Entertainment
Review: Krysten Ritter knows how to write a compelling antihero
Book Review
Retreat
By Krysten Ritter
Harper: 272 pages, $29
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One winter’s night, at a charity gala in a Chicago gallery, a con is on. Liz Dawson, masquerading as art consultant Elizabeth Hastings, finds the mark she has set her sights on, Mrs. Reed. After her bogus sob story elicits the sympathy of the wealthy collector and philanthropist, Liz then piques her interest with the offer of a Keith Haring painting that doesn’t exist. Eventually they part, Mrs. Reed walking away with one of Liz’s business cards, Liz making off with Mrs. Reed’s ruby ring.
Krysten Ritter hooks us with this deft opener to her new novel and reels us in. The Los Angeles-based actor (star of the Marvel series “Jessica Jones”) and author follows her 2017 debut, “Bonfire,” by delivering another thriller fronted by a gutsy, feisty female protagonist. “Retreat” begins by showing what smooth-operating scammer Liz is capable of. But as Ritter thickens her plot and ups the stakes, swapping con tricks for corpses, the book turns into a mystery, one that its antiheroine tries frantically to unravel.
Liz’s problems start small but come in threes. Mrs. Reed’s son plagues her with concerns, and then threats, about the $50,000 investment she persuaded his mother to make for a painting she will never see. A hotel hounds her for unpaid bills. Surely it won’t be long before the police are questioning her about the scarf she left behind at the scene of a recent crime.
Fortunately, Liz is able to leave these cares far behind. When a golden opportunity comes her way to manage an art installation in Casa Esmerelda, an oceanfront villa in a luxury Mexican resort, she enthusiastically seizes it. The property’s owners, venture capitalist Oliver Beresford and his wife, Isabelle, will be in Bali, giving Liz a week to relax and recharge in their gated private enclave. Soon she is sampling the delights of Punta Mita and mingling with the community’s super-rich residents. Some of them mistake her for Isabelle Beresford. Rather than correct them, Liz decides to keep up the pretense — no great stretch for someone so used to sloughing off and trying on one alias after another.
But while hiking with her new friend Tilly, Liz is horrified at coming across two dead bodies. “This is not what I signed up for,” she tells herself. “I don’t do death and danger — not real, life-threatening danger.” To reveal more here would be to spoil all. Suffice it to say, Liz’s grisly discovery heralds a change in her fortunes. Instead of having fun in the sun, she finds herself moving around in the shadows in search of answers. Her sleuthing entails hunting out a secret subterranean office, hacking into emails, sifting layers of deceit, creating “digital deflections” to cover the tracks of a missing person and evaluating whether one character’s dirty deeds could extend to murder. She looks for the truth while hiding behind a false front. But are those around her who they claim they are?
Ritter’s second novel is a fiendish tale of trouble in paradise. Co-written by Lindsay Jamieson, it boasts several strengths: It is expertly paced, tightly plotted and, in places, genuinely gripping. However, “Retreat” has its flaws. It is laced with the requisite twists and turns we expect from this genre, but one big reveal is so big that we see it coming. On occasion the prose is marred by groan-inducing clichés, particularly when it attempts to stoke tension (“My heart pounds; my breath races”) or convey romance (“I let myself get lost in Jay’s dark eyes for a moment”).
However, we forget about faults during the book’s many absorbing episodes. Ritter routinely ramps up the intrigue and drama, such as in one taut scene where Liz scrolls through someone’s phone for clues — and is forced to think on the spot when caught in the act. Ritter also excels with sharp lines about, and acute observations of, the gilded worlds and charmed existences of the privileged elite (a Yale graduate showcases “the naive pride of someone winning at life when they started at the finish line”).
Best of all is the novel’s main character. Liz is a compelling creation, at once smart, sassy and wily, and there is fun to be had watching her slickly outwit credulous individuals. “You’re different from all the other women here. You’re real,” one unsuspecting lady of leisure tells her. It is equally rewarding seeing Liz flounder as she gets more and more out of her depth. “I’m Cinderella after the ball,” she says at one point, “and the spell is wearing off.” Ritter fleshes out Liz and shows more of her vulnerable side through flashbacks to the hard knocks she experienced in her emotionally turbulent past. We come to champion her as the streamlined narrative hurtles toward its shock finale.
Readers who don’t make it that far will no doubt bewail the novel’s unlikely premise and other stumbling-block implausibilities. But it pays just to sit back, suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.
Entertainment
Lucas Museum to give free annual passes to South L.A. neighbors, host community preview day
The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is moving at light speed toward its Sept. 22 opening, announced Thursday that it will give free annual passes to its South L.A. neighbors living in the 90037 ZIP Code. The 300,000-square-foot, $1-billion museum located in Exposition Park will also host a special community preview day on Sept. 13, more than a week before the general public gets to step inside.
The 90037 ZIP Code has a population of more than 65,000 and is bordered roughly by the 110 Freeway to the west, Slauson Avenue to the south, Central Avenue to the east and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the north. Residents can register for passes at lucasmuseum.org/lm37 and will be alerted in August when the program launches. Pass holders can reserve tickets for themselves and one guest.
Tickets for non-pass holders go on sale July 21. They cost $25 for adults and $21 for seniors. Kids 17 and under are free.
“Storytelling has the power to bring people together and create a sense of community,” said Lucas Museum Chief Executive Tracey Bates in a news release about the program. “Through LM37, we are inviting our South Los Angeles neighbors to make the museum part of their lives and take their own path of discovery through the art, programs and experiences that will help shape this new cultural hub for Los Angeles.”
