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Movie Review ~ Red, White & Royal Blue

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When the son of the American President and Britain’s prince public feud threatens to drive a wedge in U.S./British relations, the two are forced into a staged truce that sparks something deeper.
Stars: Taylor Zakhar Perez, Nicholas Galitzine, Uma Thurman, Stephen Fry, Sarah Shahi, Rachel Hilson, Ellie Bamber
Director: Matthew López
Rated: R
Running Length: 118 minutes
TMMM Score: (4/10)
Review: While I never got around to reading it, I do not doubt that Casey McQuiston’s gay romance Red, White & Royal Blue was a rollicking blast to devour when it was released in the early summer of 2019. The kind of book you’d want to keep flipping the pages of deep into the night…but not too far, lest you finish it and break its magic gauzy spell. Before it was even published, Amazon Studios had purchased the rights for the film adaptation, and with the novel continuing to be a strong seller, the inevitable movie went into production two years later.   

Produced by Greg Berlanti, the same man that had directed the sensitive 2018 LGBT modest hit Love, Simon, and directed by playwright Matthew López who recently won multiple accolades for his lauded work The Inheritance, chronicling the lives of modern gay men in a loose adaptation of Howards End, it seemed like a thoughtfully made match behind the camera. While gay romances have been on the rise, they are few and far between, and as last fall’s heavily hyped but big-time-belly flop Bros proved, even with the best intentions and a predominantly queer crew, it doesn’t spell success.

An international incident occurs at the Price of England’s wedding, instigated by the Prince’s younger brother, Henry (Nicholas Galitzine, Cinderella), and Alex (Taylor Zakhar Perez), the visiting son of the U.S. President. Silent rivals for years stemming from a silly miscommunication, the hubbub that occurs forces Alex’s mother, President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman, Final Analysis, sporting a Texan accent that evens out as the movie progresses), to demand her son hop back over the pond and go on an apology tour with the equally chastised Prince. Passive aggressive lobs between the young men become friendly banter, and a long-distance friendship develops.

While only one of them dares to act on it first, before either of them knows it, they have fallen in love. Of course, to go public with their romance would ruin not just their lives but the reputations of their very different families. Henry’s royal duties demand that he stays above the gossip and proceed with the life planned for him. With his mother’s reelection campaign in full swing, Alex is committed to helping her win a second term and wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her position in critical red states that might not vote for a candidate with a son so publicly out of the closet. The closer they get, the further a future together seems to be. Can love conquer politics and royal decrees?

I would have loved to write that Red, White & Royal Blue hasn’t suffered the same fate as Bros and isn’t as treacly twee as the Hallmark movies it has borrowed most of its sets from (a 57 million budget doesn’t go far) but it sadly has. It’s not even about the cheap look or that first-time director López injects zero style into the filmmaking, robbing the tone of anything resembling creative energy. Like Bros, Red, White & Royal Blue is a movie that wants to be so “with” it that it can’t see how much it’s functioning without. It’s without two leads with convincing chemistry as anything other than friends. Both are, evidently, straight-presenting, and it shows. The friendship between the characters is ultra-bro-ish until the script dictates that it not be, and even then, it’s not like a rom-com where either of the leads has this lightening moment realization that yes, they have actually been head over heels for the other the entire time. If ever there was supporting evidence for gay men playing gay characters, look no further than the two leads of Red, White & Royal Blue. 

While Galitzine excels in the dramatic arc his character is given (too late in the film), Perez is miscast from the word go. I’ll give you that they look cute as a button on the poster, but a photograph doesn’t sustain a movie. It’s unfortunate that Perez is in considerably more of the movie, even scenes shared with supporting cast members are awkward and feel like attempts by more experienced actors to shake something loose in Perez that isn’t budging. Taken as fantasy, I guess it would explain the lack of paparazzi throughout the film. However, I wouldn’t know in what modern world two handsome young celebrity bachelors have ever been left alone by hungry photographers, never mind when they are frequently holed up together or out on the town. 

Even though it’s rated R, Red, White & Royal Blue is incredibly tame, and from what I gather, only received the restrictive rating for a lovemaking scene that shows no nudity and is mostly about hands with spindly fingers clasping and unclasping. You can draw your own conclusions about why the MPAA saw fit to give a gay romance with no vulgar language, blood, or violence a more severe rating than other films with buckets of gore, sex, and blue language. At nearly two hours, López and his co-adapter Ted Malawer can’t find the proper ending, making us sit through a handful of false climaxes. I’ll go out on a limb and say there will be many people endeared to these characters by the end and won’t mind spending these extra moments, but I was already Over It, Tired, and Royally Disappointed.

Movie Review ~ Judy Blume Forever

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Judy Blume and the generations of readers who have sparked to her work. It will examine her impact on pop culture and the occasional controversies over her frankness about puberty and sex.
Stars: Judy Blume, Lena Dunham, Molly Ringwald, Anna Konkle, Samantha Bee, Mary H.K. Choi, Jacqueline Woodson
Directors: Davina Pardo & Leah Wolchok
Rated: NR
Running Length: 97 minutes
TMMM Score: (7.5/10)
Review: God bless Judy Blume. Seriously.  Where would many of us be without her books to help us through one of the many unknown, awkward, and traumatic events we experienced growing up? Through her fiction, we could make sense of our reality, even if we didn’t match up with the characters in her book completely. Slivers of everyone could be found in the worlds she created; if it wasn’t us we saw, it was our family or friends. The eyes and hearts she opened expanded minds and introduced millions of children and young adults to reading, exploring, questioning, and finding their autonomy over the years. What a gift.

The new documentary Judy Blume Forever, debuting on Prime Video on April 21, covers the career of Blume from her beginning as a housewife and mother, drafting picture books and short novels from an outside perspective. Told she could pursue this career as long as it didn’t interfere with her responsibilities in the home, Blume realized her strongest writing was when she was taking a point of view from a younger character and not looking inward. By telling the story from the inside out, she was able to get at the emotional core of her characters as few niche authors could, and her books became hot commodities for kids and hot topics for parents and the media looking for easy targets.

Tackling subjects once thought to be too mature for teens (menstruation, masturbation, sex, bullying, disabilities, etc.), Blume could speak without sugar-coating but still make it easy to access emotionally. Directors Davina Pardo & Leah Wolchok use historic interviews with Blume and new discussions with the author today to get to the heart of her approach and how her early childhood influenced the sensitive writer she became. Losing her devoted father early and being raised by a mother who doled out her sentiments sparingly, Blume grew up learning key details about her body and the world outside of her home. Blume’s recollections of these events are (like her entire interview) relayed with remarkable candor, her eyes sparkling, sometimes misty.

