Category: 2020s

Gaby Hoffmann must help her ex-husband Scoot McNairy who is suffering from a manic episode, so she calls her semi-estranged brother Joaquin Phoenix to care for her nine year old son. The two males get to know from each other while Phoenix travels around the country interviewing kids for his job as a journalist. It tenderly encapsulates the tentativeness of any new relationship with the missteps and lessons learned. It’s striking that while Phoenix spends his work hours talking to children, he didn’t seem to really understand them until living with his nephew. While the focus is on male bonding, motherhood isn’t short-changed as Hoffmann, even from a distance, is guiding and holding it all together.

Moments before she is set to marry her superstar boyfriend at their wedding/concert, Jennifer Lopez learns he has been cheating on her and instead picks divorced dad Owen Wilson out of the audience and marries him. The film world has been severely lacking in romantic comedies for years and this one surprisingly delivers. The premise is ridiculous and the script seems to accept this starting with the inane, yet catchy, songs and performances. Lopez and Wilson have a natural companionability between them, but it probably speaks to the dying genre that the leads aren’t the hottest twenty-something actors. Instead they are both in their fifties and they aren’t portraying a twilight years romance. 

When young teen Charlie Shotwell discovers an unfinished bunker near his home, he decides to hold his family captive in it. Shotwell’s character feels like he was teleported in from a Yorgos Lanthimos picture, but the rest of the film doesn’t know what to do with him. There’s an unsettled atmosphere in the woods and around the character, but that’s the only thing the film offers.

With the world on the verge of collapse, a group of friends gather at a country estate for what could be their last holiday together. The feeling of impending doom adds to the usual tensions that occur when people who have long history with each other get together with the children, in particular Roman Griffin Davis, providing blunt honesty at moments when the adults are being euphemistic. The film somehow manages to blend dark comedy with drama while keeping its Christmas aesthetic. It may not become a yearly tradition, but I definitely see this being added to the yearly December rotation.    

For Thanksgiving dinner, Beanie Feldstein invites her extended family to her new, currently unfurnished apartment that she shares with her partner Steven Yeun. Each of the family members is struggling with job and relationship issues and the feelings of isolation and unhappiness that comes with each. The dark, rundown apartment with its convoluted floorplan exacerbates how those feelings come across. The cast is top-notch with with Feldstein and Yeun joined by parents Richard Jenkins and Jayne Houdyshell, dementia-stricken grandmother June Squibb, and sister Amy Schumer. I don’t know why Thanksgiving films universally deal with family tension (it makes it hard to find something to relax to on the holiday), but this fits firmly in with the best of the genre.  

Kenneth Branagh’s Poirot’s Egyptian vacation is interrupted by an invite to join Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer on their honeymoon cruise down the Nile. I really enjoyed Branagh’s take on Murder on the Orient Express and this film brings the same glossy coating and bevy of well-known actors. Unfortunately this one is a step down in those regards with overly fake backgrounds and bland main characters. Still Branagh brings a lot of spirit to his character and some of the lesser roles, especially Russell Brand playing it straight, offer quite a bit of support to the production. Having recently travelled on a steamboat, the ship’s set is a gorgeous piece with beautiful art deco details.  

Five women of different nationalities team up to keep a flash drive that can access any digital device on the planet out of the wrong hands, a McGuffin that might have felt much more fresh and urgent twenty years ago. It’s very stupid and lazy with double-crosses and ‘twists’ that are projected from the very beginning. Even the acting, with a cast that includes Oscar winners Jessica Chastain, Penélope Cruz, and Lupita Nyong’o, is lackluster with the writing failing them at almost every turn. Amusingly, the ending seems to suggest the hope for sequels.