ALSO STREAMING
The Assistant (15)
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Set over the course of a long day in a movie production company run by a never-seen mogul reminiscent of Harvey Weinstein, this debut feature from documentary director Kitty Green (Casting Jonbenet) delivers a remarkably nuanced portrait of the insidious, abusive, horribly toxic nature of an industry built on exploitation, driven by greed and perpetuated by the complex interaction of fear, complicity and self-loathing. The brilliant Julia Garner (Ozark) takes the lead as Jane, a recent college graduate two months into an entry level position at the New York office of a successful indie production company. There she finds her menial administrative work punctuated by systematic abuse from her boss that ranges from verbal insults to eradicating evidence of his transgressive behaviour as he exploits young women hoping to get a foothold in the industry. The way Green shoots the film reflects the elliptical bubble of deniability the film’s absent antagonist creates. Consequently, there’s no defiant moment of triumph for Garner’s character à la The Devil Wears Prada.
This is a film about silence and the morally compromised machinations of the movie industry. Hollywood endings don’t apply.
Amazon Prime, itunes, Curzon, BFI
Diana Kennedy: Nothing Fancy
(N/A)
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Documentary filmmaker Elizabeth Carroll serves up a delectable portrait of the eponymous, now97-year-old British culinary maven who transformed the way the world thinks about Mexican cuisine. Far from being a story of cultural appropriation, Kennedy’s wild, somewhat esoteric life is one of absolute cultural immersion, having fallen in love with Mexico in the late 1950s while her late husband,
New York Times journalist Paul P. Kennedy, was stationed there. In the years since his death (in 1967), she’s dedicated herself to living in Mexico and traveling all over the country to research its food and its people. Accordingly she’s fun, spiky company on film, talking with unabashed candour about her love life (and love of life) one minute and decrying celebrity chefs for plagiarising her recipes the next. The dishes she makes look incredible too. A foodie delight.
Amazon, itunes, Curzon
Extraction (15)
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This generic but ridiculously entertaining big-budget action thriller from Marvel maestros the Russo brothers, sees Thor star Chris Hemsworth take the lead as Tyler Rake, a living-on-the-edge army veteran hired to rescue the kidnapped teenage son of an Indian drug lord from the clutches of “Bangladesh’s answer to Pablo Escobar.” If that makes the film sound ridiculous, well, it is, kind of, but there are some decent little twists and stunt co-ordinatorturned-director Sam Hargrave approaches the pulpy material with a seriousness of purpose, transforming it into a symphony of neck-breaking, car-smashing mayhem.
Netflix
Ema (15)
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A seductive excess of style can’t quite compensate for the somewhat vapid story at the heart of this new film from Chilean auteur Pablo Larraín
(Jackie). Revolving around a punky, sexually omnivorous dancer whose marriage to an older choreographer (Gael García Bernal) has fallen apart amid a catastrophic adoption, the film can’t help but intrigue as it sets up the titular Ema (played by newcomer Mariana Di Girolamo) as a literal and figurative pyromaniac intent on setting her world ablaze. But beyond Larraín’s visually stunning compositions, the narrative sparks that gradually ignite into a fiery story involving an erotically charged plot to make things right with the son Ema has abandoned eventually flame out as torturously as this metaphor. ■
Mubi