When the time came to write books like ‘Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret’, ‘Deenie’, ‘Blubber’, ‘Forever’, and ‘Tiger Eyes’, she drew not just on the gaps she experienced as a teen but through the issues she was learning about from her growing children. Now, teens could find relatable characters sharing the same concerns on the shelf of their local (or school) libraries. That is, if the protests from parents and personnel that didn’t understand how helpful the novels were didn’t get them banned first. I was always shocked that no one had the tiniest bit of trouble when the infamous toddler Fudge swallowed a turtle in the 1972 classic ‘Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing’. (Anyone else think they were the Fudge in their family? As an only child, I was him by default.)

Interviewing dozens of celebrities, authors, grown adults who wrote to Blume as children, and other figures involved in publishing novels for teens, Pardo and Wolchok sketch out the authority Blume became in their adolescence and the literary world. I’ve seen enough celebrity talking head docs already that those didn’t move me as much as meeting the individuals that have corresponded to Blume for decades. Hearing them read their letters out loud (and seeing Blume read the originals from the archives she donated to Yale University) is the film’s highlight. Well, that and seeing Blume in full bloom biking around her current home city of Key West and tending to her bookstore. It’s enough to make you want to plan a visit and, as we witnessed with other fans many times during Judy Blume Forever, see her in person and thank her for all she’s done to help us like ourselves more.

Movie Review ~ Shotgun Wedding

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A couple’s extravagant destination wedding is hijacked by criminals. In saving their families, they rediscover why they fell in love in the first place.
Stars: Jennifer Lopez, Josh Duhamel, Sônia Braga, Jennifer Coolidge, Lenny Kravitz, Cheech Marin, Callie Hernandez
Director:  Jason Moore
Rated: R
Running Length: 100 minutes
TMMM Score: (5/10)
Review: I can safely say that my days as a +1-wedding guest are over. Most of our friends are either married or “set in their ways,” so my anxiety about meeting an entirely new wedding party and making small talk is, thankfully, over. (If you’re reading this and I came to your wedding: I loved it, I had a great time, and the main course was delicious.)  You all know what I’m talking about, though, right? It’s awkward to dive into a situation where you have limited time to get up to speed with your surroundings and might be joining intense (or tense) drama already in motion.

Perhaps that’s why the opening of Shotgun Wedding was such a struggle for me. This new film starring Jennifer Lopez (Marry Me) and Josh Duhamel (Love, Simon) is advertised as an action rom-com set in the paradise of the Dominican Republic, but you wouldn’t know it based on the first twenty minutes. Here, writer Mark Hammer and director Jason Moore (Pitch Perfect) ask the viewer to hit the ground running while looking backward for clues about where we came from. 

The night before their wedding, bride Darcy (Lopez) is hoping that her “groomzilla” Tom (Duhamel) will stop obsessing over the nitpicky details of their nuptials and relax. At least he can help ease her stress dealing with her divorced parents (Cheech Marin and Sônia Braga), who continue to trade barbs or run interference with his overly bubbly mother (Jennifer Coolidge, Single All the Way). Her sister (Callie Hernandez, Jethica) is no help because she’s looking for a one-night stand, failing to remember she’s on a private island populated with men she’ll have to face the rest of the weekend. It gets really awkward when Darcy’s ex (Lenny Kravitz, The Hunger Games) makes a grand entrance via helicopter, spiking Tom’s alpha male jealousy.

Family drama is the least of their worries the following day when a band of pirates overtakes the luxury resort where the wedding ceremony is held, demanding Darcy’s father transfer millions of dollars for her safe return. However, the guests don’t know the pirates have failed to secure the bridal couple, leaving the bickering pair to make their way around the island, often clumsily evading capture. Dodging bullets and being stuck with a live grenade or two, they’ll need to warm up their cold feet and iron out any differences if they hope to save their wedding, their guests, and their lives.

Sitting through the film’s opening stretch is a bit of a head-scratcher, mainly because you wonder if you’ve accidentally sat on your remote and fast-forwarded through a pivotal introduction. Much of Hammer’s dialogue has characters carrying on conversations they’ve already begun or picking up where they left off as if we’ve already been privy to these discussions. Tom has supposedly been a dreadful “groomzilla,”…and we know this because? He’s seen at the beginning decorating the honeymoon getaway boat. What a nightmare! Darcy and Tom have a misalignment of understanding of the roles in their relationship, and it’s gotten so bad that when Darcy brings a small point up, it creates the type of havoc usually reserved for the final twenty minutes of a bedroom farce. Basically, the film opens in Act 2 of a three-act play.

Admittedly, Shotgun Wedding finds its groove on the wedding day and becomes a fair bit of fun. While it teeters on the side of too gruesome if you consider the violence (stabbings, burnings, shootings, etc.), it thankfully doesn’t play its macabre hand for goofy laughs either. Lopez is the most committed person on screen (as usual), throwing herself handily into the role with the movie star charm she’s perfected. If Duhamel can’t quite match her, perhaps it’s because he was a last-minute replacement for Armie Hammer, who dropped out for obvious reasons. (That also explains away why Coolidge is playing Duhamel’s mother, though they were born 11 years apart.)  I have to say that I got a big kick out of Braga (Kiss of the Spider Woman), who takes the typically thinly written spurned-wife role and manages to make a complete meal out of it.

For fans of the stars (and of the ever-popular Coolidge, who gets a few good zingers), Shotgun Wedding should be a moderately filling slice of cake. It won’t leave you with much of a hangover…or the desire to revisit it later. That’s going to be troublesome to its studio hoping to gain traction with fans of its mega-watt superstar lead because that re-watch factor has made the previous films Lopez has scored with such gigantic hits. 

Watch Shotgun Wedding on Amazon Prime today!
Watch Shotgun Wedding | Prime Video (amazon.com)

Movie Review ~ Master

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Two African American women begin to share disturbing experiences at a predominantly white college in New England.
Stars: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, Talia Ryder, Talia Balsam, Amber Gray
Director: Mariama Diallo
Rated: NR
Running Length: 91 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review:  Working in the business for the last twenty-two years, I’d say it’s high time that a star like Regina Hall began to get her due. With a little over a week to go before she joins Amy Schumer and Wanda Sykes as the host of the 94th Academy Awards, Hall is staying busy with the release of her new movie for Amazon Studios on Prime Video, Master. It’s the kind of role that several actresses could have played and done quite well with, but there’s something about how Hall approaches the character that helps her stand out from the crowd. It helps the movie too.

