The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Loop-y love story
‘Map of Tiny Perfect Things’ a cute temporal-anomaly powered teen romance
Like any responsible time-loop movie, “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” acknowledges the granddaddy of time-loop flicks, 1993’s “Groundhog Day.”
Its characters also reference 2014’s “Edge of Tomorrow.” (Terrific movie. We enthusiastically approve.)
However, “Map” plays more like the PG-13 version of “Palm Springs,” the largely enjoyable, somewhat raunchy time-loop romance that landed on Hulu in July.
Hitting Amazon’s Prime Video platform this week, “Map” is plenty different from “Springs.” But it, too, is a romance involving one person who wants to escape the repeating-day cage in which they’re trapped while the other is determined to go on existing in it.
And, like “Springs,” it gets you invested early on and has enough fun with the format that it’s well worth a watch.
We first meet Mark (Kyle Allen), who wakes up as his mom’s vehicle leaves the driveway. He plays a little bit of bass drum in bed, before coming downstairs, to exchange insults with his younger sister, Emma (Cleo Fraser, “Transparent”); to give Dad (Josh Hamilton, “Eighth Grade”) help with his crossword puzzle without so much as glancing at the tablet; and to load up on junk food.
If you didn’t yet know this was a time-loop story, you’d suspect Mark of having superpowers as he rides his bike, fairly recklessly, into town before hitching a ride in the back of a pickup. He discreetly helps a woman with her stuck skirt — with the cooking tongs he knew to bring from the kitchen — and helps a young woman with directions who hadn’t told him what she was trying to find.
“I’ve got kind of a Sherlock thing,” he says.
It’s this girl, initially, who is the focus of Mark’s attention, but he soon shifts to Margaret (Kathryn Newton), who, unlike everyone else he encounters, enters his day unexpectedly.
He is desperate to find her after that and fails to make his video game-playing pal, Henry (Jermaine Harris), understand just how important this is to him. To be fair
to Henry, he’s hearing about this girl for the first time, which confuses him.
When Mark finds Margaret, his suspicion is proved correct: She, too, is stuck in the loop. Despite this seemingly great discovery, however, she doesn’t seem all that interested in hanging out with Mark.
She gives him her number, though, and he begins to win her over with a series of post-weird-haircut selfies. They begin to chew on chunks of their endless supply of time together. He shows her his favorite little moments he’s discovered from his explorations through town on this day, and she returns the favor.
However, like clockwork, she leaves him every day at 6 p.m. after getting a call from Jared, a 21-year-old med student. Is this her boyfriend or is something else at play? (We and Mark really want to know.)
Of course, Mark and Margaret do grow closer, and he does fall hard for the highly intelligent and kind-hearted girl. In the hopes of causing her to develop feelings for him, he enlists her for
a project — constructing the film’s namesake map of small-but-wonderful occurrences that happen throughout this town on this day.
Whether that’s enough to win her heart is another matter.
Lev Grossman (“The Magicians”) adapted “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” from his own short 2017 story of the same name, and the movie is directed by Ian Samuels (“Sierra Burgess Is a Loser”).
The movie is so cute, so charming that we largely can forgive its sins, such as a grand gesture Mark makes to Margaret being impossible when you consider he’d have to start on it from scratch that day.
That’s in part because it’s perfectly lovely to spend
time with its leads.
The in-demand Newton — whose recent big-screen credits include “Blockers,” “Detective Pikachu” and “Freaky” — continues to impress. Here, she’s asked to be this accessible-if-mysterious girl-nextdoor type, and she nails it.
Less well-known, Allen (“American Horror Story,” “The Path”) thrives as this kind, unassuming guy. In part because of Allen’s performance, we don’t really notice how self-involved Mark has been until Emma spells it out for him well into the movie.
Ultimately, you care more about Mark and Margaret getting together than about them escaping the loop, which means “Map” is effective as a romance. It’s less successful as a work of science-fiction, but that’s less important.
Hey, there’s almost certainly another time-loop movie right around the corner, and maybe that will be strong when it comes to quantum mechanics.
Not perfect, “The Map of Tiny Perfect Things” is a little movie that’s well worth exploring.
A couple of films come to mind while watching “The Mauritanian.”
The first is the endlessly rewatchable 1993 legal drama “A Few Good Men,” which centered around a fictional event at the United States’ Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, aka Gitmo, in Cuba.
The other is the compelling based-on-real-events 2019 political drama “The Report,” which took on the use of enhanced interrogation techniques — considered by many to be a euphemism for torture — following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
While not as strong as either of those works, the Kevin Macdonald-directed “Mauritanian” — about the real case of a man from the West African country of Mauritania who was detained for years at the mysterious, highly controversial prison at Gitmo and subjected to all kinds of unpleasantness by interrogators — nonetheless is worth your time.
