Chile Pages
GOLDEN EXITS Filmmaker Alex Ross Perry (Queen of Earth) has brought together a talented ensemble cast for this showcase of artsy urban narcissism, hypocrisy, and crushing depression. Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys plays Nick, a middle-aged archivist married to Alyssa (Chloe Sevigny) — a deeply repressed psychotherapist. Nick is under the thumb of his sister-in-law, Gwendolyn (Mary-Louise Parker), who is in charge of his latest project. In their orbit are Nick’s intern, Naomi (Emily Browning), a twenty-five-year-old Australian beauty, and Buddy (Jason Schwartzman), an old family friend whom Naomi would like to know better. We also meet Nick’s wife, Jess (Analeigh Tipton), and her sister, Sam (Lily Rabe). Each shot is finely composed but also overly precious, and most of the characters are so opaque and difficult to relate to that Golden Exits might function best as a clever exercise in cultivating audience ambivalence. Rated R. 94 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jennifer Levin) I CAN ONLY IMAGINE The rock band MercyMe’s 1999 hit song “I Can Only Imagine” crossed over from Christian radio stations and became a mainstream hit in the early 2000s. In this retelling of that story, J. Michael Finley plays MercyMe singer Bart Millard, who wrote the song in honor of his father (Dennis Quaid), who passed away when he was eighteen. Rated PG. 110 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) JOSIE Hank (Dylan McDermott) is a loner with a secret eating away at his soul — until Josie (Sophie Turner), a high school senior with no parents and a secret past of her own, comes to town. She befriends him, arousing the suspicions of Hank’s nosy neighbors, who think that Hank, a much older man who has only his pet tortoises for company, is asking for trouble. They’re right. Josie seems to be trying to seduce him, but she also has an ulterior motive. She starts a relationship with Hank’s longtime nemesis Marcus (Jack Kilmer), another high school kid, and seems to be playing them against each other. The problem with director Eric England’s slow-burn thriller is that it goes off the rails — the script veers into ridiculous territory and Josie’s character motivations seem contradictory. Josie is a twisted tale of revenge that just doesn’t ring true. Not rated. 100 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Michael Abatemarco) OH LUCY! Rated R. 95 minutes. In Japanese and English with subtitles. The Screen. See review, Page 31. LOVE, SIMON Nick Robinson plays Simon, a teenager who hides the fact that he is gay from his friends and family. Through an anonymous online correspondence, he develops a crush on a classmate who is similarly in the closet. As Simon tries to figure out the identity of this potential paramour, another student (Logan Miller) discovers his secret and attempts to blackmail him. This coming-of-age (and coming out) romance is based on Becky Albertalli’s young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Rated PG-13. 109 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) ROGERS PARK Rogers Park is one of Chicago’s most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods — a fact that is showcased throughout this character-driven movie of the same name, written by Carlos Treviño and directed by Kyle Henry. A rainbow of friends, neighbors, family members — along with Lake Michigan — populate this finely acted ensemble drama that focuses on the communication issues of two couples, Deena (Christine Horn) and Chris (Jonny Mars), and Chris’ sister Grace (Sara Sevigny) and Zeke (Antoine McKay). Rogers Park is an old-fashioned chatty movie that shifts our understanding of the couples’ dynamics scene by scene, with themes of romantic fidelity, mental health, and economic stability taking center stage. The complex and rewarding character arcs linger in the mind long after the closing credits. Screens at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, March 18, only, followed by Q&A with director Kyle Henry. Not rated. 87 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jennifer Levin) 7 DAYS IN ENTEBBE In 1976, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The flight was diverted from Paris to Entebbe, Uganda, where the Ugandan government under Idi Amin hoped to trade the hostages for imprisoned Palestine militants. After a week of planning, Israel Defense Forces sent in commandos, who successfully freed most of the hostages in a violent rescue mission. This movie tells the story from both sides’ point of view, with Rosamund Pike headlining the cast as one of the militants. Rated PG-13. 