Full disclosure time. I had heard about Master after it premiered at Sundance to some enthusiasm and from naysayers that found problems with writer/director Mariama Diallo’s resolution to an otherwise entertaining blend of real-life horror based on the currently charged racial climate and standard genre tropes. I shrug off these festival notices as foul-moods from the un-showered and those waiting in endless lines only to watch one movie and then race to another. I watched Master at home and, without any pressure, absorbed the film, its timely observances on culture, privilege, and the way we masquerade our societal prejudice.

Hall plays Gail Bishop, recently promoted to new housemaster at the upstate NYC college where she teaches. With its primarily white student population, the college is attempting to be progressive but hides a dark past of systemic racism that’s never been appropriately dealt with. As Gail dives into her new role and feels its limitations, Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee) begins her first year alongside a white roommate (Talia Ryder, West Side Story) and peer group. Informed on the first day she’s staying in the same room that one of the college’s first black students hung herself in years earlier, it isn’t long before Jasmine is having visions of something coming for her. First when she sleeps, then when she begins an old habit of sleepwalking, then while she’s awake.

As if dealing with ghostly business isn’t enough, Jasmine crosses paths with Gail when she files a complaint against a black teacher (Broadway star Amber Gray) she feels has graded her unfairly. This complaint coincides with the teacher’s evaluation for tenure, putting Gail in a difficult position having to choose between securing her friend’s future or siding with her colleagues who feel she’s not qualified. The college and its hallowed halls are full of many secrets, though. Eventually, Jasmine’s investigation into her nightmarish visitor and Gail’s escalating oddities around her own house will intensify into a series of reveals that will open their eyes to a more insidious evil they hadn’t prepared for.

I recently watched one of Diallo’s short films and can already tell she’s a director with a voice we will be hearing from for a long time. She possesses a way not only with composing beautifully shot scenes but in capturing a more profound emotion out of her actors. Hall, Renee, and Gray have such razor-sharp snap to their scenes, and while some can be attributed to the talent all three possess, much of that credit has to go to Diallo’s observant script. Any supernatural element introduced is accounted for somehow, driving home the message that sometimes the fear we manifest and spread is often very much of our creation.

A lot is going on in Master, and you almost wish the old days of AOL chat rooms were available or the Twitter feeds weren’t such a cesspool of dreck. Otherwise, you could get on these resources and engage with others who have a similar experience with the movie and have trouble articulating it to those who haven’t seen it. Yes, the ending might be too on the nose for some and could bite off more than its prepared to swallow. I found that it ended right about when it needed to, answering the right questions and asking even better ones.

31 Days to Scare ~ Welcome to the Blumhouse – Madres & The Manor

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We’ve come to the end of another year of Welcome to the Blumhouse and I’m a little sad it’s already done. I feel like we just got started! With five Fridays in October leading up to Halloween, I wish they had staggered the release of these four movies and not clumped them together…it would only spread the wealth in what turned out to be a much stronger year than 2020. (Click the title for reviews of Black Box, Nocturne, The Lie, and Evil Eye) I sort of understand why Blumhouse would want to keep Friday, October 15th clear…it’s when their sequel to the 2018 Halloween arrives but why not just skip that week? In any event, this final push has the two best releases and while I felt overall the four films were stronger than last year, the two below are the ones you should consider first with the slight edge going to The Manor for getting the job done.

The Facts:

Synopsis: Expecting their first child, a Mexican-American couple move to a migrant farming community in 1970’s California where strange symptoms and terrifying visions threaten their new family.

Stars: Ariana Guerra, Tenoch Huerta, Elpidia Carrillo, Kerry Cahill, Jennifer Patino, Rachel Whitman Groves, Ashleigh Lewis

Director: Ryan Zaragoza

Rated: NR

Running Length: 84 minutes

TMMM Score: (7.5/10)

Review: If the third time is truly the charm, then Madres should be the star attraction in this cycle of Welcome to the Blumhouse.  And y’know what?  From the looks of it so far (at the time of this writing, I hadn’t yet seen the fourth entry, The Manor) it most definitely is.  While last week held the elders with an attitude fighting against a demon battling them through gameplay in Bingo Hell and a New Orleans teen staking vampires in her recovering community in Black as Night, I had a feeling this second and final week would hold the more prestigious edge just by the look of the marketing materials.  Continuing to raise the bar like its previous week predecessors, Madres embraces the mission to highlight underrepresented voices in minority communities and crafts a throwback bit of paranoid domestic horror which aims more for the heart and head than just the gut.

Set in 1977, Mario Miscione and Marcella Ochoa’s screenplay is low-key and takes its time to slowly introduce both the characters and the creeping menace into their lives as a young couple moves from the big city to a small farming community in California.  In the city, their lives were cramped and futures not totally clear but with the move there is a chance to own a larger home to start a family and truly build a life, embracing what was then celebrated as the American Dream.  Diana (Ariana Guerra) and Beto (Tenoch Huerta, The Forever Purge) are already ahead of the game in the family department, with Diana far along in her pregnancy and looking forward to giving birth within the next few months.

Not long after they arrive, the warning signs start to pop up that they’re living in a house with secrets and the history of the previous tenant isn’t something the townspeople are eager to discuss.  They have their own problems anyway, with several illnesses being reported supposedly linked to a curse that has haunted the area from a woman with a soul that is not at rest.  Of course, it’s the same woman that wants to reach out to Diana but…why?  That’s the mystery Diana must solve, all while trying to bridge the gap between her culture and learning her husband’s.  While he has immigrated directly from Mexico and speaks the language, she grew up in a family that believed in assimilating as a way of protection.

Miscione and Ochoa work with director Ryan Zaragoza to give the film a distinct period setting, and Zaragoza taps the production side to keep everything appropriate for that era but also timeless as well.  The strange things that happen (this was inspired by true events) could still happen now and while there are ghostly goings on that tingle your spine, Zaragoza seems interested in making your moral conscience itch more than sending a shiver through your bones.  That can often be scary in and of itself, even during the later moments when Madres gives way to more conventional plot mechanics.  Up until then, though, there’s a ship-shape film going on with taut storytelling and performances that are far better than we’ve been accustomed to in what could be considered a B-Movie.  Guerra is the standout star and for good reason.  With charisma and chemistry with the equally charming Huerta, they make a dynamic duo, bonding together as a team to figure out what’s going on around them.  No Rosemary’s Baby like double crosses going on here…though there is plenty gaslighting going on, I’m just not saying who’s zoomin’ whom.

