Tag Archives: Owen Teague

Movie Review ~ You Hurt My Feelings

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A novelist’s long-standing marriage is suddenly upended when she overhears her husband giving his honest reaction to her latest book.
Stars: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Tobias Menzies, Michaela Watkins, Arian Moayed, Owen Teague, Jeannie Berlin, Amber Tamblyn, David Cross, Josh Pais, Deniz Akdeniz, Zach Cherry
Director: Nicole Holofcener
Rated: R
Running Length: 93 minutes
TMMM Score: (10/10)
Review: I don’t want to be this kind of critic (or person?), but I think I have to say it. To fully appreciate You Hurt My Feelings, to really understand why it bites down so hard on nitpicks and nagging, to get why audience members around you may laugh at lines that don’t have a punchline, I think you need to have been in a serious relationship for a significant amount of time. It’s from that human experience to know someone so well and intimately that it will only take one glance from them, or lack thereof, to give you satisfaction or send you on a shrill spiral to your perception of super doom where you truly, wholly, feel the perfection of writer/director Nicole Holofcener’s film.

That’s not to say you singles or mingles out there aren’t going to love this sharp comedy, too, a cool breeze of a film arriving at the beginning of summer to air out the stink of the last few months. Holofcener’s script has plenty of valuable takeaways, her first since working on 2021’s The Last Duel with Ben Affleck and Matt Damon (She was also nominated for an Oscar for writing 2019’s Can You Ever Forgive Me?). Flying under the radar for years, when she does surface, Holofcener almost always has something interesting to say, even if it may not be aiming to please all comers. Reteaming with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the star of her 2013 feature Enough Said, Holofcener crafts a story for this modern era of big, easily bruised egos.

Riding the marginal success of her memoir to a teaching position at an NYC college, Beth (Louis-Dreyfus, Onward) is putting the finishing touches on her new work of fiction. Years in writing and revising, her agent thinks it needs more work but encouraged by her husband’s positive feedback, she is going out on a limb and bringing it to a new agent to see if he can get it sold for the right price. At the same time, her husband, Don (Tobias Menzies, Casino Royale), is experiencing a staleness in his job as a therapist and couples’ counselor. His regular patients (real-life couple David Cross and Amber Tamblyn) bicker viciously during their sessions, and a new referral (Zach Cherry, Isn’t It Romantic) is passive-aggressively hostile toward him. Then there’s his tendency to mix up the maladies of one patient with another – he’s adrift.

After visiting their mother (a caustically hysterical Jeannie Berlin, The Fabelmans), Beth and sister Sarah (Michaela Watkins, Paint) spot Don shopping with Sarah’s husband Mark (Arian Moayed, Spider-Man No Way Home) and decide to surprise them. That’s when it happens. Sneaking up on her husband, Beth overhears him telling Mark his honest thoughts about her completed work…and it’s not the same positive critique he’d been passing on to her for years. This revelation creates a fissure between the two, opening a deep well of trust issues having more to do with a lack of general communication in their marriage than with one opinion not being shared. Amid all this, their adult son, Eliot (Owen Teague, Montana Story), returns home with relationship difficulties crushing his world too. 

While the plot summary and general idea of You Hurt My Feelings revolves around this supposed betrayal by Don, it’s not the true epicenter of the story Holofcener is conveying. That would be far too simple of a message for a writer/director who has always made what could be a trivial situation into a meaningful look at reactive relationships. Most of our stable relationships are just waiting for a glass of milk to be spilled to drum up a conflict that has nothing to do with the puddle in the center of the table, right? Here, Holofcener takes Don hiding behind an oft-used excuse, “I was trying to be supportive,” to allow a more significant discussion about relationships.

Did I mention the film is wildly funny too? If I’m making it all sound like a gloomy Bergman exploration of betrayal in NYC, it’s not that. I found every scene perfectly constructed and well-tailored to each actor, down to the minor supporting role. As interesting as Beth and Don were, I would watch an entire film about Sarah and Mark’s relationship or revisit Beth and Sarah’s acerbic mother if she took a trip somewhere. Holofcener gives these characters function and purpose in a short time and casts extraordinary actors to bring them to life.

Already triumphing on television, it’s time for Louis-Dreyfus to start practicing her red-carpet walk for even more prestigious award shows. I thought she delivered so well in Enough Said that she could have been on the shortlist there. However, in You Hurt My Feelings, she goes further, portraying a complicated (i.e., not always likable) person but never letting the audience want to root against her. Her work here is unlike anything I’ve seen her in, and intense scenes with Menzies and Teague could be career high points. Watkins could also be in on some excellent recognition for a fascinating performance. A frustrated interior decorator married to a struggling actor (Moayed is excellent, resisting the urge to lean into that sallow thespian trope), she has a spiky edge. Still, she recognizes and then appreciates how different her relationship with her husband is compared to her sister. 

