THE FRONT RUNNER

Grindelwald lands in Paris, Newt is dispatched to go after the fugitive wizard by his former Hogwarts teacher, Albus Dumbledore (Jude Law, looking not a bit like he could ever grow old enough to turn into Michael Gambon). — Michael O’Sullivan, The Washington Post R, 113 minutes. Lisbon. Come closer, children, and listen to the tale of what politics was like before TMZ. Back in those dark ages, reporters simply didn’t dig around and ask embarrassing questions of people running for office. They certainly did not bring up infidelity. According to the fascinating new film “The Front Runner ,” that all changed in the spring of 1987 when the first major politician to be grilled on his sex life was presidential hopeful Sen. Gary Hart, spotted cozying up to a woman who was not his wife. He went from leading the Democratic field to being a political footnote in under a month. “A lot can happen in three weeks,” the filmmakers remind us. This year marks the 30th anniversary of Hart’s implosion and the list of politicians subsequently forced to face inquiries about their sex life has been long. As it turns out, a lot of their falls from grace tell us as much about us as it does about them. Director and co-writer Jason Reitman’s nicely understated and nuanced film sees Hart’s collapse from multiple angles — Hart himself, his campaign troops, his wife, his mistress and the newspaper reporters who seemed to surprise themselves by bringing the politician down. There is so much villainy and yet precious few villains here. Hugh Jackman plays Hart as a policy wonk with his head in the clouds, flustered that anyone would be crass enough to ask who he shares his bed with. When asked whether he had committed adultery, he waffles: “I guess I don’t think that a fair question.” Wait, what’s that smell? It’s Hart becoming toast. But don’t expect journalists to come off like white knights. Reitman perfectly captures the nervousness that the scandal makes news executives feel, the sickness some feel covering it, the crushing rivalry between newspapers and the bickering about whether to take a high or a low road. Where the film seems to widen its subject — and makes itself relevant in the midst of the #MeToo movement — is the way it captures the twin pain of the women Hart has hurt — his wife, played beautifully by Vera Farmiga, and his mistress, Donna Rice, portrayed with sweetness and vulnerability by Sara Paxton. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

1/2

PG-13, 130 minutes. Madison Art Cinemas, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Westbrook. If there is a big studio movie that’s more generally crowd-pleasing than “Green Book “this season, I have yet to find it. In this landscape of challenging, provocative, edgy films, Viggo Mortensen, Mahershala Ali and, of all people, director Peter Farrelly have come along with a movie about friendship that goes down so easy that it’s almost suspect, as though it were flung out of 1996 and gifted to our weary 2018 brains. Based on a true story, “Green Book” recounts a 1962 road trip when a Bronx bred Italian-American Frank Anthony Vallelonga, also known as Tony Lip (Mortensen), was hired to drive a renowned black pianist, Dr. Don Shirley (Ali), to all of his concert engagements across the Deep South. The two men are obviously mismatched — what would anyone have to learn if they weren’t? Tony is a working-class bruiser and world class eater with a wife (Linda Cardellini), two sons, a limited vocabulary, institutional racism, but a generally good heart. Dr. Shirley is a wealthy, erudite dandy, a master of his art, a snob and a loner. He also knows he needs reliable protection on this journey to a segregated south, asks around and finds this Copacabana bouncer Tony Lip is the one for the job despite the prejudices. The constructs will feel familiar and well-worn and surprises are few on this journey toward