The Lazarus Project (season 1), See (season 3), Justified (season 2)
• Book currently reading: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell