Writer and director Alex Garland maintains his impressive record of checking critics’ boxes following the reception of his hard-hitting movie Warfare, which at the time of writing has reached 94% on Rotten Tomatoes. Based on the real-life experiences of former U.S. Navy SEAL Ray Mendoza, who co-wrote and co-directed the film, Warfare follows in real time a Navy SEAL platoon venturing through insurgent territory and the relentless, nerve-shredding operation that unfolds there. Boasting a star-studded cast that includes Cosmo Jarvis (Shōgun), Will Poulter (The Bear), Joseph Quinn (Fantastic Four), and Noah Centineo (The Recruit), the film has been praised for its immense realism and relentless depiction of soldiers in battle, following on from his already hard-hitting drama, Civil War.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, “Garland is working in peak form and with dazzling technical command in what’s arguably his best film since his debut, Ex Machina.” The Times says, “This is a movie that’s as difficult to watch as it is to forget. It’s a sensory blitz, a percussive nightmare, and a relentless assault on the soul.” Meanwhile, MovieWeb says, “Warfare is a nuts-and-bolts account of ferocious combat, bloody, brutal, and terrifying. It is a visceral cinematic experience that will absolutely floor you.”

When the French Cinémathèque tried to show Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1972 film “Last Tango in Paris” last December as part of a Marlon Brando retrospective, the organizers eventually canceled the screening after vociferous protest from women’s rights groups.

Its infamous rape scene — simulated yet filmed without then-19-year-old star Maria Schneider’s knowledge or consent — has become a #MeToo flashpoint for abusive practices in a male-dominated industry. Decades after making the film, in an interview that stirred new outrage, Bertolucci said that by not telling his female co-lead what he and Brando had devised for the scene, he was ensuring a real response, not a rehearsed one. What went cruelly overlooked was the larger effect of such coercion: lasting trauma for Schneider, whose outspokenness over the years about her experience typically went unnoticed.

Foregrounding that viewpoint is the French film “Being Maria” from director-co-writer Jessica Palud, in which a memorable Anamaria Vartolomei plays Schneider from age 15 to 30-something, and from untested hopeful to jaded survivor. Drawing from a biographical memoir published by Schneider’s cousin seven years after the actor died in 2011, it’s a sensitively handled depiction of what she went through, even as it unsettles our notion of a feminist biopic by framing Schneider’s life as leading up to, and trying to live down, being manipulated and assaulted on camera for the sake of art.

That’s a tricky balancing act for any filmmaker (this is Palud’s second feature), exploring an incident’s psychological toll without further establishing it as the key reason we know someone. But there’s enough of an emotional intelligence inside the bumpier elements of “Being Maria” that the movie effectively acknowledges that it’s only one part of a complicated life story.

When teenage Maria’s interest in film sparks a burgeoning relationship with her distant birth father (movie star Daniel Gélin, played by Yvan Attal), her edgy, judgmental mother (Marie Gillain) kicks her out. At 19, with a few films under her belt, Maria meets white-hot auteur Bertolucci (Giuseppe Maggio), prepping his upcoming drama about anonymous sex between a young Parisian woman and a middle-aged American to be played by Brando. “You’re an actress, aren’t you?” he asks, a line Maggio imbues with enough charming provocation to suggest that the distinction bores him — it’s her woundedness he’s after.

On set, Maria warms to the playful vulnerability of her iconic co-star, played with soulful intuitiveness by a well-cast Matt Dillon. The “Tango” shoot, from its first hesitant laughs to the provoked tears and rage, is this movie’s longest sequence and it’s a paradoxically casual yet tense marvel of curdling atmosphere, showing how creativity and camaraderie can be warped without any checks on power. Palud, a onetime intern for Bertolucci who obtained an annotated copy of the “Tango” script, re-creates the filming of Schneider’s brazen mistreatment but with a reverse-shot angle, capturing the crew’s queasily placid expressions.

That private humiliation designed for public consumption, an incident that sparked notoriety but rarely any emotional support, is all over Vartolomei’s enveloping, subtly agonized portrayal: distracted, depressed, brittle, standing up for herself professionally when subsequent producers tried to exploit her, but cratering in her peripatetic personal life. A worsening heroin addiction eventually threatens Maria’s relationship with a female lover, Noor (Céleste Brunnquell), whose caring attention is welcome after all that’s transpired.

But the post-“Tango” timeline is also the movie’s choppiest, prone to cliched representations of falling apart (hedonistic club dancing, drug-fueled meltdowns) than what’s knotty or illuminating about Schneider’s particular struggle: to forge one’s own way as a bruised star, bearing a reputation not of one’s choosing.

Palud’s directorial emphasis on that internal experience, guided by a simple shooting style trained on Vartolomei, is what keeps “Being Maria” afloat on its turbulent seas. When Bertolucci filmed her in that awful moment, he was lying to himself about the truth he was after. Palud, on the other hand, by embracing a long-ignored perspective, becomes the intimacy coordinator Schneider never had.

Movie Review

Tom Michell does not want to be here.

From the moment Michell arrives in Buenos Aires, Argentina—right at the outset of a military coup in the late 1970s–he makes this clear to anyone that will listen.

Hired to teach English at a male boarding school through a tenuous connection to the current headmaster, Michell spends more time with newspaper crosswords than teaching comma rules to his class.

After a few days, the military dictatorship claims control of the city, forcing the boys home. With their impromptu holiday, Michell and the school’s physics teacher travel to Uruguay looking for, in Michell’s words, a chance to “dance, drink, and meet a couple of nice ladies.”

Michell finds just what he was looking for. An evening of flirtation and dancing turns to a nice morning walk on the beach with a woman. But that lovely walk is marred when, in the sunrise, they encounter an oil slick covering the beach. And in that slick are the penguins. Dead, oil-soaked penguins.  

Only one penguin seems to have survived the catastrophe, and it’s barely alive, wiggling its beak and wings in the grime of the oil spill.

Michell’s curmudgeonly reply is to leave the penguin to die. “There’s nothing we can do…You can’t interfere with nature.”

But the woman’s not so inclined to walk on by. She demands they do something, and Tom (who is certainly interested in the woman, if not the penguin) finally agrees. They pick up the oiled penguin and sneak him into their hotel to clean him up.

But romance and oily penguins don’t mix well. Tom’s attempt at seduction quickly fails and the woman leaves him alone with the penguin.

Michell and the penguin stare at each other. They both seem to know he has a choice: One, Michell could try to dump the penguin back on the beach in Uruguay, leaving the bird to its fate. Or two, the teacher could somehow smuggle his new penguin friend through customs back to Argentina and onto campus and evade the strict “no pets” policy at the school.

For fans of animal-centered dramedies, it is not hard to guess what happens next.

But Michell and his penguin (whom he later affectionately names Juan Salvador), are both about to learn how much you really can change when nature interferes with you.