NOW PLAYING
Reviews of movies showing in theaters or streaming online
‘DRIVE MY CAR’: In the largely Saab-bound short story “Drive My Car,” part of Haruki Murakami’s collection “Men Without Women,” an actor takes a job playing the title role in Anton Chekhov’s simple, profound comedy of thwarted passions, “Uncle Vanya.” (Few consider it funny, even in productions trying to be, but Chekhov classified it as a comedy.) The story largely unfolds as a series of conversations — officious at first, then gradually more unguarded — between the actor, whose wife has died, and his chauffeur, an isolated young woman most at home behind the wheel. Those car-bound conversations remain central to co-writer and director Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s exquisitely acted expansion of “Drive My Car.” The film ventures into the minds and hearts of many other characters across several weeks, as they rehearse a play demanding the hardest thing a performer can achieve: simple honesty, and self-examination without indulgence. 2:59. 4 stars. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune
‘ENCANTO’: The latest Disney Animation film, “Encanto,” sweeps audiences away to a colorful, enchanted world of Colombian magical realism, introducing the Madrigal family, who have each been granted extraordinary gifts, except one, our heroine, Mirabel (Stefanie Beatriz), who has yet to discover her own personal magic. The Madrigal family magic was borne out of extreme trauma and pain, when matriarch Abuela Alma (Maria Cecilia Botero) lost her husband while fleeing violence in their village. In desperation, she cried out for protection for herself and her infant triplets, and a magical candle raised mountains around a charmed casita, where she’s raised her family since. Each Madrigal receives their gift in a coming-of-age ceremony, whether it’s super strength, high-powered hearing, talking to animals, spinning flowers out of thin air, shape-shifting, future divining, weather controlling or food healing. The only exception to the magical rule so far is the sweet, smart Mirabel, who never received her gift, and has since felt like the family outcast, bending over backward to earn her place among them. As she starts to see cracks in the foundation of their beloved casita, Mirabel probes deeper in to the family’s magic, and ultimately realizes that all of her family members are caught in the trap of perfectionism. 1:39. 3 stars. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
‘LICORICE PIZZA’: Gary Valentine is almost famous. This enterprising hustler parlays his demi-fame into a kind of accidentalon-purpose mystique, that of a 15-year-old LA whiz kid, with one foot in the Industry as a child actor and the other in whatever he’s cooking up at the moment. “Licorice Pizza,” writer-director
Paul Thomas Anderson’s gloriously hazy hangout of a movie, starts from the premise of this San Fernando Valley high schooler putting his idea of “the moves” on 25-yearold Alana. She works as a photographer’s assistant. He first spies her when he’s in line for picture day. Their queasy age difference makes Gary’s ardor, in Alana’s eyes, a foolish delusion. Yet Alana — as played, indelibly, by Alana Haim of the Grammy-nominated sisters band Haim — finds herself weirdly charmed by this boy/man. 2:13. 3 ½ stars. — Michael Phillips
‘NIGHTMARE ALLEY’: I love the way Guillermo del Toro spends a production budget. The director-fabulist behind “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “The Shape of Water” and other trancelike stories wants us to feel, and smell, and taste what he does. The worlds he creates on screen are a part of the world around us, as well as a different one, sprung from his imagination, in cahoots with some brilliant designers. “Nightmare Alley” is del Toro’s latest exercise in methodical cinematic hypnotism. It’s an adaptation of the 1946 William Lindsay Gresham novel. The new film is also in spiritual cahoots with Edmund Goulding’s 1947 film version — pretty nervy for the time, but also largely sanitized by the Production Code. That one starred heartthrob Tyrone Power, in a harsh change of pace. Bradley Cooper takes the Power role this time: He plays Stanton Carlisle, ambitious, rootless carnival worker. First Stan cozies up to the phony clairvoyant (Toni Collette), married to a sweet, dissolute “mentalist” (David Strathairn). Another carny, Molly (Rooney Mara), a beacon of uncorruptible sympathy, becomes Stan’s next stepping stone, stage partner and wife. She’s his way out of the small time, and he’s hers. 2:20. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘RED ROCKET’: According to “Red Rocket,” the latest movie — raunchy, restless, cinematically vital — from writer-director Sean Baker, the oil refinery Gulf Coast town of Texas City, Texas, offers limited options to a guy like Mikey Saber. He’s a onetime LA “adult film actor” played by Simon
Rex in a ripping performance. By bus, Mikey has returned home, bruised and near-penniless, where his long-estranged wife Lexi (Bree Elrod) lives with her wised-up, chain-smoking mother, Lil (Brenda Deiss). Once he finagles his way back into the house for “a few days,” first on the couch and then in Lexi’s bed, “Red Rocket” follows this brazen rake’s progress as he scrambles to get some money and get back out of town. Mikey, with his shifty exuberance and gift for high-velocity gab, is more like a disaster in fast motion, always. How Mikey launches into a heedless double life in Texas City, lying, cheating, enjoying his temporary good fortunes, gives “Red Rocket” its comic momentum. 2:08. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME’: Casting Tom Holland as Peter Parker was one of the sharper decisions to emerge from the ever-present, oxygen-sucking Marvel Cinematic Universe. These movies are designed to never, ever end. Always another intramural sequel or spinoff option. It can get a little wearying, and I say that with the knowledge that, for millions, there is no weariness, only rapture and delight. I’m happy for those people. We all need something. Holland provides the glue and the webbing for the latest Spidey outing “Spider-man: No Way Home.” He’s physically nimble, quick-witted with his darting comic timing and an all-around easygoing presence. When the movie treats the mayhem and brutality for real, he’s there with the right degree of anguish. Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker typically gave 172% in those scenes; Tobey Maguire, somewhere around 60. “No Way Home” makes those comps easy to judge. Director Jon Watts and screenwriters Chris Mckenna and Erik Sommers deliver an extremely busy, generally entertaining venture into the MCU multiverse of alternate timelines, competing versions of the same character and swirling trippiness. If you caught the animated and extremely deft 2018 “Spider-man: Into the Spider-verse,” you’ll get the idea. This film has little of that film’s visual invention but a good deal of its verbal wit. 2:28. 3 stars. — Michael Phillips
‘WEST SIDE STORY’:
Purists can relax, and put their smelling salts away. The vibrant new “West Side Story” hasn’t been updated, or relocated. It’s still a resident of Upper West Side Manhattan in the late 1950s, in the vicinity of what used to be called Lincoln Square and San Juan Hill. But director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner have made sharp, often arresting sense of original librettist Arthur Laurents’ material, born on Broadway in 1957. Jerome Robbins’ dances helped make the Broadway musical a prestige success; the score by Leonard Bernstein and a newcomer named Stephen Sondheim didn’t hurt, either. The
1961 movie, dutiful, square and pretty dull as cinema though full of performance felicities, took care of the smash-hit part of the show’s reputation. Whatever this new adaptation’s popular reception, it’s five times the movie the ’61 movie was. 2:36. 3 ½ stars.
RATINGS: The movies listed are rated according to the following key: 4 stars, excellent; 3 stars, good; 2 stars, fair; 1 star, poor.