The latest film releases include Priscilla, The Killer, What Happens Later, and Rustin. Weighing in are Christy Lemire, film critic for RogerEbert.com and co-host of the YouTube channel “Breakfast All Day,” and Alonso Duralde, film critic and co-host of movie podcast Linoleum Knife.
Priscilla
From director Sofia Coppola, this biopic follows Priscilla Beaulieu as she develops a relationship with Elvis Presley, based on the 1985 memoir Elvis and Me.
Duralde: “Priscilla Presley meets Elvis at 14, and they begin a long distance courtship, but within a couple of years, she has moved to Memphis before even finishing high school, and is living in Graceland. … She is plunged into this world that is alien to her. But she genuinely falls for Elvis. And he at first, when he's around, seems to be very attentive and loving. But as the years pass, he becomes more controlling.
… I think the movie is, in a lot of ways, compassionate towards the fact that Elvis also lived in this strange bubble, where he couldn't really go anywhere, or hang out with people, because he was constantly surrounded by screaming fans. But for Priscilla, she was stuck as the adjunct to all of that, and also had to deal with his forms of abuse and … the substance abuse problem that would eventually end his life.
… It's a very empathetic performance. You understand this woman and why she's placed herself in this position, and why she ultimately feels like she has to leave it. And I think Sofia Coppola is uniquely qualified to tell that kind of story, and she does so very well.”
Lemire: “This is a very lush film in terms of its production, design and the cinematography. So there's a … dreamlike state that we're in, which makes sense for this bubble that Priscilla is in, it feels like a dream and yet she is trapped within it. … She becomes our guide into this sparkling and ultimately nightmarish world. But it takes a departure from that bubble in a way that felt jarring to me from a narrative perspective. And then it just ends.
But Cailee Spaeny is terrific throughout and as believable as a 14-year-old as she is as a 29-year-old. If you love Sofia Coppola's work, this is very much of a piece with that.”
The Killer
David Fincher’s new crime thriller, based on a French graphic novel, stars Michael Fassbender as a professional assassin.
Lemire: “It's beautiful. It's richly, slickly, empty and enjoyable, and I loved so much about it the whole way through. Starting with Michael Fassbender’s performance. There's a cool inscrutability about him and his persona … that is just so perfect. … With the interior monologue — which sometimes can be annoying in other kinds of films — here, it works so well. … As you go along, there's this increasing disparity between what he is telling himself in his mind is how he runs his business, and the reality of what is happening in the outside world, and how he reconciles the two, and the increasing tension and dark comedy that results from that chasm.”
Duralde: “I don't think Fincher has any particular interest in telling us anything about the psyche of the hired killer that we haven't explored in countless other movies or TV shows. And if you're okay with that, and if you are just here to watch somebody who is good at what he does and want to know all the inner workings of how he does it, you'll get that. But if you want to care about this person as a person, that's not really what this movie is about.”
What Happens Later
Based on a play, this romantic comedy stars Meg Ryan and David Duchovny as ex-lovers who are stuck overnight at an airport during a snowstorm.
Lemire: “And so over the course of this evening, because they're both stuck in this airport because of the snowstorm, they reconnect, and they bicker and banter and rehash old regrets and flirt, and it feels very familiar. … It's a good, nice, comforting film. She's got an eye for detail, for some sweet moments and some romantic moments.”
Duralde: “I find these characters insufferable. They're written so artificially, they're such types. And everything that they say to each other feels so crafted and calculated — that not for a second did I really believe either of them as genuine human beings who had had a relationship and were dealing with life's tragedies.”
Rustin
In this biopic, Colman Domingo plays civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a key organizer of the March on Washington. He was also an out gay man, which complicated his relationship with other civil rights leaders at the time.
Duralde: “For years, people would say, ‘What historical figure do you most want to see a biopic made of?’ And my answer was always Bayard Rustin. And so I'm thrilled that this movie finally exists. I will say that it is not rewriting the rules of the biopic, but I think it is an effective one. It does focus on his architecture of the March on Washington, and bringing the disparate parts of the movement together, and dealing with the fact that there were many powerful people in the Black civil rights movement, particularly Roy Wilkins at the NAACP, played by Chris Rock, who at first did not really want the march to happen at all. And then once it was inevitable, did not want Rustin to be readily associated with it because … he was a gay man. He had been a member of the Communist Party even though he had denounced them later, and was himself a controversial figure. But he is an essential figure in the American civil rights movement and a gay man.”
Lemire: “Colman Domingo is always great. He's got just a singular presence — electrifying is a great word for it. In the beginning of this movie … it’s so intentionally over the top as far as his larger-than-life persona that … I can’t tell whether this is awesome or terrible. … Then as it settles down and you see all the colors and all the shadings and everything that he's able to do in depicting this character, I liked it a lot better.”
