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Movie Review: A musical, pulpy crime thriller, ‘Emilia Pérez’ swings for the fences

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Movie Review: A musical, pulpy crime thriller, ‘Emilia Pérez’ swings for the fences

There is so much going on in “Emilia Pérez,” the audacious musical/melodrama/crime-thriller from filmmaker Jacques Audiard, it’s impossible not to appreciate the sheer ambition of it all.

There is obvious craft and moments of true transcendence, beauty and horror. Set around Mexico City, this is a movie about family, about ambition, about the possibility of change, cartels, human disappearances, gender-affirmation, money and corruption.

Sometimes the characters break into fantastical musical numbers: Some are filled with rage, others with joy and hope. Other times the songs come out in barely a whisper. And yet even with all that life and color and passion on screen, there’s a distinct rift between all those big emotions that the characters are cycling through and what the audience is feeling, which is practically nothing. It’s almost as if “Emilia Pérez” forgot to invite us along for the ride.

And it is quite a ride: One day a cartel boss named Manitas ( Karla Sofía Gascón ) has a smart, but undervalued lawyer Rita Mora Castro ( Zoe Saldaña ) kidnapped. Manitas wants gender confirmation surgery, and for Rita to handle the logistics: Hiring the discreet surgeon, faking Manitas’ death and transporting the wife, Jessi ( Selena Gomez ) and two kids to their new home in Switzerland. In return, Rita will get rich. Somehow, this is only the first act.

Four years later, Rita’s gotten a glow up. Gone are her bush eyebrows and frumpy suit, replaced with the kind of grooming only money and genetics like Saldaña’s can produce. And she’s leading a cosmopolitan life in London, something that we get to see all too briefly, when she meets another woman who’s gone through a major transformation, Emilia Pérez (Gascón).

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Audiard plays briefly with the idea that Rita assumes Emilia is there to kill her, to rid the world of any remaining evidence of those who know what happened. In actuality, she just misses her kids and wants them back in Mexico to live with her. It’s up to Rita to get them to move once more, in with Emilia, posing as an aunt they’ve never met before if you’re wondering where all those “Mrs. Doubtfire” comparisons come into play. ( The bloody “Sicario” stuff is yet to come).

Saldaña lends a captivating fierceness to Rita, despite being a terribly underwritten character. It’s strange to spend so much time with someone and feel entirely detached from who they are and what they want. She just follows others around, a receptacle for everyone else’s decisions with little arc or agency of her own.

Saldaña in a scene from “Emilia Pérez.” (Shanna Besson/Netflix via AP)

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Early on in the film Rita debates (in song) with a plastic surgeon in Hong Kong about whether or not changing the body has any effect on the soul. He doesn’t think so. She does, and even goes a step further, singing “changing the soul changes society, changing society changes everything.” It’s a lovely idea that the film handles clumsily in its maximalist, go-for-broke way that values massive set-pieces and high drama over authentic emotion.

At first Emilia seems entirely changed, no longer the vindictive, jealous, violent cartel leader she once was. She is soft spoken, empathetic and happy. She starts a foundation to find all the disappeared people and give their families the chance of a proper burial and farewell. She even finds love. And yet she can’t handle watching Jessi move on. It’s the stuff of soap operas — and not necessarily the fun ones. Here, it could even read as dangerously reductive.

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Gomez in a scene from “Emilia Pérez.” (Shanna Besson/Netflix via AP)

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Jessi sometimes feels like she’s part of an entirely different film, or rather a music video that seems to be paying homage somehow to Pedro Almodóvar, David Lynch and Robert Rodriguez. It is fun and wild at times, and Gomez fully commits to the bit of this woman who is being gaslit into insanity. But she and the film crescendo into absurdity, with little in the way of relief or catharsis. After all those big ideas, all those grand themes and genre-subverting gestures, we’re left with shockingly little to hold on to.

“Emilia Pérez,” a Netflix release in theaters Friday and streaming on Nov. 13, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “some violent content, sexual material, language.” Running time: 132 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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Movie Reviews

Brandon Rhiness’s ‘GROTESQUE 2’ (2024) – Movie Review – PopHorror

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Brandon Rhiness’s ‘GROTESQUE 2’ (2024) – Movie Review – PopHorror

Recently I reviewed my new indie horror obsession Grotesque, which features slasher icon in the making Mildred Moyer. Director/writer Brandon Rhiness was kind enough to let me check out Grotesque 2 for review.

How does it hold up to the original? Read on for my thoughts.

Synopsis

Mildred Moyer is at it again, unleashing her unique brand of vengeance on a corrupt religious organization that took advantage of her and others.