Holofcener has written and directed many strong films over her career, but You Hurt My Feelings is the first one I’d call perfect. The script is tight, and each scene is a little masterclass in comedy or high-stakes drama. Cross and Tamblyn’s crossfire fighting is bulletproof comic gold, just as a quiet, dialogue-free exchange between Louis-Dreyfus and Berlin is lovely to watch unfold. That’s the beauty in what Holofcener does for film and those who love it – she brings some of the real world, warts and all, into the open.

Movie Review ~ Gone in the Night (2022)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: When Kath and her boyfriend arrive at a remote cabin in the redwoods, they find a mysterious younger couple already there. After her boyfriend disappears with the young woman Kath becomes obsessed with finding an explanation.
Stars: Winona Ryder, John Gallagher Jr., Owen Teague, Brianne Tju, Dermot Mulroney
Director: Eli Horowitz
Rated: R
Running Length: 90 minutes
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review: First and foremost, let’s acknowledge that Gone in the Night (called The Cow when it premiered back in March at SXSW) welcomes back Oscar-nominated actress Winona Ryder to the kind of acting work we’ve wanted to see her in for a while. Taking on the occasional supporting film role while finding success in television through Stranger Things, her performance in Eli Horowitz’s mystery is bound to go down well with fans both past and current. It’s Ryder (Beetlejuice) at her most present best, bringing a somewhat wispy character toward a fuller existence solely through her performance. For 90 fast-moving minutes, a capable crew of filmmakers offers viewers a curious puzzle of a mystery and an enjoyable one at that.

Ryder plays Kath, a woman in her late ‘40s dating the younger Max (John Gallagher, Jr., Underwater), with whom she shares little interest. Still, she’s surprised when he vanishes on their weekend away with a woman they met on their first night at a double-booked Airbnb in the woods. The more she thinks about the slight, the more upset she gets and believes she is owed an answer. She should be careful what she asks for. Tracking down the owner of the Airbnb (Dermot Mulroney, August: Osage County) leads her down a path that reveals clues to the strange couple she met once and where her ex may have run off to…if he ever truly left in the first place.

Horowitz has fun with timelines and our perception of the situations we see, allowing Ryder and the other cast (Unhuman’s Brianne Tju is another stellar standout as one half of the creepy couple along with Montana Story‘s Owen Teague) to squirm in a series of uncomfortable scenes. Horowitz naturally shows a knack for these time hops and bringing overlapping lives together; he was one of the writers for Homecoming. Starting as a paranoid podcast, it became an Amazon series starring Julia Roberts in Season 1 and Janelle Monáe in Season 2. The show never got off the ground as much as it should, but it wasn’t for lack of intriguing set-ups. Horowitz brings that same impossible-to-resist urge to know more to Gone in the Night. Even if you figure out what’s happening or feel the final third doesn’t rise to the same heights as what comes before, Ryder’s performance keeps pulling you back in.

Back in March, I was pleased to report that Gone in The Night (a title so bland it can only aspire to be cardboard flavored), one of the films I was most interested in seeing at SXSW, wasn’t a disappointment. Though it was a different movie than I expected, it made the watch much more interesting to sit through. Now that I’ve seen it again, I feel it stands up nicely on a repeat viewing. Don’t let anyone spoil this one for you but trust me when I say that if you’re a Ryder ride or die…this will give you big-time happiness.

Movie Review ~ Montana Story

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Two estranged siblings return home to the sprawling ranch they once knew and loved, confronting a deep and bitter family legacy against a mythic American backdrop.
Stars: Haley Lu Richardson, Owen Teague, Gilbert Owuor, Kimberly Guerrero, Asivak Koostachin, Eugene Brave Rock, Rob Story, John Ludin, Kate Britton
Director: Scott McGehee and David Siegel
Rated: R
Running Length: 113 minutes
TMMM Score: (5/10)
Review:  Pre-pandemic, theaters would have been able to dedicate room for a small movie like Montana Story.  It might not have played in the theater with the most seats or drawn as many viewers on opening weekend as the big studio film that occupied the other screens down the hall, but the target audience would eventually have found their way.  In today’s climate, the movie-goer that is right for this quiet picture will have trouble locating a showing in their area…if it’s even playing at all.  That’s a shame, too, because as promising as the box office returns have been for old-fashioned fare like Top Gun: Maverick and Downton Abbey: A New Era, the age of the tiny indie has all but vanished.

