MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS

they weren’t? The constructs will feel familiar and well-worn and surprises are few on this journey toward acceptance and friendship, but the pleasure of this film is in the larger than life characters created by the two leads and their perfectly askew chemistry. — Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press

HOLMES & WATSON

enough to accommodate all sorts of travelers. With his seriously gorgeous adaptation of the 1974 Baldwin novel, writer-director Barry Jenkins has responded to Baldwin’s lyrical anguish by creating a world of warmth and possibility amid everyday callousness. Jenkins’ first film since the pearl that was the Academy Award-winning “Moonlight” resembles the novel in some ways. In others, it’s very much its own creation. It’s as if Baldwin had met Jenkins on the boulevard, shaken his hand and said: “It’s all yours now.” The first time we see Alonzo, known as Fonny, and Clementine, known as Tish, they’re strolling down by the river. Tish is 19; Fonny is 22. At this point in “Beale Street’ they’re plainly in love and, as it happens, on the verge of making love for the first time. Friends since childhood, their attraction has grown naturally. KiKi Layne, in a formidable big-screen debut, makes this young woman naïve and vulnerable, but not credulous, or simple. Stephan James’ Fonny matches her step for step; he’s a forcefully charismatic embodiment of a soul mate who has found a soul mate. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

MARY POPPINS RETURNS

age having a problem with Emily Blunt. The actress’s incarnation of the magical, gently fearsome nanny created by author P.L.Travers (who hated Disney’s version) suggests a hint of the paradoxical imperious sparkle Julie Andrews brought to Mary Poppins. Then Blunt adds streaks of witty, sly playfulness that are more her thing. And it all works. The plot deals with a threatened foreclosure on the Banks family home at 17 Cherry Tree Lane, London, and greedy capitalist pigs personified by the steely two-faced banker played by Colin Firth. But then there’s Mary, who arrives via kite this time, and swans around in fabulously smart ‘30s hats and delightful footwear. Lin-Manuel Miranda, that “Hamilton” chap, takes second billing as Jack the lamplighter, who we’re told was once apprentice to chimney sweep Bert. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune PG-13, 111 minutes. Through tonight only at Niantic. Starts Friday at Mystic Luxury Cinemas. Still playing at Westbrook. There are multiple murders, illicit affairs, international intrigue and extremely problematic noses in “Mary Queen of Scots,” and yet, somehow, it’s dull, dull, dull. Josie Rourke’s stiff direction, Beau Willimon’s humorless screenplay and a clunky structure that shifts between the stories of Mary in Scotland and Elizabeth in England (the two never met, although the movie imagines one encounter) doom “Mary,” which follows the title character from her return to Scotland as a teenager after a sojourn in France, to her eventual beheading, all the time fighting to be named Elizabeth I’s successor as the ruler of England and Scotland. The movie is Team Mary all the way. She is depicted as effortlessly pretty, at one with nature and kind to everyone, including the people who betray her. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that even those who were on Mary’s side were not on her side. Luminous Saoirse Ronan does what she can to breathe humanity into the film’s vision of boringly perfect Mary, but it’s Margot Robbie’s Elizabeth — petulant, unstable and perhaps too accustomed to being the smartest person in the room — who emerges as the livelier royal redhead, even if she gets much less screen time. In making her first film, Rourke, whose background is in theater, presides over quite a few bold choices, ranging from Max Richter’s Philip Glassish score to Jenny Shircore’s bonkers hair and makeup, which envisions a penultimate scene in which Elizabeth looks almost exactly like Sideshow Bob from “The Simpsons,” if Bob borrowed Nicole Kidman’s Oscar-winning fake nose from “The Hours.” The theme of the movie is that if Mary and Elizabeth had been men, they’d have been allowed to work out the issues that separated their countries. — Chris Hewitt, Minneapolis Star Tribune

THE MULE

H1/2 R, 116 minutes. Through today only at Waterford. Still playing at Westbrook, Lisbon. Mules are stubborn. Producer, director and star Clint Eastwood no doubt relished the double meaning in the title of his latest film, “The Mule.” The heavily fictionalized drug courier Eastwood plays here wants no part of today’s world of snowflakes and sensitivities and multiracial realities. Nor does Eastwood’s character want anything to do with post-1975 technology; he complains constantly about cellphones, when he’s not calling out Mexicans as “beaners,” or African-Americans as “you Negro folks.” It worked for “Gran Torino.” Who knows, maybe it’ll get by here. If Eastwood’s shooting a poolside scene set at a Mexican drug lord’s mansion, he’s beyond caring if his primary focus offends the wives and daughters of his film’s intended audience. At one point in “The Mule” we actually get a montage of bikini-clad posteriors grinding in close-up. Who says they don’t write good women’s roles any more? It brings me no joy to relay this: From an irresistible “tell me more!” of a true story, Eastwood and his “Gran Torino” screenwriter Nick Schenk have made a movie that feels dodgy and false at every turn. This time, the storytelling — and Eastwood’s own mulish, nostalgic longing for an America of, by and for guys who look like Clint Eastwood — turns terrific raw material into what feels like one fib, duck and dodge after another. — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

ON THE BASIS OF SEX

PG-13, 120 minutes. Niantic, Madison Art Cinemas, Mystic Luxury Cinemas, Westbrook, Lisbon. If you simply can’t get enough Ruth Bader Ginsburg, these last few years have been glorious — a Tumblr account, T-shirts and totes with her face, “Saturday Night Live” parodies, a workout book and a CNN documentary. This year — marking the Notorious R.B.G.’s 25th anniversary on the Supreme Court — will end with another reason to cheer the feminist icon: The feature film “On the Basis of Sex.” Felicity Jones steps into the role of Ginsburg but this adoring biography ends well before she is sworn in as one of the Supreme Court nine. The film is actually the story of Ginsburg as a student and groundbreaking lawyer — a sort of origin story for a real-life super hero. By the time the real Ginsburg makes a cameo in the film, you’ll likely be cheering out loud, as one recent preview audience did. “On the Basis of Sex “is actually split into two parts. The first establishes Ginsburg as a brilliant and indomitable young woman. We see her attend Harvard Law School in the mid-1950s as one of only nine women, all facing a sneering welcome. As if that’s not a big enough ask, she’s also the mother of an infant. And when

her Harvard-attending husband (the wonderful Armie Hammer) battles cancer, she attends all HIS classes as well to take notes for him. Ginsburg still graduates at the top of her class, but no firm will hire her. You know, ‘cause she’s a woman. Truth be told, the second part is the more interesting. The story flashes forward to 1970 when Ginsburg — now a law professor at Rutgers — starts shaping cases she would bring before the Supreme Court, arguing that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment guarantees equal rights for women. — Mark Kennedy, Associated Press

RALPH BREAKS THE INTERNET