While watching these movies I also can’t help but wonder if Blumhouse is auditioning directors for bigger projects and Zaragoza is far and away the strongest candidate so far to be given a larger budget and production to work on.  On paper, Madres might not have had quite the impact it has when you see it up on its feet and it’s a tribute to Zaragoza assembling the right team in front of and behind the camera that it delivers the goods and then some. Carrying the horror of the film even further, the dark coda brings reality in, leaving you with a takeaway meant to gnaw at your nerves more than anything you’ve seen so far.

The Facts:

Synopsis: After suffering a stroke, Judith moves into a historic nursing home, where she begins to suspect something supernatural is preying on the residents.

Stars: Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison, Nicholas Alexander, Stacey Travis, Fran Bennett, Katie A. Keane,  Jill Larson

Director: Axelle Carolyn

Rated: NR

Running Length: 81 minutes

TMMM Score: (8/10)

Review: Whelp, I guess I’m all about the oft-used phrases today because Welcome to the Blumhouse saved the best for last, at least in the order that I was given to watch them.  The Manor is the fourth and final entry of the 2021 titles and not only is it the one that has the most polish (in a far above average crop to begin with) but the acting is top-notch with plot and pacing also working well in its favor.  Like the rest of the movies released under the banner up until now, it’s just under the mark of what would be considered something that would be released theatrically but is perfect for a direct to streaming event of this nature.  While it doesn’t confront its underlying topics (ageism, families abandoning their loved ones into the care of others) as fervently as the others, it aims for more of an entertaining balance of real-life horror with the things that go bump in the night.

Recently celebrating her 70th birthday, former dancer and widow Judith (Oscar-nominee Barbara Hershey, Insidious) suffers a stroke and, not wanting to burden her own widowed daughter and teenage grandson who she lives with, makes the decision to enter a nursing home.  Some viewer adjustment is required at the outset to conceptualize how a then-nearly 70-year-old can drop everything in her life to care for her daughter but when the roles are reversed the child (Katie A. Keane) doesn’t seem equipped to help in the same way.  However, it is what it is and Judith doesn’t wish to add more stress to anyone’s life and makes up her own mind, something we can see she doesn’t have any trouble doing being a headstrong and independent woman that apparently had a wild child streak in her youth.

It’s an adjustment at the home.  No cell phones, restricted access to outdoors without being accompanied by a staff, restraint at night to those that refuse to stay in their beds, regular sedation if you can’t go through the night without incident.  She’s cheered up by sunny trio of residents Trish (Jill Larson, The Taking of Deborah Logan), Ruth (Fran Bennett, The Doctor), and Roland (Bruce Davison, Insidious: The Last Key) who feel, like her, that staying young at heart is what will keep you alive longer. The good spirit boost doesn’t last long because Judith starts to see a frightening figure at night creeping around the manor and when people start to die, she fears she’s next.  Or is it all in her head, part of the growing confusion of dementia? Is she merely fearing the inevitable and conjuring a portent of the specter of death, much like the black cat that roams the halls and is believed to be a predictor of who will be the next to die?

Writer/director Axelle Carolyn (Tales of Halloween) has had an interesting career up until this point.  Beginning as a journalist before getting into the film industry as a sometime actress and then moving behind the camera, she was married to flash in the pan horror director Neil Marshall.  Now making her own name for herself, she’s written and directed this short but (bitter)sweet story that’s as much about getting older and cast aside as it is about what may be preying on the elders at a retirement home.  It’s the best kind of paranoid horror film in that it drops teeny clues along the way, blink and you miss them hints at the direction you should be considering.  It suggests thought was put into each character (down to minor ones) and that all were integral to the solution that arrives. 

Playing her first lead in a film in nearly two decades, Hershey is brilliantly cast as the still-vibrant woman knowing she’s not crazy and having to defend her sanity to people in her life that should be her advocates not her adversaries.  It’s frustrating to watch the way the nursing home staff and medical personnel speak to her, like she’s a child.  People in this confused state, which they sometimes are, don’t need to be harangued or snapped at, they need care and understanding, and Hershey’s take on the role only gets us more on her side the further we get.  It’s also nice that Carolyn doesn’t lean too far into the ‘unreliable narrator’ trope for Judith…we see what she sees so there’s little doubt as to what’s going on.  I also liked her trio of allies that give her the lay of the land and keep her spirits high and Ciera Payton (Oldboy) as a friendly nurse makes for another strong supporting player.  Judith’s daughter and grandson are middling, but only because both are so aggravatingly inert in their efforts to help their relative, especially Keane’s character who essentially gets told by a suspicious doctor at the manor, “Don’t believe your mother or let her leave her.” and then just refuses to listen to anything she says.

At 81 minutes, you’d think The Manor would miss something critical as it tries to jet to the action, but it doesn’t.  Surprisingly, it nimbly gets on its feet and keeps moving at an easy clip without dragging right until the end.  That doesn’t allow viewers a chance to get too far ahead of what’s to come, creating a solid package.  It’s sparse on jump scares but has a few creepy visuals that are effective in rattling your bones at just the right frequency.  With taut pacing and tight acting, The Manor and Madres should be the blueprints of Welcome to the Blumhouse films in the future, and I do hope they come back next October with more.

Movie Review ~ Sylvie’s Love

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Sylvie has a summer romance with a musician who takes a summer job at her father’s record store in Harlem. When they reconnect years later, they discover their feelings for each other have not faded.

Stars: Tessa Thompson, Nnamdi Asomugha, Lance Riddick, Jemima Kirke, Erica Gimpel, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Tone Bell, Ryan Michelle Bathe, Regé-Jean Page, Aja Naomi King, Eva Longoria

Director: Eugene Ashe

Rated: PG-13

Running Length: 114 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review:  With all of the delays due to the pandemic, Disney and Amazon Studios couldn’t have predicted that both would be releasing films about jazz musicians examining their lives at critical junctures around the same date in December but here we are, several days out and both Soul and Sylvie’s Love loom large ahead of us.  The two films are unique at their core and speak for different audiences, but the way they overlap is interesting to note, in particular the way that it deals with the role of influential men in the lives of the young.  This Christmas, it will be nice to see multiple options of representation for inclusive storytelling available to distinct target demographics.

