Movie Reviews
Movie Review: In ‘Midwinter Break,’ a quiet marriage story with Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds
Stella and Gerry might not have a bad marriage, but they don’t have especially healthy one either. In the new film “Midwinter Break,” out Friday, these two Irish empty nesters beautifully portrayed by Lesley Manville and Ciarán Hinds have become the embodiment of the words “alone together” in their late 60s and early 70s. She goes to church. He reads, and drinks, and passes out on the recliner. Repeat. But one Christmas Eve, Stella decides to break the monotony: She books a trip for two to Amsterdam, departing as soon as possible. Gerry beams that it’s a fantastic idea and off they go to try to get out of their routine and maybe remember why they made this lifelong commitment in the first place.
An adaptation of a Bernard MacLaverty novel of the same name, “Midwinter Break” is a delicate film that stays in a minor key, but whose impact is profound if you can get on its level. Directed by theater veteran Polly Findlay making her feature debut, the film parachutes the audience into the current state of this relationship, in all its quietly contradictory beauty.
These are two people who have walked through most of their adult lives together, raising a child, living a self-imposed exile in Glasgow and now sort of watching the clock tick down on their lives. The film teases that something violent and traumatic happened many years ago in Belfast, but that they don’t talk about that, or the Troubles, at all.
We gather that nothing quite so dramatic has happened since, but you can see the distress in Stella’s face as she sits down for the nth time to remove the plastic wrap to eat some sandwiches she prepared while Gerry sleeps. It seems both then and now, they’ve opted for a change of location instead of a serious chat about things. But there’s nothing like a new location to bring all that buried discontent to the surface.
One of the loveliest things about “Midwinter Break” is how it lets Stella and Gerry be all things at once. In some moments, they’re loving and intimate, sharing a sweet before their flight takes off, laughing in the red-light district and resting their tired feet in their nice hotel room. Other times, they seem like strangers. Stella has only grown more devout as they’ve gotten older, while Gerry can’t be bothered to even accompany her to church. Later in the film, they’ll both explain why, though not to each other.
Amsterdam in winter is expectedly picturesque, and the film makes sure to have Stella and Gerry out in the fresh air as much as possible visiting real sites around town (though the interiors of the Anne Frank House were a recreation). It’s tempting to draw comparisons to the “Before” series, but Jesse and Celine are a little chattier than these two.
This is a relationship that’s all about the small moments and what’s left unsaid, which is tricky to compellingly execute on film. There aren’t big fights or particularly mean words said: And yet when Stella, nearly shaking with nerves, quietly proposes a possible change to their lives, it feels earth shattering. You’re relieved later when she wants to go out and have some fun; Gerry is too.
This image released by Focus Features shows Ciarán Hinds, right, and Lesley Manville in a scene from “Midwinter Break.” Credit: AP/Mark de Blok
These may just be the ordinary, dull rhythms of a relatively stable relationship, and yet these actors make the mundane so much more. It was a brilliant stroke to let “Midwinter Break,” which could have been deadly in the transition from the page to the screen, rest on these two actors in particular, sharing the big screen for the first time. Our investment in Stella and Gerry raises real questions about long-term commitment, assumptions of stability and the possibility of change. It might also have you planning your own Amsterdam getaway in your head, hopefully with fewer weighted silences on the schedule.
“Midwinter Break,” a Focus Features release in theaters Friday, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association for “some strong language, bloody images, alcoholism, suggestive material and thematic material.” Running time: 90 minutes. Three stars out of four.
movie review
TOY STORY 5
Running time: 102 minutes. PG (some thematic elements, rude humor). In theaters.
Long before ChatGPT was a household name, Hollywood had been making AI the villain for decades — from HAL 9000 to Skynet to Agent Smith.
Yet the most emotionally involving spin on the terrors of tech in ages arrives not from groundbreaking sci-fi, but the smart, wonderful and tremendously funny fifth “Toy Story” movie.
That’s a surprise, since it’s a film that I really hoped would never happen. After middling “4,” which was a giant step down from the heartbreaking third, the world was more than ready for Woody and Buzz to ride off into the sunset. Woody actually did.
Well, it’s good that Tom Hanks and Tim Allen got back behind the mike, because the digital age gives Pixar’s playthings a renewed sense of purpose and atypically high stakes. Usually the gang helps a young person stay in touch with their childhood. This time, they save one in progress.
That’s the formative years of little Bonnie (Scarlett Spears), the girl who inherited the dolls from Andy (who’s now, like, 40) in the last movie. She’s 8 years old, paralyzed by shyness and totally friendless. Desperate, Bonnie begs her parents to buy her a Lilypad, an interactive touchscreen that’s all the rage at school.
Yes, the baddie that Woody (Hanks), Buzz (Allen) and Jessie (Joan Cusack) must face this time is an alarmingly cute tablet, voiced by Greta Lee.
