OPENING THIS WEEK
THE BYE BYE MAN
The titular boogeyman here is not only a shadowy figure who terrifies people in dark rooms, but one who also incites evil and mayhem. When a few college students move into a spooky house and learn about the Bye Bye Man — in particular, how he recently possessed people and made them commit killing sprees — they incur his wrath and must battle him for control of their minds. Rated PG-13. 96 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
CHATTY CATTIES
Once you get past the novelty of talking cats interacting with humans, Chatty Catties is a darkly comic look at relationships between people and their pets. The cats, all voiced by deaf actors — giving the animals distinctly different voices from the humans — are sarcastic and sometimes astute observers of human behavior. The story is centered on Leonard (voiced by John Autry II), a tabby who interjects himself into the love life of his owner Shelby (Megan Hensley), at least when he’s not choosing to ignore her (as cats are wont to do). Leonard is a commentator on human foibles — and human is something most cat owners probably consider their own pets to be, if only they could hear their thoughts. The acting is adequate, but the script is scattered and lacks a punch. The cats don’t actually do much of anything that cats don’t normally do — even their dialogue occurs more telepathically, no CGI moving lips on these felines. Many of the jokes, however, including Leonard’s plethora of one-liners, fall flat, but the cats might just win you over in the end because … cats. Not rated. 84 minutes. In English and feline with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco)
ELLE
“The rape joke cries out to be told,” writes Patricia Lockwood in the 2013 viral poem “Rape Joke.” That’s one way to look at Paul Verhoeven’s French-language thriller starring Isabelle Huppert. The actress portrays the ruthless Michéle Leblanc, who is violently raped by a masked man in the movie’s opening minutes. As Michéle, the head of a successful (and overtly misogynistic) video-game company, Huppert is dead-eyed, direct, and borderline sociopathic. Following her assault, rather than call the police, she orders sushi, gets her locks changed, and charges headlong back into her messy life. The suspects are numerous, as Michéle has supercharged, often sadistic relationships with most men, and when the perpetrator is revealed, she begins to toy with him. Verhoeven (Basic Instinct) loves a demented woman, and Michéle’s detached machinations are the most compelling aspect of Elle, boosted by a Teflon performance from Huppert. But the plot is more twisted than titillating, and despite the film’s having been touted as an empowering tale of revenge, its undercurrents are uglier, emptier, and much more cynical than cathartic. “Imagine the rape joke looking in the mirror, perfectly reflecting back itself, and grooming itself to look more like a rape joke,” Lockwood writes, and therein lies another way of looking at Elle. Rated R. 130 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Molly Boyle)
HUNTER GATHERER
Andre Royo (best known as Bubbles on The Wire) stars as Ashley, a man released after three years in prison, who returns to the old neighborhood to find that his former girlfriend has moved on to someone else. This low-key film by writer and director Joshua Locy doesn’t follow Ashley’s attempts to win back his ex so much as amble alongside him as he makes a new friend named Jeremy (George Sample III), and the two men try to scrounge up some money with a complex scheme involving refrigerator disposal — one of the many ways the story touches on unwanted machinery and appliances, perhaps suggesting the men themselves are equally useless and cast aside. The film’s tone is a bit inconsistent, with the jovial soundtrack contradicting the story’s tragic elements, and it’s not clear if the plot adds up to much, but it’s a well-shot and wonderfully acted character portrait. Not rated. 90 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Robert Ker)
LIVE BY NIGHT
In a meeting of Boston storytellers, Ben Affleck directs his own adaptation of a novel by Dennis Lehane for the second time, after 2007’s Gone Baby Gone. Affleck also takes on the starring role in this Prohibition-era story of a good guy gone bad. He plays Joe Coughlin, the prodigal son of a Boston police captain (Brendan Gleeson), who moves to Florida and becomes a bootlegger and gangster. Elle Fanning, Zoe Saldana, and Chris Cooper also star. Rated R. 128 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
MONSTER TRUCKS
This title is to be taken literally — the movie is about a giant monster named Creech that inhabits the truck of a young dude named Tripp (Lucas Till). With its slimy head poking out of the hood and tentacles sprouting from underneath the chassis, Creech enables Tripp to drive with lots of tricked-out creature features, get into high-octane adventures, and, just maybe, fall in love with a local girl (Jane Levy). Rated PG. 104 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-D only at DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
PATRIOT’S DAY
On April 15, 2013, bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 200 more. Shortly thereafter, law enforcement shut the entire city down to search for the bombers. Mark Wahlberg stars as Sgt. Tommy Saunders in this movie, which aims to paint the lockdown and manhunt in a patriotic light. J.K. Simmons, Kevin Bacon, and Michelle Monaghan are among the co-stars. Rated R. 130 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown; DreamCatcher. (Not reviewed)
PORTRAIT OF A GARDEN
If the paint you’ve been watching has finished drying, you might consider seeing this documentary, which would be roughly as invigorating. Meet Daan, who (we surmise) acquired a large fruit-and-vegetable garden that was in shambles, and eighty-five-year-old Jan, whom he hired long ago to prune the trees. Jan also does some grafting, plus he generally grouses to Daan that gardeners in Holland aren’t respected as once they were, that young people no longer appreciate what it takes to keep a plum tree in good form, and that it has taken 28 years to get the place back in shape. The film follows the plants and the gardeners through a yearlong cycle. You might expect this to provide rollicking off-season entertainment for gardeners, but really it’s just relentlessly dull. Also it’s in Dutch, and the English subtitles are often hard to read against the background of vegetation. Still, if you go you should stay to the bitter end. Otherwise you will miss the final, extended, stationary closeup of soil as well as the credits, which thank people to whom director Rosie Stapel is beholden, including Baruch Spinoza, and give a shout-out to the lighting designer — the sun. Not rated. 99 minutes. In Dutch with subtitles. The Screen. (James M. Keller)
SILENCE
Martin Scorsese returns with another exploration of faith, a subject he has periodically revisited over the years (The Last
Temptation of Christ, Kundun). In his adaptation of Shūsaku Endō’s
1966 novel, Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver play 17th-century Jesuit priests who travel to Japan to spread Catholicism and to search for a missing mentor (Liam Neeson), who supposedly renounced the faith after being tortured. Once there, they find their mission — and retaining their own grips on their beliefs — to be far more challenging than expected. Rated R. 95 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
SLEEPLESS
Jamie Foxx plays Vincent Downs, a corrupt Las Vegas cop who, along with his partner (the rapper T.I.), attempts to steal cocaine from a powerful drug lord (Dermot Mulroney). When they are caught, the Downs’ son is kidnapped, and he must frantically try to make things right and save his boy. Michelle Monaghan and Gabrielle Union also star. Rated R. 95 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed)
THINGS TO COME
Not rated. 102 minutes. In French with subtitles. The Screen. See review, Page 35.