One also can’t even begin to talk about Sylvie’s Love, a romantic drama from writer/director Eugene Ash that’s been in various stage of development as far back as 2014 and not mention the old-fashioned melodramas so popular in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s when the film takes place.  Emulating the feel of a Douglas Sirk escapade that’s more big-city than Anytown, USA, Sylvie’s Love wears its many factions of homage clearly and proudly, which succeed in making it a more entertaining feature and also prevents it from being accused of not understanding that it is neck-deep in soap-opera scenarios.  Unfortunately, it bites off more than it is capably comfortable chewing on and experiences serious drag in the final 1/3, a disappointing shift in what up until that point had been a nice balance between the sudsy and the serious.

After a brief glimpse of the early ‘60s, we go back to the late 1950s where Sylvie Johnson (Tessa Thompson, Creed) is working at her father’s record store while her fiancé is overseas.  Since her mother (Erica Gimpel) runs a popular local charm school and it wouldn’t be ladylike for Sylvie to, gasp, work, Sylvie and her father (the excellent Lane Reddick, Angel Has Fallen) have to pretend she’s just watching the store and have placed a Help Wanted sign in the window, though it’s really just for show. Then musician Robert (Nnamdi Asomugha, Hello, My Name Is Doris) walks in to apply for the job, mostly to talk more with Sylvie and also because he needs a little more income seeing that his band isn’t booking big gigs at the moment.  The job is his and, hopefully soon her heart will be too.

As expected, the two eventually fall in love despite her mother’s protestations on Robert’s profession and financial situation.  Their summer together is filled with new experiences and special moments, often conveyed by Sylvie with twinkle eyed wonder to her more experienced best friend, Mona (Aja Naomi King, The Upside) as they lay out listening to records and taking in some sun.  When Robert books a job that takes him overseas, he expects Sylvie to go with him…a decision that changes their lives together for the future.  When the film jumps back to the 60s to find Sylvie an assistant producer to a brassy TV cook (Wendi McClendon-Covey, What Men Want) and Robert a successful musician, we witness them navigate their relationship and how it has evolved, for better or for worse.

With both stars serving in some form of producer role on the film, you can tell they have a vested interest in how the characters are represented.  That may be why there’s more to Sylvie’s Love than just, well, Sylvie’s love.  Back in the day these romances always had some motivating side stories but there’s more time spent on these diversions in this instance, so much that they begin to come off as distractions from the people we do want to see more of…Thompson and Asomugha.  While it’s filled with familiar faces in supporting roles that range from the large to the tiny, none are interesting enough to pull you in their direction…well, maybe except for McLendon-Covey who Thompson’s character sees a spark in that’s being hidden by the senior producers of her show.  Casting Longoria as a fiery Latinx singer and then having her actually sing and dance was smart but, again, unnecessary since she is barely seen or established up until her late in the game production number.

The film does thrive when it’s just Thompson and Asomugha sharing the spotlight together.  Thompson tends to bring out the best in whatever costar she’s working with, human or CGI and here she’s matched with one that doesn’t need too much prodding to deliver.  A former NFL cornerback for nearly a decade, Asomugha cuts a convincing figure as a jazz musician and is a fine actor on top of it all.  Though he’s sadly part of several of the film’s less successful attempts at arch melodrama, he comes out unscathed from these sequences thanks to his honest approach to the character and to Thompson.  There’s a vulnerability to Asomugha, and in Thompson to a lesser extent, that is appealing and becomes an effective tool in keeping the audience with him along the way.  I liked that the script gave Thompson more autonomy that we usually see in films set in this era and it’s that unpredictability that keeps the movie from running too far out of gas, though it does feel like it has several endings as it makes its way to the final finish line.

Set to a gorgeous score from Fabrice Lecomte, the overall production design of Sylvie’s Love sublime and while Ashe hasn’t directed that many films, he clearly has an eye for what stands out and an ear for setting the mood. While Ashe is able to lean away from Sirk’s penchant for going overboard with strife as the film nears the conclusion, enough roadblocks are put in the way of our main couple to keep the resolution hard to figure out until the finale.  Even though an early glimpse may hint at the future, it isn’t quite the wrap-up audiences might think while watching.  It’s a completely worthy watch for those who miss an old-fashioned love story, well-told and performed, that isn’t trivialized or heavily weighted down with a coat of syrup.

31 Days to Scare ~ Welcome to the Blumhouse – Evil Eye & Nocturne

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by 31 Days to Scare, Down from the Shelf, Mid-Day Mini, Movie Review • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

It’s Week Two of Welcome to the Blumhouse, the October collaboration between Blumhouse Television and Amazon Studios meant to drum up some scares with four curated genre films released over the course of two weeks.  Week One saw the arrival of The Lie and Black Box, both of which I found entertaining and, in the case of Black Box, a film I’d advocate you add to your queue, post haste.  I was expecting another week of sturdy films that couldn’t quite justify a theatrical release but made sense to appear in this curio of tales presented by producer Jason Blum.  Heck, I even expected them to save the best for the second week…but sadly these aren’t any stronger than the first entries, though one highly outranks the other in almost every way.  Looking over these four features, I’m glad these two entities joined forces and hope it happens again, albeit with product that feels like it was made for it and not just shoehorned in.  For this first time around, I’d pass on to Welcome to the Blumhouse a qualified return greeting.

The Facts:

Synopsis: A superstitious mother is convinced that her daughter’s new boyfriend is the reincarnation of a man who tried to kill her 30 years ago.

Stars: Sarita Choudhury, Sunita Mani, Omar Maskati, Bernard White, Anjali Bhimani

Director: Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani

Rated: NR

Running Length: 89 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review:  Okay, so maybe I should walk back my comments above when I said the movies this week weren’t the strongest.  Thinking about it more I did find myself enjoying this low-key (really low-key) thriller based on a popular podcast originating on Audible.  This isn’t the first time a podcast has been adapted for television.  Amazon’s popular Homecoming successfully brought that buzzy paranoid drama to life a year or two ago, but Evil Eye does have an interesting premise and a lead that’s strong enough to earn a recommendation based on that factor alone.  That is winds up feeling like one of those old USA Mystery films by the end is more to do with the glossy direction from Elan Dassani and Rajeev Dassani than anything.