106 minutes. Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) SOUVENIR A handsome young boxer (Kévin Azaïs) begins a new job at a paté factory, which he finds quite dull until he discovers that one of his coworkers, Liliane (Isabelle Huppert), was long ago a competitor in an international song contest similar to Eurovision (she even lost to Abba, one of Eurovision’s biggest success stories). He convinces her to attempt a comeback, agreeing to be her manager and, in short order, the two become lovers. At first, the film plays out like a touching fable in which two unlikely, lonely souls find each other. As Liliane navigates the shark tank of the music industry, however, the relationship is tested mightily. Huppert is as stellar and affecting as ever, and Azaïs nearly steals the film from her with a quietly charismatic performance of his own. Unfortunately, both of their work is wasted on a story that is ultimately trifling, falling along predictable lines and never putting an engaging spin on its tropes. Not rated. 90 minutes. In French with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Robert Ker) TEHRAN TABOO Not rated. 90 minutes. In Persian with subtitles. Jean Cocteau Cinema. See review, Page 33. TOMB RAIDER Alicia Vikander dons the tank top once worn by Angelina Jolie, playing the gun-toting Lara Croft in this reboot of the videogame-adapted franchise. This time out, Croft searches for her father (Dominic West) once more, traveling to the island of Yamatai, where he disappeared while looking for treasure. Once there, she encounters a shadowy group called the Trinity, along with one of her father’s rivals (Walton Goggins). She proceeds to kick butt, dodge traps, and raid tombs. Rated PG-13. 118 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14. Screens in 2-D only at Violet Crown. (Not reviewed)
ANNIHILATION Filmmaker Alex Garland follows his directorial debut Ex Machina (2014) with another terrific science-fiction story, this time adapting the first book of the popular trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Garland eschews the more obtuse approach of VanderMeer’s “unfilmable” prose, yet still creates a rich, thoughtful acid trip of an adventure that meditates on heavy themes of life, personal identity, and the link between destruction and evolution. Oscar Isaac plays Kane, a soldier who enters an environmental disaster zone known as the Shimmer and emerges as the only survivor in his troupe. His wife Lena (Natalie Portman), a biologist, volunteers to join a team of women scientists heading into the area to find out what happened, soon discovering that the DNA of the wildlife has been drastically altered by the incident. Before long, they realize their own DNA is not exempt. Their encounters with the flora and fauna range from beautiful to unsettling to downright disturbing, but like the movie itself, they never lack for imagination. Rated R. 120 minutes. Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) BLACK PANTHER Marvel Studios continues its run of superhero movies, this time focusing on T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), aka Black Panther. The real star, however, is not the Black Panther but his homeland of Wakanda, a futuristic African country that director Ryan Coogler (Creed) impressively imbues with detail and world-building. T’Challa returns to this land to rule as king after his father’s death, and soon finds himself battling enemies old (an arms dealer played by Andy Serkis) and new (a usurper to the throne played by Michael B. Jordan), while confronting concerns about Wakanda’s isolationism. It’s bracing to see a diverse, utopian society portrayed on screen, and not only does the cast feature an incredible array of people of color, but the women are powerful and brilliant, led by Letitia Wright as an inventor, and Lupita Nyong’o as a member of a Wakanda all-women special forces unit. Some typical Marvel problems muddy the waters (dodgy CGI and a cluttered climax), but the studio has never made a picture that feels this fresh. Rated PG-13. 