If you’re interested in staying at home or going to the movies, you have some great options this 4th of July weekend, including an exceptional indie dramedy and an intense dystopian thriller.
“Sorry, Baby”: Eva Victor’s feature debut wrecked me and will likely wreck you too – in the best way imaginable. Their story of how a traumatic event gets stuck in the rearview mirror of a person’s life forever does everything right by its audience and its characters. That is particularly true of Victor’s transcendent depiction of an unbreakable bond between the smart and funny New England college professor Agnes (Victor) and her bestie and former college roomie Lydie (Naomi Ackie). It is so intimately rendered and depicted that it touches and nurtures the soul, since their relationship epitomizes the healing power that comes from a queer friendship where each person understands and knows the other, sometimes even better than themselves. Unlike Lydie, Agnes’s life remains in a permanent stasis. Once a literary bright brimming with possibilities, she’s now stuck like a barge in a sand dune at a quaint New England liberal arts college where she attended grad school for literature. Lydie has moved on, and leads a vibrant life in New York with a partner, a job and more. But Agnes hasn’t budged, remaining landlocked in the painful place where she endured a terrible life-altering trauma that has shaken and reconfigured her life. Victor’s approach to depicting what happened is handled with care, awareness and sensitivity, and does not illustrate the act itself but conveys the disorientation, the surreal out-of-body experience that someone experiences better than almost any film I’ve ever seen. Victor’s screenplay does come from personal place and it is that raw vulnerability and Victor’s pitch-perfect dark humor that continually catches the viewer off guard. It makes “Sorry, Baby” more effective and real.
There’s also real care and attention paid to each character Agnes encounters – from the charismatic professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi) to her quirky and kind next door neighbor (Lucas Hedges), the compassionate sandwich shop owner (John Carroll Lynch) whose unexpected helpful hand and advice cuts through all the routineness so perfunctorily delivered by entities that have failed Agnes (the law, academia, doctors) and an envious and very transparent Natasha (Kelly McCormack). They might not have huge amounts of screen time, but each is so beautifully well-written and acted that they come more alive than most lead characters in a film. This is a diamond of a screenplay. Based on just those merits alone, “Sorry, Baby” is a tremendous artistic triumph on the healing power of friendship and queer relationships. And then comes a profound emotional earthquake of an ending, one that is cathartic and perfect in eerie way. Trust me it will wreck and inspire you.
Details: 4 stars out of 4; opens July 4 in select theaters.
“40 Acres”: Director R.T. Thorne’s Afrofuturistic feature debut grabs you from Scene 1 and never lets you go. By the end, it shreds every nerve you have. But this brutally violent thriller has higher aspirations, too, as it links racist past to our present and to a dystopian future. That gives it more visceral urgency and potency as it dips into historical relevancy and recalls Black rebel leaders in history. Danielle Deadwyler gives one of her most searing performances yet as Hailey Freeman, an always on guard momma bear and former soldier, who is ferociously protecting an integrated family on crop-rich Canadian soil that’s now targeted by famished, bloodthirsty creeps. Her teen-aged son Manny (Kataem O’Connor, in a star-making performance) adheres to a strict house rules regimen, arising early to do crucial patrols around the fenced perimeter of the land in an ATV. He lets his guard down over a young, attractive woman named Dawn (Milcania Diaz-Rojas) he spots after a swim in a river. Thorne uses flashbacks to fill in the details of Hailey’s life when a fungal pandemic took over and war broke out, and divides the film into chapters, essentially and further fleshes out other characters, including an Indigenous family that lives with them. Throughout, Thorne remains in control as a co-screenwriter and director. It’s a remarkable directorial debut and a reminder that Deadwyler can do almost anything with the steely-eyed look she’s known for. Details: 3½ stars; opens July 2 at the AMC Mercado 20, Santa Clara and the AMC Metreon 16, San Francisco.
“Heads of State”: There’s a place within our voluminous, unwieldy streaming queues for disposable entertainment, those brainless behemoths that are undemanding, silly and come packed with giggle-worthy action, top-tier star charisma and a suitable enough story. “Heads of State” is one such construction. It goes down easy, forgettably easy. John Cena and Idris Elba Cena keep us engaged as squabbling global dignitaries/odd couple who get marked for death due to an outlandish political usurping scheme. (An Air Force One action scene is a wild highlight.) Cena is a snug fit to play recently elected American president Will Derringer, an approval seeker and family guy known and loved for his action-hero roles. He is the Lab puppy to Elba’s stoic Great Dane of a prime minister Sam Clarke, a die-hard pessimist and realist whose approval ratings are in the dumpster. He thinks Derringer is a joke and Derringer thinks Sam is a jerk. Others are game in the cast: an invigorating Priyanka Chopra Jones as MI6 agent Noel Bisset who has a past with Clarke, a hilarious Jack Quaid as a rockin’ safe-house defender and Carla Gugino, giving another MVP performance, as a vice president who delivers a chilling message that eerily taps into the times in which we live. The bickering between Cena and Elba does grow tiresome, but director Ilya Naishuller (the underrated “Nobody” with Bob Odenkirk) gives us reasons to forget about that with a series of exhilarating action sequences – including a spectacular car chase in a knock-your-socks-off finale. Details: 2½ stars; drops July 2 on Amazon Prime Video.
“Pretty Thing”: Justin Kelly’s awkward thriller starts off like it’s an erotic Cinderella fantasy for straight guys, with filthy rich pharmaceutical marketing exec Sophie (Alicia Silverstone of “Clueless”) seducing handsome 33-year-old New York caterer Elliott (Karl Glusman) – who lives with, and cares for, his mother at home. After they boogie in the sheets, she later whisks him off to Paris on a business trip where they have more sex and she gives him spending money. The May-December hookup quickly heads South when Sophie realizes that clingy Elliott has stalker emblazoned all over his six-pack abs – which he flashes liberally. “Pretty Thing” could have been a guilty pleasure but it is a tonal mess, uncertain of what it is trying to accomplish and uncertain about what genre lane it wants, and should, stay in. The characters act erratically while individual scenes miss a through line by a mile and the overheated sex scenes are shot so dark and shot that it gets hard to discern who’s doing what to whom. Lighten it up already. The risible ending lets both actors, each of whom valiantly give this disjointed narrative their all – in particular Glusman – down while the screenplay feels like there are gouges of character motivations and development tossed into the trash. Both Silverstone and Glusman deserve better. We do, too. Details: 1 star; in limited release July 4; available to rent.
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.