Thirty years ago in India, Usha (Sarita Choudhury, Admission) was attacked by a former boyfriend who she claims put a curse on her unborn baby.  The events of that night will come back to haunt her grown daughter, now single and living in New Orleans on her own.  Superstitious Usha has kept her daughter’s best interest in mind these past years and is always checking up and checking in on her, with her latest quest to find her daughter the proper Indian husband.  Matchmaking from halfway around the world isn’t easy on the mother-daughter relationship but Pallavi (Sunita Mani, The Death of Dick Long) lucks out and meets a keeper on her own, the darkly handsome Sandeep (Omar Maskati).  The one drawback is that though they are moving quickly, Usha’s senses tell her something is off about the match and even though the signs and mystics she normally consults tell her otherwise, she’s convinced her daughter is in danger.  Eventually, she becomes convinced that not only is Sandeep not the right man for her only child, but he’s actually the reincarnation of the man who tried to kill them both years earlier.

I haven’t heard Madhuri Shekar’s podcast so can’t tell you how faithfully she’s adapted it for the screen but this is a premise that works on a higher level than you’d think.  Silly though it sounds, it’s one that has to be taken with a degree of sincerity for it to work and everyone is onboard with that approach.  Steeped in Hindu culture with their own belief in reincarnation and their theory of the spirit never dying, there’s validity to Usha’s feelings even if no one around her actually believes what she says is true.  We don’t even know either, though it wouldn’t be much a thriller without that mystery hanging over our heads for a least a little bit.  The main suspense is due to how long we wait for Usha to get that one true sign that Sandeep is the man from her past, come back to finish what he started.

What gives the film its surest sense of worth is Choudhury’s lightening rod performance, first as the typical meddling mother and then as the parent, unraveling at the fact that she is too far away to save her daughter from an evil she may have unleashed.  Most of the film, Usha and Pallavi are separated and communicate only by phone yet Choudhury and Mani capably develop their relationship above simple surface level conversations.  As has been the case with many of these films, the supporting cast is tiny but I found myself liking Bernard White (Captain America: The Winter Soldier) as Usha’s husband and Pallavi’s dad…the one who is often stuck in the middle between the women he holds close to his heart.  I only wish Maskati had been a more convincing maybe-villain…he lacks a command of the screen and there are times when he’s working hard to come across imperious but winds up robotic.

As for thrills, Evil Eye is fairly light on any, though there was one moment involving the purposeful reveal of a pair of earrings and the direct fallout after that gave me chills.  It’s the one moment in the film that feels like it sprang from something more sinister and supernatural and I wish there were more of them.  Ultimately, this plays like a family drama with traces of the mystical intertwined which feels like a missed opportunity.  All that aside, it’s well-made and short enough to not overstay its welcome.  Choudhury’ll never bore you and she’s in the majority of the film so that’s a plus right there.  Let’s just say, you won’t give it the stink eye….unlike the next film.

 

The Facts:

Synopsis: A teenage pianist makes a devilish deal in a bid to outplay her fraternal twin sister at a prestigious institution for classical musicians.

Stars: Madison Iseman, Sydney Sweeney, Brandon Keener, John Rothman, Rodney To, Jacques Colimon, Asia Jackson

Director: Zu Quirke

Rated: NR

Running Length: 90 minutes

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review: Oh boy, a good plot synopsis will trick me every time.  I mean, every time.  Out of all the films in the Welcome to the Blumhouse stable, the one for Nocturne sounded the most interesting to me, which is why I saved it for last.  There’s something wickedly voyeuristic to any film or program where you have artists competing against one another who have already scarified so much and are willing to go a step further (see Suspiria and its remake) to attain their goals.  Now, recently Netflix had their own classical music horror show with twisted musicians in The Perfection and I was curious to see if Nocturne would measure up with the same level of bizarre developments and truly boffo ending.  Unfortunately, Nocturne has a totally different movie in mind to emulate and can’t even commit fully to that either.

Fraternal twins Violet (Madison Iseman, Annabelle Comes Home) and Juliet (Sydney Sweeney, Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood) are senior pianists attending a celebrated private music institute that has trained some of the best talent in the country.  Raised by their airy parents who seem to want their kids to succeed even if it means they step over each other while doing it, Violet is the one that has landed a spot next year at Julliard while Juliet didn’t measure up and now is facing the next year with no back-up plan.  In Juliet’s eyes, everything seems to come easy for Violet.  She’s the one with the boyfriend, the friends, the opportunities, and the sister the teachers appear to favor.  Or maybe she just doesn’t take it all so seriously.  Either way, Juliet wants what Violet has.

When a classmate dies under suspicious circumstances, it leaves an opening for a replacement to take her place in a pivotal piece at the culmination of the year.  Everyone knows that Violet will get it…but Juliet wants it.  By chance, she discovers the notebook of the dead girl and in it finds a strange link to the occult and through it finds a power that may unlock the key to finally rising to the top.  Each turn of the page leads to a new opportunity to move her forward at the expense of something in return.  What price will she pay to be seen for once as the better twin and who will suffer for it the higher she climbs?

In 2010, I was all about Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky’s truly unforgettable Best Picture nominee which won Natalie Portman as Best Actress Oscar for her chilling take on a ballerina that becomes obsessed with playing the lead in a production of Swan Lake after paying her dues in second place.  The more her obsession grows, the more her psyche and body morph into the character she is portraying onstage, leading to a haunting one performance only showstopper that sees her achieve her dream for a brief shining moment.  Nocturne is such a direct copy of that Black Swan mold it could almost have been labeled a sequel in some way.  It has the same chilly tone, color scheme, music, dreams that turn to nightmares and then back to reality…it’s just all the same but done at a watered down level and totally toothless.

Writer/director Zu Quirke never truly makes the argument for Juliet to be worthy of the kind of attention she craves.  At least in Black Swan we get the idea that Portman’s character was maybe unjustly overlooked.  Juliet seems to want the spotlight just because her sister has it and makes deliberate steps to unseat her because she’s selfish…and that doesn’t make for a compelling watch.  Obsession of this sort should come from neglect, not from petty sister squabbles.  The mythology behind the magic also is a bit of a head-scratcher, with it making precious little sense and failing to be captivating – at the end they just feel like pages in a book.

I thought I was saving the best for last but Nocturne turned out to be the worst of the bunch.  Even its finale is bungled, lingering long enough to come off as a joke instead of a shock.  A better editor would have cut that final shot down and left the audience with their heart in their throat.  There is great deal of discussion about how classical music is a dying form and one character argues for it’s necessity…but not when it’s the driving force behind poorly recycled plots like this.

