DON'T WORRY DARLING: 3 STARS
There is more to âDonât Worry Darling,â the new sci-fi mystery starring Florence Pugh and Harry Styles and now playing in theatres, than âSpitgate.â Thatâs the unfortunate viral video that made it appear that Styles dropped a loogie into co-star Chris Pineâs lap at the filmâs Venice Film Festival premiere.
Put that out of your mind, or at least donât watch it again and again on TikTok until youâve visited the filmâs setting, the suburban southern California company town of Victory. A picture- perfect place that makes Pleasantville seem edgy; itâs a manicured paradise where itâs always sunny, there is a classic car in every driveway and everyone has a pool in the backyard.
But something seems slightly off. Itâs like Rob and Laura Petrie through a looking glass.
All the men in town, like Alice Chambersâ (Pugh) husband Jack (Styles), work for the Victory Project, run by Frank (Chris Pine), a visionary in the field of the "development of progressive materials" for a chaos free world.
âFrank has built something truly special,â says Frankâs wife Shelly (Gemma Chan), âWhat heâs created out here, itâs a different way. A better way.â Heâs a mid-century modern Tony Robbins, a slick talker who says he sees greatness in all his âintrepid explorersâ -- i.e. the residents of Victory.
His âbetter wayâ is also a top-secret way. The business conducted at the Victory Project headquarters is known only to the men -- an arrangement that seems to suit most of the women just fine, but when Margaret (Kiki Layne) challenges the status quo, claiming that something sinister is happening in their town, Alice opens her eyes and has a hard look around. âI need you to listen to me,â she says. âTheyâre lying about everything.â
Are they living in Victory or the Twilight Zone?
âDonât Worry Darlingâ has style to burn, an intriguing performance from Pugh, whose malleable face reveals wide arcs of emotions with simple, subtle movements. Thereâs a completely credible turn from pop star Styles, some very cool cars and impressive world building in the first half.
Director Olivia Wilde, who also produces and has a meaty supporting role, creates an uneasy utopia, a welcoming, but too-good-to-be-true place.
Thatâs the good stuff.
When the film turns into something that feels like an overly long episode of âBlack Box,â it begins to show its wear and tear. The twist (no spoilers here) is handled clumsily. One canât wonder if Rod Serling could have handled this in a more elegant and succinct way.
Unfortunately, âDonât Worry Darlingâ will likely spur more gossip (re: âSpitgateâ et al) than conversations about its themes. It does raise interesting questions about what constitutes a perfect life and the importance of having agency over oneâs existence, but the bungled ending sucks whatever subtextual profundity may lie buried in Katie Silbermanâs script.
BLONDE: 2 STARS
Marilyn Monroe is one of the most documented movie stars of all time. Her time on Earth inspired hundreds of thousands of posthumous column inches, hundreds of books and a slew of biopics and documentaries -- the first, narrated by Rock Hudson, coming out less than a year after her 1962 death. There is a Broadway musical and even videos games bearing her likeness.
It begs the question, what is left to learn about this Hollywood icon in 2022?
If a new movie, âBlonde,â with Ana de Armas as the âSome Like It Hotâ star, and now playing in theatres before it moves to Netflix, is any indication, not much.
The film begins its 166-minute journey with Norma Jeane Mortensonâs (Lily Fisher) unstable single mother Gladys (Julianne Nicholson) gifting her child with a surprise, battered photograph of a prosperous looking man in a fedora. Thatâs your father, the little girl is told. He is a very important man.
Thus begins, according to director Andrew Dominik, a Freudian lifelong search for a father figure, that would see her cycle through famous husbands like Joe DiMaggio (Bobby Cannavale) and Arthur Miller (Adrien Brody), both of whom she calls daddy in an annoying baby doll voice.
In Hollywood, now known as Marilyn Monroe, she makes a splash working as a model before being sucked into the studio system in a flurry of casting couches, emotional auditions and the creation of her bombshell image, a look that sold movie tickets but didnât resonate with Norma Jeane. âShe is pretty I guess, but it isnât me,â she says. At one point, she yells, âMarilyn is not here,â during a contentious call with her studio boss.
As her life spirals downward, accelerated by alcohol and pills, depression caused by everyoneâs inability to look past the blonde dye job to see who she really is and career dissatisfaction, her life and career begin to fall apart. âShe is not a well girl,â her make-up artist (Toby Huss) says. âIf she could be, she would be.â
âBlondeâ is an art house biography. Fragmented and often impressionistic, it attempts to take you, not just inside Marilynâs life, but also her psyche and body. Dominikâs camera does offer never-before-seen views of Monroe, from the considerable nudity to literally travelling inside her womb.
But to what effect? The insights into Monroeâs life and career, that she was, essentially, two sides of the same coin -- Norma Jean on one, Marilyn on the other -- arenât original, even if their daring presentation is. The filmâs advertising tagline, âWatched by all, seen by none,â sums up most of the filmâs message in a much more powerful and mercifully succinct way.