For starters, it boasts the excellent, Golden Globenominated performance by Tahar Rahim as the titular character. (Co-star Jodie Foster earned a nod for best supporting actress, as well.)
More importantly, it shines another light on some of what this country was doing in the name of the war on terror in those years when government officials were, understandably, desperate to prevent
“another 9/11.”
Unfortunately, though, “The Mauritanian” — in select theaters now and available via on-demand platforms in March — lacks the dramatic spark of the best legal and political dramas.
Based on the best-selling memoir “Guantanamo Diary,” by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the film introduces us to Rahim’s Mohamedou in November 2001. He is pulled from a large festive gathering and taken into custody by Mauritanian authorities at the behest of U.S. officials, who suspect him of being a recruiter for terrorist organization
al-Qaeda and of having helped plan 9/11.
After stints in detention facilities in Jordan and Afghanistan, he is taken to Gitmo, where he languishes for years without a charge. He is generally cooperative with his interrogators but doesn’t tell them what they want to hear. (To start to get a sense of how long he spends at the faraway prison, we learn early on that he speaks English rather fluently in the present day but is entirely dependent on a translator when he arrives.)
Foster’s Nancy Hollander, an Albuquerque,
New Mexico-based defense attorney, takes an interest in Mohamedou’s case because she believes those in power — most notably President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld — are trampling on the rights of such detainees.
“Nancy,” says another lawyer at the firm, “we’d all love a pop at this administration, but there’s more to consider. People want to see these guys burn.”
She reminds him and others that they’ve agreed they can “pick our own pro bono fights,” and she gets her way. She recruits a lesssenior
lawyer, Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley of “Divergent” and “The Fault in Our Stars”), for the work.
They soon meet Mohamedou at Gitmo and work to earn his trust — and he, if to a lesser extend, theirs. (Nancy is crusading in the name of habeas corpus abuses and a lot less concerned than Teri is about his actual innocence.)
On the other side of the legal fight is a Marine Corps lawyer, Lt. Col. Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch). While Stuart would be happy to “put a needle” in every person actually involved with the 9/11 attacks, he is a man of deep faith and is greatly troubled as he begins to suspect Mohamedou isn’t one of them. This isn’t an easy suspicion to have when you’re tasked with his prosecution, as he’s reminded of by a friend, Neil Buckland (Zachary Levi of “Shazam!”), a federal agent who clearly knows more about the case than he initially reveals.
Working from a screenplay by M.B. Traven, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani, Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “State of Play”) spends a lot of time in flashback sequences showing
Mohamedou being interrogated, gently at first and anything but later.
As powerful as some of these scenes are, the overuse of them hurts the film’s momentum. Plus, the visual cues MacDonald employs to set them apart from the linear present-day story feel largely unnecessary and a little distracting.
And as excellent as Rahim (“The Looming Tower,” “A Prophet/Un Prophète”) is, you’re left wanting more scenes featuring the highly talented Foster (“The Silence of the Lambs,” “Contact”) and Cumberbatch (“The Imitation Game,” “Doctor Strange”). (The English actor displays a pretty believable Southern accent, by the way.)
“The Mauritanian” greatly echoes “The Report” as Nancy and Teri — and, to a lesser extent, Stuart — are stonewalled in attempts to obtain documents and later inundated with them, although the other film made better dramatic hay from this dry subject.
Given that this story doesn’t involve dramatic courtroom scenes, you’re left wanting something more in the way of legal fireworks, but there isn’t much to be found here.
“The Mauritanian” has other worthwhile traits, though, and be sure to hang with it into its closing credits, when you’ll spend a couple of minutes with the real Slahi.
Given the dramatized version of his ordeal you’ve just seen, they are spiritlifting moments, to be sure.
There’s no more magical a feeling than that of experiencing new love.
That’s exactly what world-renowned jazz trumpeter and Solon native Dominick Farinacci is promising viewers of his Valentine’s Day livestream, “Note Pad,” which features the critically acclaimed Veronica Swift — one of the most exciting new jazz vocalists on the international scene.
“Veronica is an extraordinary artist,” said Farinacci, who lives in Cleveland’s Ohio City neighborhood. “Maybe not too many people in our area know her. We share the same record label, Mack Avenue Records. Veronica’s influences come from a lot of great jazz vocalists — Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
“She just released a couple of singles in the past couple of months. Many folks around the jazz industry certainly know and appreciate her talent. I’m excited to bring her to Cleveland with my band for the very first
“Love Notes.” 7:30 p.m. Feb. 14. $30 to $150. SongbookWatchParty. com.
time and introduce her to our audience here.”
After finishing in second place in the 2015 Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz International Vocals Competition, Swift started making the round at jazz clubs and festivals.