 

Movie Review ~ Get Duked!

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Deep in the Scottish Highlands on a camping trip competition, four city boys try to escape a mysterious huntsman while the police trail behind, failing to provide assistance.

Stars: Eddie Izzard, Kate Dickie, James Cosmo, Kevin Guthrie, Jonathan Aris, Alice Lowe, Samuel Bottomley, Viraj Juneja, Rian Gordon, Lewis Gribben, Brian Pettifer, Georgie Glen

Director: Ninian Doff

Rated: R

Running Length: 87 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review:  A fun bit of movie trivia that always interests me is finding out the original titles of films that either went into production under a different name or saw their title get changed after their original festival run.  Most of the time, the change is for the better.  Would we still be talking about Alien today if it had been released as Star Beast?  How about imagining seeing Charlize Theron in Coldest City instead of Atomic Blonde?  Would Julia Roberts star turn in Pretty Woman had the same seismic impact if it came out as 3000?  Don’t even get me started with Warner Brothers desperately trying to get Tim Burton to swap out Beetlejuice for their preferred alternate House Ghosts.

A few months back, I reviewed and recommended The Shadow of Violence which was previously released and seen in its early film festival runs as the more interesting Calm with Horses and this week sees the debut of another film on Prime Video that’s had a title swap on its way to a wide release.  Filmed originally as Boyz in the Woods, Amazon Studios picked up the film after it played well at last year’s South by Southwest Film Festival and promptly gave it a new name.  While Get Duked! leans into the more playful aspects the viewing experience has to offer and steers clear from sounding like a sketchy film you may not want showing up in your queue, it also exposes some of the problems at the forefront of the movie that’s about as one-joke as they come.

Prior to firing Get Duked! up I had no awareness of the The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award which was started a half-century ago by the Queen’s husband and meant to attract youth that hadn’t yet found their group/club to join.  Designed to promote participation in volunteering, physical fitness, and an expedition to achieve the top rank, it has spread through more than a hundred countries since its inception.  So…clearly, it’s a big deal.  I’d imagine also, at least based on writer/director Ninian Doff’s wacky screenplay, it’s a program that draws some level of ribbing because the jokes at play in Get Duked! feel remarkably on pointe and specifically taking aim at several organizations throughout.

Doff gets things off on the right foot by staging an enjoyably cheeky first 1/3 that introduces us to the three slacker mates forced into participation for The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award by their teacher Mr. Carlyle (Jonathan Arias, Vivarium) and the one nerd-ish lad who was more than eager to volunteer.  While the three are hoping to find cell phone reception and a place to get high the moment the adult is out of sight, Ian, the sweet-natured fourth (Samuel Bottomley, Ghost Stories), just wants to make new friends and end the weekend with the Duke’s prize to top it off.  Ian learns quickly that Dean (Rian Gordon), Duncan (Lewis Gribben) and William aka DJ Beatroot (Viraj Juneja) have no outdoor experience (or many brain cells) and rely on him to get them through the terrain toward their final destination.

The four have more to worry about than mossy rocks and spoiled haggis though, because what they don’t know at first is that they’re the new prey for hunters out to “cull the herd” of the misspent youth in society and this weekend will be more about survival than they could have ever imagined.  Who is hunting them is a mystery that is solved fairly quickly – it’s a rather famous royal played by Eddie Izzard (The High Note) who has an even more famous wife as his accomplice.  At the same time, the local police led by Sergeant Morag (Kate Dickie, Prometheus) are attempting to apprehend a local bread thief (no joke) and somehow manage to get tangled up in the boys flight from their hunters, which only complicates matters in oddly decreasingly funny ways.  The more that Doff’s screenplay brings these disparate characters together, the funnier it should get, but to me it became less and less interesting instead.  It’s never as crackling as it is in those first 40 minutes and even brief moments of fun (a musical moment featuring DJ Beatroot and a crowd of blissed out country folk is gold) can’t quite drag the film back into alignment.

Now, I’m sure Get Duked! is going to play to crowds looking for that fun Friday night comedy like gangbusters and maybe it’s my problem for watching it on a late afternoon early in the week.  It’s one that has a bit of a party vibe to it, one that allows you to be distracted from the one-joke premise that gets old quickly and can’t hide that the endeavor would have worked better as a short or part of a larger anthology.  It must be said, though, that there’s no shortage of style or creativity in filmmaking and performers, especially Juneja as a freestyle rapper with flow but no show, are great.  Yet I never fully found myself loving it and that began to nag at me after awhile because it reminded me a lot of better movies like Shaun of the Dead, The World’s End, or Hot Fuzz.  Unlike those films, Get Duked! has a one-joke premise that it sticks to, for better or for worse.

Movie Review ~ Chemical Hearts

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A high school transfer student finds a new passion when she begins to work on the school’s newspaper.

Stars: Lili Reinhart, Austin Abrams, Sarah Jones, Adhir Kalyan, Kara Young, Coral Peña

Director:  Richard Tanne

Rated: R

Running Length: 93 minutes

TMMM Score: (7/10)

Review: The other day I was revisiting an old chestnut romance that has become a favorite for many.  By “old” I mean 1992 and the movie was The Cutting Edge, that sleepover-ready PG lovey dovey figure skating film that did decent box office when first released but caught on like wildfire when it arrived on home video.  Aside from having major nostalgia pangs for non-stadium general admission theaters and remembering finding the show times for it on MovieFone, what struck me about the film was how it never would have worked the way it does, or held up the way it has, if it weren’t for the undeniable chemistry between the two leads.  It fueled the movie and gave credence to everything their characters said and how they acted – we believed them because we believed the actors.  It’s a rarity in film, especially in ones meant to appeal to young adults which often are targeted for something lower than the heart.

So it’s nice when a movie like Chemical Hearts arrives and you can witness that same chemistry on display for a whole new generation of viewers, albeit in a movie far more complicated than one about Olympic dreams.  An adaption of Krystal Sutherland’s 2016 novel “Our Chemical Hearts”, an added emotional element the filmmakers couldn’t have planned for is that the high-school set film is arriving on Amazon’s streaming service at the tail end of a summer when the future is uncertain about what the upcoming school year will bring.  This gives the film a palpable immediacy on top of several issues it attempts to tackle during its short run time.

