WONDER WOMAN
One of the most touching moments of co-writer/director Gurinder Chadha’s “Viceroy’s House” comes at the end of the film, when she reveals her family’s personal experience during the strife and unrest India experienced upon its independence in 1947, after three centuries of British rule. When the borders of India were re-drawn to create Pakistan, more than 14 million people were displaced, in the largest mass migration in history, as Muslims traveled to Pakistan, and Hindus and Sikhs left their ancestral homes to immigrate within the newly drawn borders. Chadha’s acknowledgement of her family’s story is a poignant reminder of how this event continues to influence the political climate between India and Pakistan, and touch the lives of the people there in intimate ways. Based on the book “The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of India’s Partition” by Narendra Singh Sarila, Chadha and co-writers Paul Mayeda Berges and Moira Buffini apply the “Upstairs, Downstairs” formula to the story of India’s last British viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville). Taking the viceroy’s house as a microcosm of the cultural climate in India at that time, Chadha explores the political and romantic dramas of the government leaders and the house staff, and especially those moments when they bleed into each other in such a close setting. As Lady Edwina Mountbatten, Gillian Anderson is wonderfully steely, blending empathy with a no-nonsense approach to problem-solving. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
WIND RIVER
1/2 R, 111 min. Through tonight only at Niantic. Still playing at Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. Wind River is the name of Wyoming’s only American Indian reservation, 2.2 million acres of mountain and snow, poverty and drug addiction, crime and predators — not all of them wolf or bear. It’s also the setting for a classy shocker that adds to the already impressive filmography of Taylor Sheridan. Here the screenwriter of the excellent quasi-Westerns “Sicario” and “Hell or High Water” proves extremely talented on both sides of the camera. Directing his own script, he displays the cool, confident control of a seasoned veteran. Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) discovers the frozen body of the Native American girl in the wilds. His report triggers an investigation by the FBI to determine if her death was a homicide committed on the reservation and thereby under federal jurisdiction. The assignment goes to novice Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen). — Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune
1/2 PG-13, 141 minutes. Through today only at Westbrook. It’s taken 76 years for Wonder Woman to get her own film. It’s a pleasure to report that “Wonder Woman” more than delivers on its promise. The keys to its success lie in the two women at the heart of the film, director Patty Jenkins and star Gal Gadot. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service