In that same breath, I’ll also admit that perhaps Montana Story is a bit too quiet for its own good.  The story of siblings reuniting at their family ranch as their divisive father lay dying in the next room is not easy to warm to.  It’s a chilly film for early summer that’s beautifully captured by cinematographer Giles Nuttgens (Enola Holmes) but only sporadically possesses the kind of forward momentum to keep the bitter winds from blistering your skin. 

On the outskirts of Montana, Cal (Owen Teague, Mary) arrives at his father’s sparse ranch after the patriarch suffers a debilitating stroke that has left him all but brain dead.  As his father is tended to by a nurse (Gilbert Owuor, No Man of God) and a long-time family friend/worker (Kimberly Guerrero, The Glorias), Cal has several significant decisions to make about the future of the farm and finances.  Erin (Haley Lu Richardson, Split) comes into the mix, Cal’s older half-sister, who hasn’t been heard from in nearly a decade, ever since she argued with her father and then disappeared overnight.

Wounded by her past, Erin finds a means of repressed salvation she can control after learning of Cal’s plans to put down a horse he can no longer care for.  Deciding she’ll take ownership and bring the horse back with her out East, Erin uses this new distraction to distance herself from the conflict she’ll never fully resolve with her father.  As the siblings reconnect and discover where life has taken them both, they’ll find new understanding in the power of letting go of the past so they can be free to carve out a future of their own design.

Writer/directors Scott McGehee and David Siegel have gathered a solid cast together for their tale that gets off to a good start but spins its wheels after about an hour.  I enjoyed the early scenes between Teague and Owuor, easy-going conversations that revealed small details of each that didn’t feel like the clear exposition they were.  Richardson comes in red hot, wound up with angst and trepidation at the situation she will find, which creates an exciting amount of energy.  Sadly, Richardson can’t easily maintain that level of performance, and pretty soon, every performance has flattened out like the prairie that stretches out before them.  It’s never quite a secret where the film is headed, but I thought it would get there in a less mundane way.

Marketing for Montana Story encourages audiences to “See it on the largest screen you can find,” and with the movie arriving right at the start of the summer movie season, you can still catch this one in theaters if you’re quick about it.  It’s worth a look on that scale if you can make it happen, but it’s not one I’d move mountains to get to either.  There’s a splendid simplicity to the vistas captured on camera, but the actual film slips into a gray dullness that could send you snoozing if you aren’t careful.

Movie Review ~ Inherit the Viper

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The Facts:

Synopsis: For siblings Kip and Josie, dealing opioids isn’t just their family business — it’s their only means of survival. When a deal goes fatally wrong, Kip decides he wants out for good. But his attempt to escape his family’s legacy soon ignites a powder keg of violence and betrayal, endangering Kip, Josie and their younger brother.

Stars: Josh Hartnett, Margarita Levieva, Owen Teague, Bruce Dern, Chandler Riggs, Valorie Curry, Dash Mihok

Director: Anthony Jerjen

Rated: R

Running Length: 90 minutes

TMMM Score: (3/10)

Review: I’d imagine had Inherit the Viper been released 10 or 15 years ago it may have been received a tiny bit better than it does in 2020 when its dark tale of an already fragile family dynamic torn apart by drugs feels more than a little also-ran.  It’s hard to watch the movie and not think of the countless other television series, true-crime documentaries, and other analogous indie films that have covered the same dingy terrain and done it better.  That’s not to say there isn’t room for other stories with similar themes to be told but there has to be something that sets it apart from its genre siblings and Inherit the Viper sadly doesn’t have anything fresh or revealing to add.

Things don’t get more cookie-cutter than the elements that make up the setting, players, and plot of the film, scripted by Andrew Crabtree and directed by Anthony Jerjen.  In the Appalachian mountain area (think West Virginia, because if one movie about the opioid crisis is set there, they all have to be), a family that has grown up in the shadow of their father’s drug trafficking have continued the family business to keep themselves afloat.  Kip (Josh Hartnett, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later) is beginning to grow wary of the dangers that come with the territory, having decided to settle down with his pregnant girlfriend (Valorie Curry, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2).  That doesn’t sit too well with his hard-nosed sister Josie (Margarita Levieva, The Diary of a Teenage Girl) or their younger brother Boots (Owen Teague, Mary) who has just returned home after a long absence.

As Kip is planning his exit, Josie and Boots are just getting started thinking of making their individual moves to the next level, each for their own personal reasons.  Unable to get close to anyone to have a family of her own, Josie is carrying on an affair with the married local lawman (Dash Mihok, Silver Linings Playbook), partly as an unspoken pact for him to look the other way.  Never accomplishing anything on his own, Boots struggles to escape the impression he rides the coattails of his siblings and family name by entering into a risky deal that puts his family and his life at risk.  A series of unfortunate events affecting the siblings set into motion decisions that will force them to question how strong their family ties are.