Henry Page (Austin Abrams, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark) is a high school senior that’s living your typical teenage experience.  He gets average grades but aspires to do better, holds his parents as a model for a healthy relationship though he hasn’t had one of his own, and simply aims to please everyone by being what they need when they need it, regardless if it pleases him in the process.  His life takes a swift turn when Grace Down (Lili Reinhart, Hustlers) transfers into the school and becomes not just his co-editor of the newspaper but also the object of his interest and, eventually, affection.  That love hits him so hard seems to both excite and scare him a bit, compounded by Grace harboring her own guarded emotions and heavy baggage.  During a tumultuous senior year, Henry and Grace will each have their own moments of growth and shared lessons in the strength found in working together.

We’ve seen countless movies about the boy/girl that likes another boy/girl who has an air of mystery to them and know that whatever love blooms will surely be tested by secrets that are revealed and Chemical Hearts is no exception.  That adapter/director Richard Tanne handles it all with such a fine hand is a breath of fresh air and I found myself growing closer to the couple the more the film progressed rather than keeping them at arm’s length in preparation for the other shoe to drop.  That’s partly due to that whole chemistry bit we discussed earlier but also because the characters have genuine interest and depth not often found in the YA genre.  Separately, Henry and Grace feel like people we can relate to and together they are a couple we want to root for, further illustrating how well-rounded Tanne, Abrams, and the quite mesmerizing Reinhart have made these leading players.

What doesn’t quite work, though, are the supporting group of friends and relatives that seem to interfere with the action more than they help propel it forward.  Truly stellar films have side characters that marry themselves nicely into plot points throughout but in Chemical Hearts almost anytime Abrams and Reinhart aren’t onscreen the movie feels like it slumps its shoulders.  That’s especially tangential plots regarding Henry’s friend pursuing a lesbian relationship and his weepy sister going through a traumatic break-up that doles out sage wisdom when the movie needs it.  With a bit more finesse, Tanne could have made this work but I wasn’t buying into it because while Tanne goes to the finish line for Henry and Grace, everything else becomes distracting footnotes.  Plus, I hate it when movies show long-time friends totally dumping one of their own the first time they don’t come through in a pinch for them.  That happens here and the pure forgiveness that comes lets the group off too easy, in my opinion.

Without much in the way of films that have spoken to this age group over the past several months, this is one of two movies released in the same weekend giving young adults mature entertainment that doesn’t speak down to them.  Along with Words on Bathroom Walls, Chemical Hearts doesn’t go for the obvious sentiments about how being young is hard and that school is difficult but aims for something deeper that yields more fruit in the end.  There’s honesty throughout (again it should be stated that Reinhart and Abrams are terrific) and a sweet sincerity in its final moments that should please more than just its target audience.

Movie Review ~ Chameleon

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A struggling ex-con and his unpredictable accomplice scam superficial trophy wives and their rich older husbands in self-obsessed Los Angeles.

Stars: Joel Hogan, Donald Prabatah, Alicia Leigh Willis, Jeff Prater, Acelina Kuchukova, Daniel Tolbert, Fernanda Hay

Director: Marcus Mizelle

Rated: NR

Running Length: 80 minutes

TMMM Score: (6/10)

Review:  Over the past few weeks, I’ve been on a run of watching a lot of movies from the early ‘90s and not only reclaiming some of my young movie-going memories I thought I had lost but revisiting my sadness that many of the films made during this time are a thing of the past.  It used to be that each week for every blockbuster that came out there’d be two or three smaller titles that could fill the other screens at the multiplex – after all, back then there were less options for at-home viewing but still a healthy number of feature films released week-to-week, depending on your market.  I’ve said it here before but the genre I greatly miss above all else are those crime-drama-mystery-thrillers that wouldn’t open huge at the box office but would stick around for weeks gathering weeknight crowds.

For everyone out there that has been shuffling through your various streaming sites and bemoaning that they don’t make neo-noir ‘90s movies like they used to, the slithery Chameleon might be one to check out.  Writer/director Marcus Mizelle’s (very) indie film checks off many of the requisite boxes: sex, murder, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and an added layer of a fractured narrative to keep you on your toes throughout.  Now, I’m going to forewarn you and say that Chameleon isn’t going to fill your cup if you are desperate for a Basic Instinct type experience but if you get a warm feeling when you see the Hollywood Pictures logo and think a film as bland as 1990’s Guilty as Sin merits some measure of discourse, add this to your queue, post-haste.

Parolee Patrick (Joel Hogan) isn’t out long before his prison pal Dolph (Donald Prabatah) comes knocking on his door with a proposal.  Would Patrick want to continue to wash dishes making chump change or enter into a scheme with Dolph to swindle wealthy couples out of a nice chunk of money?  Assessing his options, Patrick opts for Dolph’s offer and the two begin to locate well-off Los Angels men and their bored wives.  Patrick sweeps in and seduces the wives before Dolph kidnaps them and holds them for ransom.  Patrick gets the husbands to pay, mostly for the return of their wives but perhaps to protect their pride a bit as well.  The scam proves lucrative for the two ex-cons, which can only mean that greed will eventually enter into the equation and when new target Rebecca (Alicia Leigh Willis) becomes something more to Patrick, it changes the loyalties of all involved.

Mizelle has made a smart (read: tricky) move by bifurcating the timeline pretty early on so the audience is thrown off-kilter as to what is happening and when.  It doesn’t so much confuse as to simply delay putting the final puzzle together and even then there always seems to be at least one more mystery to solve.  Viewers with a good eye will be able to keep track of how time plays out by watching Patrick’s hair length throughout.  What keeps the film from truly taking off, though, is some unavoidable issues that plague low-budget productions.  Performances range from shallow to serviceable and the dialogue could use a punch up to remove a number of too clever “no one talks like this” phrases that zap the viewer out of the movie.  That being said, much of it is quite lovely to look at and at 80 minutes (well, let’s say 72 with a s-l-o-w credits roll) it keeps moving at a good pace.  If the audience winds up far ahead of the characters before the end, it’s only because the plot contrivances can only divert for so long.  Eventually, you see where this is heading and start to patiently wait for it to get there.

I saw Chameleon on my first day at the 2019 Twin Cities Film Fest in October and it was the only one of its kind genre film I was able to see this go-around.  For that, I was glad to see something that attempted a clever angle and achieved most of what it set out for.  Thinking about it months later, I wonder what this would look like down the road for Mizelle if he remade this after some script revisions with a bigger budget and a few casting shifts.  There’s some strong potential here and Chameleon is worth a look in its current form…but I think with some reshaping the possibility of something better is strong.