134 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Robert Ker) BOMBSHELL: THE HEDY LAMARR STORY The “bombshell” in this documentary’s title is twofold. One is Hedy Lamarr, the Austrian-born screen siren from Algiers and Samson and Delilah. The other is Hedy Kiesler Markey, the married name Lamarr used on the 1942 patent for her frequency-hopping technology, which was designed to keep Allied torpedoes on course in World War II and later led to the development of Bluetooth, GPS, and Wi-Fi. Writer-director Alexandra Dean’s aim is to reconcile the two Hedys, telling the significant story of Lamarr’s greatest invention as well as the multiple iterations of the actress’s persona. Through interviews with subjects like author Richard Rhodes and directors Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, the documentary casts Lamarr as a prodigy whose innovation changed the course of technology over the 20th century and beyond. If the film’s pace seems too frenetic at times — hopping as it does from the actress’s movies to inventions to husbands (Lamarr had six), with perhaps too little time allowed in between for reflection — we might bear in mind the unrelenting drive of the wonder woman herself. Not rated. 90 minutes. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Molly Boyle) DEATH WISH Apparently, the time is right for a remake of Death Wish, the 1974 revenge movie in which Charles Bronson becomes a vigilante after his wife is killed and his daughter sexually assaulted. This time, the plot remains more or less the same, but expect the violence to be considerably ramped up courtesy of director Eli Roth (Hostel). Bruce Willis steps into Bronson’s role, and Vincent D’Onofrio and Elisabeth Shue also star. Rated R. 107 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) FACES PLACES French New Wave legend Agnès Varda teams with the charismatic young French photographer JR to visit a series of out-of-the-way places in the French countryside, taking pictures of the locals, printing them out in mural proportions, and pasting them on the side of barns, houses, and anything else that comes to hand. Some of the mural images they create smack of social commentary, while others simply celebrate the lives of real people who otherwise would sink into oblivion. The humanity and the joy of this movie make it impossible to watch without a smile on your face. There are moments of vulnerability and pathos as well. As a coda to Varda’s life in film, or as the last movie before her next one, this is a gem. Rated PG. 89 minutes. In French with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts. (Jonathan Richards) A FANTASTIC WOMAN The Chilean Oscar winner for Best Foreign Language Film, directed by Sebastián Lelio, is about Marina’s (Daniela Vega) ordeal in the days following her boyfriend Orlando’s (Francisco Reyes) death, during which she faces the scorn and prejudice of his family as well as the suspicion and condescension of law enforcement. Everyone has a hard time accepting the relationship between the fiftyseven-year-old businessman, and the comely trans woman — but the audience knows that Orlando was deeply in love with her. A Fantastic Woman often feels like magical realism, a quality that comes not from the movie’s content but from its tone and style — a sensual, noir-like pacing set to a score that is part opera and part Fantasy Island at the disco. Rated R. 104 minutes. In Spanish with subtitles. Center for Contemporary Arts; Violet Crown. (Jennifer Levin) FILM STARS DON’T DIE IN LIVERPOOL Gloria Grahame (Annette Bening) was an Oscar winner in happier days (Best Supporting Actress in 1953 for The Bad and the Beautiful). This film picks her up in London in 1981, her stardom a fading memory. She’s sick, and the family of her much younger lover Peter Turner (a fine Jamie Bell) takes her in, while the film spins back two years earlier to show us how they met. (The movie is based on the memoir Turner wrote after Grahame’s death.) Director Paul McGuigan and screenwriter Matt Greenhalgh have assembled a choppy story that often loses its way. It never sustains a hold on its audience, leaving too much unexplained or unexplored, and yet it offers a number of affecting scenes. And it delivers another superb performance by Bening. Rated R. 105 minutes. Jean Cocteau Cinema. (Jonathan Richards) GAME NIGHT In this dark comedy, a group of friends get together regularly for “game night.” One week, they decide to play an elaborate murder-mystery game that gets kicked up a notch when the organizer (Kyle Chandler) is kidnapped. The remaining players assume it’s a game and play along, growing increasingly uncertain as to whether or not an actual murder needs to be solved. As the plot twists pile up, the friends — including those played by Rachel McAdams, Jason Bateman, and Michael C. Hall — attempt to figure out what’s real, what’s play, and who among them can be trusted. Rated R. 100 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) GRINGO David Oyelowo plays Harold, a man who works for a company that has developed a powerful marijuana pill. To oversee the manufacturing of the product, he is sent to Mexico, where he is kidnapped by the local drug cartel. His bosses hire a shady professional (Sharlto Copley) to spring him, and the two men get into a string of adventures. Charlize Theron, Amanda Seyfried, and Thandie Newton also star. Rated R. 110 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) THE HURRICANE HEIST A group of thieves plan what they feel is the perfect crime: ripping off a U.S. Mint facility under the cover of a Category 5 hurricane. It’s up to a Treasury agent (Maggie Grace), a meteorologist (Toby Kebbell), and a former Marine (Ryan Kwanten) to stop the crooks. With cars blowing around and giant waves crashing, this is a high-octane caper so improbable that it took
the director of the original The Fast and the Furious movie (Rob Cohen) to bring to the screen. Rated PG-13. 100 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) JUMANJI: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE This sequel to the 1995 Robin Williams-led adventure film Jumanji finds the board game of the original transformed into a video game for modern audiences. Four teenagers stumble upon the game while serving detention, and when they press “start,” they’re sucked into its world. Now finding themselves embodied by the avatars they selected (played by Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, and Karen Gillan), they must find a way to survive the dangers of the jungle and return to their normal lives. Whereas the 1995 film stacked disparate perils and goofy jokes atop each other to whip up a frenzy of cartoonish chaos, this update escorts viewers from one action sequence to the next at a sluggish pace. The cast is lively, charismatic, and ideal for the scenes of bonding and blossoming romances, but these moments are not staged with enough zip to keep up with the actors’ wit. Rated PG-13. 119 minutes. Screens in 2-D only at Regal Stadium 14. (Robert Ker) LIVES WELL LIVED Award-winning photographer Sky Bergman undertook this project as an homage to her thenninety-nine-year-old Italian grandmother, who had been an inspiration through her example of a life well lived — filled with family, cooking, and nuggets of wisdom. Bergman then expanded her scope, interviewing dozens of other elderly people. They range in age from the disconcertingly young (seventy-five) to the impressively ancient (over 100). This pleasant movie offers few revealing insights, but a lot of spiritual comfort food. It covers some of the questions you may wish you’d thought to ask your parents and grandparents when you still had the chance. There are family histories, old film footage, survival stories, and a lot of “Live every day to the fullest” and “Age is only a number” observations from a spry gallery of cooking, loving, dancing, painting, exercising elders. Screens at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 18, only. Not rated. 71 minutes. The Screen. (Jonathan Richards) THE PARTY Old friends gather for a celebratory dinner, buried secrets, and festering wounds. Writer-director Sally Potter (Orlando) has assembled this deliciously familiar party scene with a cast that, if you knew nothing else about the movie, merits the price of admission. Kristin Scott Thomas is Janet, the hostess, a newly minted British Cabinet Minister. Timothy Spall is her husband Bill. The guests arrive — Patricia Clarkson, a tart-tongued friend, Bruno Ganz, a New Age healer, Cherry Jones and Emily Mortimer, a lesbian couple, and Cillian Murphy, a coke-sniffing banker. Another guest, his wife, is expected. The movie runs just over an hour, and in its crisp black-and-white photography and its pulpy, sometimes hilarious, sometimes ludicrous storytelling, it resembles nothing so much as a throwback to the golden years of live television drama series like