Grotesque 2 was written and directed by Brandon Rhiness (Grotesque) from a story by Rhiness and Julie Whelan. The film stars Elizabeth Chamberlain returning as Mildred Moyer, Jaime Hill (Grotesque), Nick Gauthier (Hot Box), Julie Whelan (Grotesque), Natasha Hurlburt, Laura Fuentes (I’m Haunted 2), Jarvis Greiner (Grotesque), Chris Schuler (Grotesque), and Alice Wordsworth.

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I really enjoyed getting to see Mildred Moyer return in Grotesque 2, though it kind of shattered the sense of happiness she found in the original. I liked that the story took its time to develop and spent time establishing the villains of the story and how truly awful they are. The villains are a corrupt religious organization who steals from those in need of prayer, and drugs their congregation into compliance. The fact that they were so awful made their deaths all the more satisfying.

Speaking of deaths, we get a ton of them here, one of my favorites being a woman who gets cut in half. The deaths lean heavily into comedy and Mildred Moyer’s trademark one liners are back. Some of them are pretty cringe but the film leans into it by having Mildred poke fun at just how bad some of them are.

I enjoyed how people kept telling Mildred that she looks like infamous serial killer Mildred Moyer and how she thought on her feet and hilariously figured out ways past it, like, “I have glasses and she didn’t.” I loved Mildred’s look in Grotesque 2 and how it was an inverse of her look in the first film. I thought it was cool that so many actors from the original returned as different characters. I loved how the story came full circle and tied everything back to the original and wrapped up some loose ends.

The one thing I didn’t really care for was the ending, which left me feeling pretty upset as it seems to mark a definitive ending to the series. Besides that one complaint I really enjoyed the hell out of Grotesque 2.

Final Thoughts 

Grotesque 2 is a fun slasher sequel that leans into the comedy present in the original and brings the story full circle. Highly recommend.

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Anora | Reelviews Movie Reviews

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Anora | Reelviews Movie Reviews

Going into Anora, I wasn’t sure what to expect but it
certainly wasn’t a screwball comedy. Yet, following an explosively erotic, wild
twist on the Pretty Woman cliché, writer/director Sean Baker guides his
movie into an extended period of warped comedy. By the third act, he returns to
a drama-based foundation, focusing on concluding with a modicum of closure but Anora
stands out as an airy experience full of surprises (big and small), all
anchored by Mikey Madison’s tremendous performance.

Madison is a revelation as the title character, stripper
Anora “Ani” Mikheeva, who lives in Brooklyn and works in an upscale club in Manhattan.
Madison has mastered the accent and attitude of someone eking out an existence
in Ani’s circumstances. The character is bold and brassy, taking shit from no
one (including her fellow dancers) and seizing any opportunity that comes her
way. Madison is fearless, seemingly comfortable with the nudity required for (numerous)
scenes in the film’s first 45 minutes (she reportedly felt so at ease with
Baker and her co-star, Mark Eydelshteyn, that she turned down the offer of an
intimacy coordinator) and showing an admirable capacity for physical comedy
during the film’s midsection. But her most remarkable moment comes during the
final scene.

Early in Anora, Baker, who has a gift for a you-are-there
filmmaking, takes the viewer behind-the-scenes at the strip club where Anora
works, providing glimpses of how the dancers view their work. The conversations
aren’t fundamentally different from what one might hear from servers in
restaurants or performers in a stage show. This is a job. They know how to do
it and how to skirt the rules to get the best tips. Anora is willing to do a
little extra on the side (off club grounds) to make some additional cash but
she’s not cheap and doesn’t perceive herself as a prostitute. In fact, she
bristles at being called a “whore” or “hooker,” evidence to the contrary.

Her fortunes, which are illustrated briefly with a shot of
her flat, take a turn for the better when the club owner introduces her to
Vanya (Eydelshteyn), the spoiled scion of a Russian oligarch who’s looking for
a good time with a woman who can speak Russian (one of Anora’s talents). Smitten
and unsatisfied with what she offers in a VIP room, Vanya asks for a meeting at
his mansion and the two are soon negotiating a deal where she will be his
exclusive, live-in “girlfriend” for a week (she gets $15K for the job). While
on a trip to Vegas, Vanya impulsively proposes and the two return to New York
as a wedded couple. This news alarms Vanya’s Armenian handler, Toros (Karren
Karagulian), who is ordered by Vanya’s irate parents to “take care of” the
situation. When his bumbling henchmen, Garnick (Vache Tovmasyan) and Igor (Yura
Borisov), arrive at the mansion, Vanya is initially stubborn and belligerent but
then runs away, leaving Anora to deal with the Three Stooges.