While this sounds like the makings of a film with some grit, Jerjen’s direction doesn’t have any momentum to it so it just sort of lays there and refuses to build up to anything substantial.  Even an ending that Crabtree intends as eye-opening lands with the smallest of bangs because up until that point we’ve cared so little about the characters it’s hard to muster up much emotion for what happens next in their lives.  On the good side, Hartnett and Levieva feel like they are giving the kind of performances that should be in a movie with a better script while the puzzling appearance by Bruce Dern (Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood) as a crusty bar owner feels like a phoned in favor.

Blessedly short at 90 minutes, it feels longer due to the slow pacing and development.  The long and the short of it is that there simply isn’t enough to the plot to warrant a feature length film.  Had Crabtree and Jerjen trimmed this to be a short film, I’m imagine they’d fix the problems that made this one unavoidably dull.  The more you stretch something that’s already thin, the bigger the holes become.  Inherit the Viper is a good title for a subpar film.

31 Days to Scare ~ Mary (2019)

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A family looking to start a charter-boat business buys a ship that holds terrifying secrets once out on isolated waters.

Stars: Gary Oldman, Emily Mortimer, Jennifer Esposito, Stefanie Scott, Owen Teague, Michael Landes

Director: Michael Goi

Rated: R

Running Length: 84 minutes

TMMM Score: (4/10)

Review: There’s a myth in Hollywood that winning a Best Actress Oscar puts a kind of curse on your career for a period of time after you take home the statue.  Most of those who hold some sort of stock in this cite Halle Berry as the prime example of the jinx with the actress starring in a seemingly endless series of flops and non-starters.  After all, her two headlining movies out of the gate after winning her award were Gothika and the notoriously reviled update on Catwoman.  I mention this because we may want to expand this dark cloud watch to the Best Actor Oscar as well because of recent Best Actor winner Gary Oldman setting sail on the high seas with this well-intentioned but ultimately listless horror film.

Unfulfilled with his days working on a tourist fishing boat for a company he doesn’t own, David (Oldman, Darkest Hour) seeks out a cruiser he can invest in to start an excursion business he can manage the way he chooses.  His wife Lisa (Emily Mortimer, Mary Poppins Returns) wants him to be practical with the little savings they do have, so she’s wary when he’s drawn to a ship in bad shape.  As the audience, we know David and Lisa should steer clear of the ship, having been treated to an earlier introduction to the vessel where we get an bloody idea of how her last crew wound up.  David remains resolute and soon, along with their daughters Lindsey (Stefanie Scott, Insidious: Chapter 3) and Mary (Chloe Perrin, Jurassic World) the family has restored the ship and are taking it for a maiden voyage.

Of course, this is when strange things start to happen on board and this is one reason you’ll be glad the movie clocks in at a scant 84 minutes, including credits.  See, the ship might just be under a witch’s curse, having been a Puritan vessel that carted women accused of witchcraft to their watery graves.  Now, a spirit seeks to inhabit the soul of a family member…maybe young Mary.  The family and two crew members aren’t too far out to sea when they experience visions of death and burned corpses, are possessed by an evil host, and just generally go a bit nuts, all culminating in a life or death battle during a particularly nasty storm. The close quarters provide little wiggle room for changes of scenery and the vast ocean horizons give the sense of solitude and just how alone they truly are.

There’s a framework set up in the script from Anthony Jaswinski (who wrote the far more enjoyable Kristy and The Shallows) that takes the air of surprise out of things from moment one.  Opening with one of the characters being interviewed by an officer (Jennifer Espositio, Don’t Say a Word) about the events that happened on the ship, you know the ending already and start to work backward from there.  That unfortunately robs any suspense from the rest of the film and even a last minute, um, Hail Mary, can’t save the awkward plot device.  I never understand why a movie will take this approach without turning it into something more interesting and upending our expectations.  I kept expecting Jaswinski to treat this musty old contrivance with a little more flair – instead I was left feeling this was an early script he dusted off and sold without tinkering with it before turning it in.

Looking at Mary from a 1,000 feet level, one has to wonder how it attracted Oldman in the first place.  Though featured prominently on the poster and billed first (obviously), there’s precious little for Oldman to do for much of the movie, relegating co-star Mortimer to do a fair amount of the heavy lifting which she does admirably.  I kept feeling that wherever the action was taking place, Oldman was on a different deck of the ship, oblivious (or off filming another movie?) to what was going on.  It’s certainly a well-made film that has a clear atmosphere established; television director Michael Goi also served as cinematographer, which I’m guessing added to the film feeling efficiently produced.  The only scares are of the jump variety and Goi at least keeps the movie interesting to look at – I just wish the port of call was a bit more alluring.