The community preview day is designed to give local business owners, community partners, civic leaders and registered LM37 pass holders a sneak peak of the 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, as well as the expansive gardens with 11 acres of park space.
The opening programming, curated by co-founder George Lucas, features 20 inaugural exhibitions across more than 30 galleries, including one titled “Star Wars in Motion,” containing vehicle designs, high-speed racers, flying vessels, props, costumes and illustrations from the first six films in the beloved franchise.
More than 1,200 objects will be on display from Lucas’ personal collection of narrative art. Highlights include work by Norman Rockwell and Dorothea Lange, as well as a variety of manga, children’s book illustrations and comics.
Movie Reviews
Movie review: Supergirl is a blast
Last year’s “Superman” ended with Iggy Pop singing “Because I’m a punk rocker, yes I am” — an ironic coda for a superlatively square hero. But it rings straightforwardly true for Superman’s cousin.
Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El, or Supergirl, sports not a spandex suit but a Blondie T-shirt. When we meet her in Craig Gillespie’s “Supergirl,” she’s been on an interstellar bender for days. She’s more Courtney Love than Clark Kent.
Nonchalant and sarcastic, Kara is also a little Han Solo-ish, you might say, given that she moves capriciously through the galaxy in her junky spaceship while getting in fights in extraterrestrial bars. She’s a welcome, jagged riff on more buttoned-up superheroes, and Alcock is terrific in the role. If only “Supergirl” was as good as she is.
While the latest DC release, and second under James Gunn’s stewardship, has its moments, “Supergirl” struggles to match Kara’s punk-rock energy with an equally spirited supporting cast and story.
Skepticism seems to have gathered for “Supergirl” ahead of its release. Many fans have argued it wasn’t the right next step for DC Universe. But I’m not so sure. Alcock’s breezy cameo in “Superman” was one of that movie’s highlights. Handing the follow-up to her, and her faithful floating dog Krypto, strikes me as an extremely natural next step. When in doubt, follow the dog.
And much of “Supergirl” is winning. It resides almost entirely in space, touching down only momentarily on Earth. In its consistently creative production design, clever needle drops and underdog story arc, “Supergirl” resides a little closer to Gunn’s “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies than other DC entries. Its outer space is filled with cosmic detritus, mean characters and cute critters. Seth Rogen as the voice of a tiny alien co-piloting a space bus is an inspired concoction, as is a shabbier sci-fi realm with rest stops along the intergalactic highway.
Entertainment
Justin Baldoni and wife break silence after ‘It Ends With Us’ legal battle with Blake Lively
Justin Baldoni has broken his silence after reaching a settlement in a lengthy and highly publicized legal dispute with Blake Lively.
Baldoni and his wife, Emily Baldoni, presented a united front in an Instagram video the couple shared Wednesday that began, “So we have not spoken publicly for the better part of the last two years, and it’s not because we haven’t had anything to say, because Lord knows we have.”
The “It Ends With Us” actor and director said that although they’d wanted to address the debacle that involved dueling lawsuits with Lively, nearly two years of tit-for-tat fodder and culminated in a confidential settlement, “something was telling us not to.”
The couple said they prayed about when to make a public statement. “This feels like the moment,” Emily said.
“What does feel important,” she continued, “is that we can genuinely say that we are sitting here today feeling immense gratitude for so many things and so many people and so many things that have happened to us.”
“Gratitude has saved us,” Justin added.
“I also feel that it’s important as we say that — in that gratitude — it doesn’t negate the injustice and the pain that we have also felt in the last few years, and we’ve had to wrestle with so many things and try to understand so many things,” Emily said. “How could something like this even happen? Let alone disguised as a fight for women. So much to unpack. And the truth is, reality is, is that there’s been a lot of trauma for us to move through as a family, which also makes it hard to speak.”
“We don’t even know this is the right thing to say, but we just know we need to share something,” Justin said. “What I will say is that there have been so many painful things that have been spoken into existence — “
“Untruthful,” Emily broke in.
“We didn’t want to add to the noise, so we just wanted to let the justice system run its course,” he said.
“And the truth and the facts have spoken for themselves,” Emily said.
The couple’s statement comes a year and a half after Lively filed a bombshell lawsuit against Baldoni alleging sexual harassment, retaliation and several other charges on the heels of a messy “It Ends With Us” summer release and press tour that fueled rumors of on-set turmoil.
Less than a month after the allegations against Baldoni rallied Hollywood against him, he countersued Lively, her publicist Leslie Sloane and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for $400 million in damages, claiming they’d smeared his name in the press and wrestled away his control of the film. His suit was later dismissed.
In May, two weeks ahead of the trial, Lively and Baldoni reached an agreement to resolve their legal dispute, bringing an abrupt end to the contentious battle.
“The parties in the Blake Lively and Wayfarer Studios litigation have reached an agreement to resolve the matters,” lawyers for both sides said in a joint statement.
“The end product — the movie ‘It Ends With Us’ — is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors — and all survivors — is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Ms. Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace, including a respectful environment online.”
In June, a federal judge ordered Baldoni and his production company to pay Lively’s attorney fees related to his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against her, but rejected her bid for additional damages.
“So, how are we doing?” the filmmaker said in the Instagram video. “We are healing, and if you’ve ever been through something traumatic, you know that healing isn’t linear. It lives different every day, and we have had to rethink for ourselves what is real. What matters, and it’s this. It’s our family. It’s our friends. It’s our community. It’s our faith.”
Times staff writer Josh Rottenberg contributed to this report.
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