So, rather than humanity’s fears of artificial intelligence taking control of the nuclear arsenal or replacing us with cyborgs, director Andrew Stanton’s “5” taps into a much more immediate concern: screens rewiring kids’ minds.
Much like when action figure Buzz arrived, sigh, 31 years ago, the toys are mortified by the mysterious intruder and her luminescent ilk. As they look across their neighborhood, all they can see for blocks are glowing blue windows with zombie youths staring into the 10×10 void.
The end is nigh, they think. How can a cowboy, cowgirl and a space cadet compete against a reactive mini-computer that connects a lonely child to the entire planet?
But these toys aren’t ready for the dark recesses of eBay just yet. They go head to head — or plastic to plastic — with Lilypad, whom Lee gives a voice that’s both bestie and “Mean Girls.”
You may recall lovebirds Woody and Bo Peep went off on their own at the end of the last chapter. Of course, they find their way back, but Jessie is running things now. That’s a refreshing and appropriate switch-up. Cusack’s maternal performance is better suited to this particular adventure than Hanks’ “old buddy, old pal” delivery.
After a sleepover mishap, Jessie winds up lost at another house — her first one, it turns out — where a girl named Blaze (Mykal-Michelle Harris) lives. And it’s there we meet perhaps the best new character in this franchise since 1995: Smarty Pants.
The real misfit toys aren’t the OG crew, we learn, but obsolete computer devices from the aughts. One is Conan O’Brien’s Smarty Pants, a hysterical, hyperactive box that teaches tykes how to use the toilet. He’s been powered down for years and therefore goes berserk when juiced up.
O’Brien is — and I’m sure he’d agree — a toy trapped in a man’s body. He’s practically typecasting. And his demented acting is so energetic and untethered, you can picture Disney security guards hauling him out of the recording studio. I mean that in a good way.
There’s also a lot of fun mined from a shipment of misplaced Buzzes. We check in on the look-alikes occasionally as they morph into a phalanx of determined Navy SEALs to eventually join Jessie and Co.
“Five” is arguably the first new “Toy Story” film to be both watched and understood by the kids of the 1995 original’s millennial audience. That shared experience is very moving all by itself.
But, even more poignantly, who can teach these young parents this vital lesson in 21st-century child-rearing better than their own toys?
3.5/5 stars
The notoriously treacherous hurdles that Hong Kong telecommunications company i-Cable used to put in front of customers looking to unsubscribe from its internet and pay-TV services throughout the 2000s and early 2010s provide the premise of this Kafkaesque comedy-drama – an alternately hilarious and heartbreaking case of raging against the system.
By Susan Granger
With the release of his 35th movie, it’s obvious that Steven Spielberg is not just a good story-teller, he’s a GREAT story-teller.
The suspenseful tale he spins this time is “Disclosure Day” about the U.S. government’s attempt to keep the truth about UFOs secret.
Sinister Noah Scanlon (Colin Firth) heads WARDEX (Waived Reporting, Development and Extraction), a quasi-Defense Department agency from which cybersecurity expert Daniel Kellner (Josh O’Connor) has stolen a powerful device of alien origin along with extensive classified information and video files.
Although his girlfriend Jane (Eve Hewson) is held hostage by Scanlon’s underlings, Daniel manages to free her and get away, igniting a manhunt.
Supported by WARDEX’s Director of Biological Assets, paternal Hugo Wakefield (Colman Domingo), whistleblower Daniel believes people have a right to know about the coverup, dating back to the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, paranoia and the Nixon Administration.
Meanwhile in the middle of a TV broadcast, Kansas City, Missouri, meteorologist Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt) suddenly begins making bizarre, guttural clicking sounds which make no sense – except to Daniel, who recognizes the alien code.
To the bewilderment of her boyfriend, Jackson (Wyatt Russell, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell’s son), Margaret can suddenly speak foreign languages – like Korean and Russian – and manipulate the minds of everyone she encounters.
What Daniel and Margaret have in common is a terrifying childhood trauma that neither wants to remember. To tell you more would ruin the film’s many white-knuckle surprises and insights about faith in a supreme deity and the philosophical essence of humanity.
Scripted by David Koepp from Steven Spielberg’s story, it revolves around a nefarious conspiracy, cloaked in sci-fi mystery, tracing back to “E.T.” and “Close Encounters of a Third Kind.” And it’s a timely topic since former President Obama said he believes aliens are real, prompting President Trump to accuse him of revealing “classified information.”
Sure – there are some gaping plot loopholes – but cinematographer Janusz Kaminski dazzles with a high-speed train chase. Buoyed by John Williams’ throwback score – on the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “Disclosure Day” is an exciting 9, playing in theaters now.
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Susan Granger
Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in Journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has appeared on radio and television as an anchorwoman and movie critic for many years. Read all her reviews at susangranger.com.
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