Dominik does create memorable moments, a nightmarish red carpet walk at the âSome Like It Hotâ premiere, for instance, visually conjures up the horror Marilyn must have felt as a reluctant superstar constantly in demand by people who wanted to use her. Less successful is footage of a missile launch to emulate the goings-on during a sex sceneâmost definitely not a love sceneâbetween Marilyn and JFK (Caspar Phillipson).
Dominik, who adapted the script from the fictionalized and controversial Joyce Carol Oates novel âBlonde,â does craft some interesting dialogue to bring Marilynâs state-of-mind in focusâ"Marilyn doesnât have any well-being, she has a career," she saysâbut he also includes some absolute clunkers, like the unintentionally hilarious, âI like to watch myself in the mirror. I like to watch myself on the toilet,â uttered by Edward G. Robinson Jr. (Evan Williams). That is âMommy Dearestâ level writing.
As Marilyn, de Armas is fearless, and does inhabit Monroeâs vulnerability and intellect, and looks enough like her to complete the illusion. My only quibble is that sometimes de Armas sounds like Marilyn and sometimes sounds like Marilyn doing an impression of de Armas.
Iâm sure âBlondeâ wonât be the last Marilyn Monroe biopic, but it will be the last one I devote three hours to watching. Not because it is definitive, but because I think that everything that needs to be said about the later movie star has already been said.
SIDNEY: 4 STARS
Sidney Poitier, who passed away in January 2022, led a remarkable life, one vividly portrayed in the Oprah Winfrey-produced documentary âSidney,â now steaming on Apple TV+. âHe doesnât make movies, he makes milestones,â says U.S. President Barack Obama in the film. "Milestones of Americaâs progress.â
In an interview shot with Winfrey in 2012, the âTo Sir with Loveâ actor, staring directly into the camera, tells of his childhood in Nassau. A master storyteller, he recalls how he almost died as a baby, shares wonderful stories about his loving parents, recalls seeing a car for the first time, and marvels at his first glance into a mirror.
His move to the United States from a predominantly Black community in the Bahamas, is fraught with racism and threats of violence from the Ku Klux Klan, but tempered by kindness from a waiter who helps him learn to read, using the newspaper as a textbook.
Landing in Harlem, he is introduced to the world of acting, and has the good fortune to go on as an understudy in a New York City stage production on the same night a big-time Broadway producer is in the house. That leg up set on a path that would see him become the first Black man to win the Academy Award for Best Actor (for 1963âs "Lilies of the Field"), a civil right activist and diplomat.
It is a comprehensive, linear look at Poitierâs life, one that brings Winfrey to tears, and in the retelling of a pivotal scene in âIn the Heat of the Night,â where Poitier, as detective Virgil Tibbs responds to being slapped by a white redneck by slapping him back, brings a delightful response from Morgan Freeman.
Director Reginald Hudlin assembles a mix of archival footage, new interviews with Halle Berry, Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Winfrey and others, and plenty of film clips, to present a well told story of a well lived and influential life. The result is an entertaining and informative doc about an extraordinary life. âWhen I die, I will not be afraid of having lived," Poitier said.
BANDIT: 3 STARS
Based on the novel âThe Flying Banditâ by Robert Knuckle, âBanditâ is the story of a charming thief who says he robbed 50 Canadian banks because âthatâs where the money is.â
Josh Duhamel plays Gilbert Galvan Jr., a career criminal who escapes from a Michigan prison in 1985, changes his name to Robert Whiteman, and high tails it over the border to Ontario. âWhen things go south, sometimes you got to go north,â he says.
Whiteman, when he isnât romancing social worker Andrea (Elisha Cuthbert), is scoping out banks as a source of fast, ready cash. âNo one's born bad,â he says. âLike anything, it takes practice.â
Posing as a security analyst, he identifies security weaknesses at several local institutions, and concocts a wild plan. Wearing a series of outlandish disguises, he flies around Canada robbing banks, sometimes at a rate of two or three a day. âIn the states they have armed guards at every bank around the country,â he says. âBut in Canada, itâs like stealing candy with a mace.â
With the money rolling in, he looks for bigger opportunities with the help of mobster Tommy Kay (Mel Gibson as an Ottawa baddie).
Whitemanâs high-flying antics attract the attention of the media, who dub him the Flying Bandit, and hard-nosed cop Detective Snydes (Nestor Carbonell) vows to bring the travelling thief to justice.
With its light and breezy first half, âBanditâ takes a turn for the dramatic as Whiteman begins to feel the consequences of his life choices in the last half.
Like a CanCon âCatch Me If You Can,â âBanditâ is the story of a charismatic criminal whose non-violent antics are meant to entertain, not outrage. To that end, Duhamel hands in a likable, witty performance as a guy who does the wrong thing, but for the right reasons. He wants a family and a regular life, but circumstance and his predilection for breaking the law always seem to get the best of him. âItâs the only thing Iâve ever been good at,â he says of bank robbing.
Duhamelâs congeniality shaves off any rough edges the film might have developed in a more realistic portrayal of criminal life. Even Gibson, as the heavy, seems like Scorsese Lite.
Clocking in at just under two hours, âBanditâ sags in the middle. The disguises grow more and more eccentric, the robberies begin to blur into one another, but buoyed by enjoyable performances, the movie emerges as a slick, although not very deep, crime story.