Studio One and Playhouse 90. Rated R. 71 minutes. Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) PETER RABBIT Beatrix Potter’s beloved 1902 literary creation gets a slick Hollywood update — which is to say that the pastoral story of Peter Rabbit’s attempts to steal vegetables from Mr. McGregor’s garden have been replaced by the tale of a sassy CGI rabbit (voiced by James Corden) who stages an all-out war against Mr. McGregor (Domhnall Gleeson) over his treatment of animals and battles him for the affections of the kindly neighborhood gardener Bea (Rose Byrne). Peter’s siblings Flopsy (Margot Robbie), Mopsy (Elizabeth Debicki), and Cotton-Tail (Daisy Ridley) join in on the series of pranks. Rated PG. 93 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) RED SPARROW Jennifer Lawrence stars as Dominika Egorova, a Russian ballerina who is recruited and trained as a spy. Soon after embarking on her new career, she encounters a handsome CIA agent (Joel Edgerton) and falls for him. She then considers becoming a double agent to be with him, but as these things go, it becomes unclear who is double-crossing whom. Rated R. 139 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Not reviewed) THE SHAPE OF WATER Elisa (Sally Hawkins) is a mute janitor who works the night shift at a government facility where a heavily guarded package is delivered. It’s a tank containing a humanoid amphibian (Doug Jones) that Strickland (Michael Shannon), the facility’s head of security, has captured. Elisa finds herself drawn to the creature, and gradually her feelings ripen into a full-fledged attraction. Meanwhile, Strickland decides to cut the creature up for study. This is resisted by one of the facility’s top scientists, Dr. Hoffstetler (Michael Stuhlbarg), who turns out to have secrets of his own. Del Toro has created a story that moves effortlessly forward through multiple genres, encompassing gothic romance, fairy tale, Cold War spy thriller, and fantasy. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Rated R. 123 minutes. Regal Stadium 14; Violet Crown. (Jonathan Richards) THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT This sequel to 2008’s The Strangers is not so much a continuation of the story but a reworking of many of its plot points. Once more, some people in a remote residence receive a mysterious knock on the front door. When they open it, the stranger on the other side initiates an evening of terror, and men and women in masks attempt to hunt down, emotionally torture, and murder everyone. This time, a family on a road trip stops to visit relatives in a trailer park only to find the whole park abandoned. They enter one of the trailers, and that’s when the knock comes. Christina Hendricks stars. Rated R. 85 minutes. Regal Stadium 14. (Not reviewed) THOROUGHBREDS This first feature from writer-director Cory Finley is a smarter, more deadpan, and even more disturbing take on Heathers for the Adderall generation — with a dash of
Heavenly Creatures thrown in for good measure. In the posh Connecticut suburbs, two privileged teenagers — ambitious Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and sociopathic Amanda (Olivia Cooke) — are cautiously rekindling their childhood friendship. They bond over the alienation they feel from parents and classmates, as well as their antipathy for Lily’s controlling stepfather (Paul Sparks). They decide to kill him, enlisting the local burnout (Anton Yelchin) as their fall guy. Both actresses bring a searing intensity to their roles, after the striking final act, the effect is that of a very good — and very shattering — short story. It’s the blackest of comedies, with an unsettling soundtrack and humor that is more bleak and acerbic than riotously funny. The moral of the story? The kids are definitely not all right. Rated R. 92 minutes. Violet Crown. (Molly Boyle) A WRINKLE IN TIME
Only the fumes of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved 1962 fantasy novel remain in Ava DuVernay’s big-budget, actionpacked, CGI-filled, embarrassingly insipid adaptation. Though the outline of the plot remains, in which a teenage girl hops about the universe with her brother on a rescue mission to save their father — the magic, mystery, and darkness the define the book have been stripped out in favor of a movie that cheerleads tweens who might be enduring family struggles, being teased in school, or just feeling different from the crowd. An oppressive score introduces each plot twist, eliminating any potentially authentic emotional reactions to character development (which is limited at best). Every camera angle plays like a shot from a film trailer, giving the entire movie the feel of an extended commercial where the moral of the story is “love conquers all.” Skip it and read the excellent book. Rated PG. 109 minutes. Screens in 3-D and 2-D at Regal Stadium 14; Screens in 2-D only at Violet Crown. (Jennifer Levin)