WHITE BOY RICK
just with a twist or two. Our hero, Migo (Channing Tatum), is a happy-go-lucky Yeti who loves his small snowy village so much he sings a song about the way it works in perfect harmony. Yes, you may be getting flashbacks to “Where You Are” from “Moana,” or “Belle” from “Beauty and the Beast,” but Migo is far more loyally unquestioning and optimistic than his Disney counterparts. But as soon as you hear the song, we know where we’re going with “Smallfoot” — a young, but brave naïf who loves their home will, by some turn of events, be thrust outside of their comfort zone, discover something new, go on an adventure and question everything they’ve ever known. And that’s exactly what happens. Migo has a chance encounter with a smallfoot pilot who crash lands on the mountain. He tries to tell his village, though he’s rebuffed and outcast by the Stonekeeper (Common), who denies his assertion. So Migo hooks up with the secret Smallfoot Evidentiary Society, and they go hunting for evidence of smallfoots. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
UNBROKEN: PATH TO REDEMPTION
PG-13, 98 minutes. Westbrook. “Unbroken: Path to Redemption” serves as a bit of a coda to Angelina Jolie’s 2014 film about the amazing World War II survival story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini. For “Path to Redemption,” the action starts back home, after the near-death experiences and hero’s welcome. Written by Richard Friedberg and Ken Hixon, directed by PureFlix journeyman Harold Cronk, “Unbroken: Path to Redemption” is a story about PTSD and the difficulties of normal life after surviving events that are very much not normal. The highs and lows go away, and plopped back in suburban Torrance, Calif., war hero Louis (Samuel Hunt) finds himself at loose ends and at the bottom of the bottle, the only way he knows how to cope with the terrifying flashbacks he endures of his crash, the raft, the prison camp and the Japanese guard that tormented him, “Bird” Watanabe (David Sakurai). There’s not all too much story to fill in the gaps left untold by Jolie’s film, but “Path to Redemption” zeroes in on Louis’ struggles to adapt back to life, even after getting married to his wife, Cynthia (Merritt Patterson), and having a daughter. It’s an endless cycle of nightmares, drinking and career failures until Louis inches closer to rock bottom. It’s not until his wife convinces him to attend a tent revival hosted by Billy Graham (played by Graham grandson and preacher Will Graham) does Louis see another way out. The journey from rock bottom to seeing the light is one we’ve seen before, and this film doesn’t break the mold. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service R, 110 minutes. Through tonight only at Stonington, Waterford, Lisbon. Even in the well-trod genre that is the 1980s drug movie, the true life story of teen drug kingpin Ricky Wershe Jr., aka White Boy Rick, stands out. The baby-faced baller moved serious weight in Detroit in the mid-’80s, and the legend surrounding him is larger than the real, tragic story. Director Yann Demange’s film “White Boy Rick” balances these details, both outlandish and intimate, carefully. For the film adaptation, Demange conducted a search for a non-professional actor to embody the young, streetwise Rick and discovered the remarkable 15-year-old Richie Merritt from Baltimore to star, his first acting role ever. Merritt is charming, authentic and incredibly watchable, but he gets a heavy-duty assist from his most frequent scene partner, Academy Award-winner Matthew McConaughey, in his full sleazebag mode as Rick Sr., a shady gun dealer. — Katie Walsh, Tribune News Service
THE WIFE
PG-13, 100 minutes. Through tonight only at Madison Art Cinemas and Mystic Luxury Cinemas. Still playing at Niantic. Made by adults for adults, “The Wife” is an intimate drama that offers an inside look at a marriage and the dark bargains couples sometimes have to make with each other. Expertly pared by screenwriter Jane Anderson from Meg Wolitzer’s celebrated novel — and sensitively directed by Swedish filmmaker Björn Runge — “The Wife” features Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, fine actors who can convey a lot without doing too much. This strong acting, especially by Close, helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely. “The Wife” is a revealing look into the 40-year relationship of Joan and Joe Castleman, played by Close and Pryce. When Joe wins the Nobel Prize for literature, the award exacerbates strains in the marriage and exposes arrangements that may have outlived their usefulness. But, as its title indicates, “The Wife” is not a portrait of a marriage so much as a compassionate portrait of a mid-20th century creative woman and the compromises she felt she had to make to survive. The film’s success is impressive because of two obstacles it had to overcome, starting with the absence of the witty, acerbic language Wolitzer created for Joan as the novel’s narrator. Also, because the book is something of an extended metaphor about the societal position of women, putting its story squarely in the real world — by having Joe win the Nobel instead of the novel’s fictitious “Helsinki Prize” — makes the movie’s underlining plot point more of a stretch than it otherwise would be. But when Close and her costars command the screen, we can forgive problems and simply enjoy. — Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times