MOVIES/ TV/ MUSIC/ B O O K S4 / BIG TIME
ADOLESCENCE
Literally the role Pete
Davidson was born to
play: a heedless man-
child who parties like
Rick James and looks like
a sun-starved lemur. B5 / BIRDS OF PREY
(AND THE FANTABULOUS
EMANCIPATION OF ONE
HARLEY QUINN)
Sometimes a girl just
has to ditch her Suicide
Squad, strap on a pair of
roller skates, and shoot
glitter bombs out of a
beanbag gun until Jared
Leto promises never to
play Joker again. B+6 / GREED
Steve Coogan is a noxious
retail billionaire with a
soul made of Styrofoam;
what could possibly go
wrong when he hires a
lion for his 60th birthday
party on Mykonos? C+7 / HOPE GAP
Annette Bening and Bill
Nighy are a British couple
coming slowly then sud-
denly apart; think Mar-
riage Story for boomers,
minus Laura Dern and
plus a whole lot of tense
tea and biscuits. B8 / THE CLIMB
Two best friends
drink, fish, and fumble
toward adulthood in
a shambolic buddy
comedy with the best
pole-dance scene
since J. Lo popped a
glute in Hustlers. B+9 / FIRST COW
Gold rush Western,
murder mystery, tale of
forbidden dairy: The
latest from indie icon
Kelly Reichardt (Wendy
and Lucy) is many
things—most and best
a sweet, unhurried fable
of male friendship. A–1 / THE INVISIBLE MAN
He sees you when you’re
sleeping, he knows when
you’re awake, he’s a
sociopathic tech mogul
with an invisibility suit
and surprisingly strong
knife skills, so get out
of the goddamn house
while you can. B2 / EMMA.
Remember all the creamy
Miramax-y dreaminess
of Gwyneth’s 1996
Emma? Anya Taylor-Joy’s
Jane Austen heroine is
like that, except with
10 percent more honey
badger and 50 percent
more fun. B+3 / THE TRUTH
Catherine Deneuve and
Juliette Binoche star in
a bittersweet drama so
supremely French and
female that Ethan Hawke
just looks continuously
amazed to be there. B+852NOW PLAYINGOUR HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE GUIDE TO WHAT’S
CURRENTLY IN THEATERS. By Leah GreenblattElisabeth Moss fights a stabby evil she can’t see, Jane Austen’s med-
dling Emma rides again, and two icons of French cinema cherchez
la femme in this month’s roundup of new and recent movie releasesDO YOU BELIEVE IN MAGIC? THAT’S
pretty much Pixar’s brand, though
it’s never felt quite as literal, or as
effortful, as it does in Onward—an
earnest elfin-eared fantasy quest
whose intermittent charms never
fully land on real enchantment.
Ian Lightfoot (Tom Holland)
could be the hero in a John Hughes
movie: shy, gawky, still waiting for
his chance to bloom. Except he has
ears like a fennec fox and skin
tinged a light, Smurfy blue. Like his
kindhearted mother, Laurel (Julia
Louis-Dreyfus), and lumbering
burnout of a brother, Barley (Chris
Pratt), he’s an elf, albeit one whose
world has lost some pixie dust over
the years. So when Laurel gifts him
with his late father’s wizard staff
on his 16th birthday, Ian doesn’t
have much hope that its powers are
still intact until he manages to
conjure half his dad in a visita-
tion spell—the bottom half. For the
rest, he and the feckless Barley will
have to fetch a special stone.
Director Dan Scanlon (Monsters
University) finds some fun riffs, like
a roving pack of fairies who’ve for-
gotten how to use their wings and
now ride around on Harleys like
hell’s tiniest, angriest angels. (Octa-
via Spencer is winning, too, as the
Manticore, a winged scorpion-lion
hybrid fallen on hard times.) Still,
the familiar contours of his story
line struggle to conjure the wonder
that Pixar’s most transcendent
movies do; instead of truly new, it’s
mostly old things borrowed, and
tinted blue. B– —LEAH GREENBLATTONWARDSTARRING CHRIS PRATT, TOM HOLLAND,
JULIA LOUIS-DREYFUS, OCTAVIA SPENCER
DIRECTED BY DAN SCANLON
RATING + TIME PG, 1 HR., 42 MINS.← Blue brothers Ian
(Tom Holland) and
Barley (Chris Pratt)EW ● COM APRIL 2020 55ONWARD: ©2019 DISNEY/PIXAR;BIRDS OF PREY: CLAUDETTE BARIUS/WARNER BROS.;EMMA.: FOCUS FEATURES;THE CLIMB: ZACH KUPERSTEIN/SONY PICTURES CLASSICSAPRIL2020.MOVIES3.LO D.indd 55 FINAL 3/3/20 12:42 PM