Vanya’s flight signals a shift in tone from the playful
romantic interaction between the newlywed couple to the comedic interactions
between Anora and her three captors. It’s a twist on O. Henry’s “Ransom of Red
Chief,” where the victim is more than the kidnappers can handle. Although this
segment probably goes on a little too long (the movie as a whole feels like it
could benefit from some trimming, mostly during the third act), it vacillates
between darkly amusing and laugh-out-loud funny. The thugs aren’t particularly menacing
and Anora never seems to be in danger. By the time Anora reaches its
final 40 minutes, the Baker shifts into a more grounded exploration of the emotional
toll of the experience on Ani.

In 2017, when Baker had his international breakthrough with The Florida Project, I remember being surprised at how engaging such a small, seemingly
simple production could be. I wrote the following: “The Florida Project feels genuine from start to finish and Baker
doesn’t wander onto a Hollywood-inspired detour despite many opportunities.” Some
of those same qualities are evident in Anora. By using handheld cameras
(but not in a way that threaten to bring on nausea) and favoring longer takes,
Baker opts for a gritty, intimate perspective to present a narrative that could
best be described as a twisted fairy tale. He navigates tonal switches and
story beats that could doom another production but which end up elevating this
one.

Anora has proven to be liked by both critics and
everyday movie-goers, at least those that give it a chance. (I saw it on its
local opening night and there were only a dozen attendees.) After winning the
Golden Palm at Cannes, it went on to capture the Audience Award at Toronto and
currently holds a 91 rating (Universal Acclaim) at Metacritic. But marketing
the film has proven tricky for distributor NEON. The movie’s essential
qualities don’t translate well to a two-minute trailer and the confusing platform
release strategy has left some viewers uncertain when it might open at a
theater near them. Here’s hoping the movie finds its audience because it’s one
of the freshest and most audacious films available in this year’s sparse
cinematic landscape.

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Anora (United States, 2024)





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Janaka Aithe Ganaka Movie Review (Aha)

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Janaka Aithe Ganaka Movie Review (Aha)

Overview:
“Janaka Aithe Ganaka” is a comedy-drama starring Suhas, crafted with a mix of humor and emotions. Directed by Sandeep Reddi Bandla and produced under Dil Raju Productions, the film was released in theaters on October 12 and is now streaming on Aha.

Plot Summary:
The story follows Prasad (Suhas), a middle-class man from a modest family, which includes his wife (Sangerthana), parents, and grandmother. Prasad’s life is marked by financial struggles, making him firmly believe that one should only have children if they can provide a comfortable life. This perspective intensifies when he sees his friend Kishore (played by Vennela Kishore), a struggling lawyer, grappling with raising his kids due to financial constraints.

When Prasad learns his wife is unexpectedly pregnant, he is startled, questioning how this could happen despite his strict family planning. Discovering a possible failure of the contraceptive he used, he decides to sue the company for compensation. The case takes them to court, where Prasad’s decision brings a series of challenges, ultimately leading him to a realization about family and responsibility.

Analysis:
The title, “Janaka Aithe Ganaka,” carries an embedded humor, suggesting the burdens of fatherhood. The movie starts by exploring the dynamics of a middle-class family and then transitions to a court drama with Rajendra Prasad as the judge and Murali Sharma as a prominent lawyer. The courtroom scenes blend humor with societal issues, particularly the challenges middle-class families face and the impact of these on parental emotions.

The film centers on the concept of family planning, which becomes both its strength and limitation. While individual viewers might find the storyline amusing, watching the film with family could be somewhat uncomfortable due to the focus on contraception. Nevertheless, the humor, especially from Vennela Kishore and the scenes with Prasad’s grandmother, adds a lively element.

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The film’s twist ending, leaving audiences laughing even after the credits roll, is a high point, enhancing the overall narrative with an unexpected and comedic punch.

Performance:
Suhas delivers a natural performance that resonates with his character’s struggles. Debutant Sangerthana as his wife fits well in her role. Vennela Kishore, portraying a frustrated father, brings humor, while seasoned actors Rajendra Prasad and Murali Sharma add depth and authenticity to the court scenes.

Technical Aspects:
Director Sandeep Reddi’s narrative approach and character development are commendable, weaving humor and social commentary seamlessly. Vijay Bulganin’s music, Sai Sriram’s cinematography, and Kodati Pavan Kalyan’s editing contribute to a polished, engaging presentation.

Verdict:
Janaka Aithe Ganaka” is a light-hearted comedy that addresses middle-class concerns with a humorous touch. While it may not resonate with everyone, it’s a decent watch for those looking for a blend of humor and relatable issues.

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