The New Yorker - 09.03.2020

20 THENEWYORKER, MARCH 9, 2020

ILLUSTRATION BY ALVA SKOG

Family life is at the center of Eliza
Hittman’s third feature, “Never Rarely
Sometimes Always” (March 13), about
Autumn (Sidney Flanigan), a seven-
teen-year-old high-school student
from a small Pennsylvania town who
discovers that she’s pregnant and, un-
able to get an abortion in the state
without parental consent, travels to
New York with a cousin (Talia Ryder)
for the procedure. The French drama
“The Truth” (March 20), the director
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s first feature out-
side Japan, stars Catherine Deneuve
as an actress who writes a memoir and

Juliette Binoche as her daughter, who

returns to Paris for the book’s publi-

cation and disputes its claims. Ethan

Hawke co-stars.

Among the season’s most prom-

inent releases are adaptations from

earlier works, both literary and cine-

matic, including “Charm City Kings”

(April 10), a drama about Baltimore’s

dirt-bike culture, starring Teyonah

Parris, Jahi Di’Allo Winston, and the

musician Meek Mill. Ángel Manuel

Soto directed; Barry Jenkins co-wrote

the story, which is based on Lotfy Na-

than’s 2013 documentary “12 O’Clock

Boys.” Luca Marinelli stars in “Martin

Eden” (April 17), the Italian director

Pietro Marcello’s adaptation of Jack

London’s 1909 novel, about a poor

sailor and aspiring writer who falls

in love with a bourgeois woman and,

after becoming a socialist, comes into

conflict with her. Dev Patel stars in

“The Personal History of David Cop-

perfield” (May 8), an adaptation of

Charles Dickens’s novel, directed by

Armando Iannucci, who wrote the

script with Simon Blackwell. Peter

Capaldi co-stars as Mr. Micawber.

A wide range of historical subjects

will be spotlighted this spring in a va-

riety of genres. The journalist Andrea

Chalupa wrote “Mr. Jones” (April 3),

directed by Agnieszka Holland, based

on the true story of a Welsh journalist

(played by James Norton) who, in the

early nineteen-thirties, discovers the

Soviet Union’s extermination by famine

of Ukrainians—and finds his reports

denied by the regime’s American and

European sympathizers. Joseph Mawle

co-stars as George Orwell. Marjane Sa-

trapi directed “Radioactive” (April 24),

a bio-pic about Marie Curie, starring

Rosamund Pike, based on a graphic

novel by Lauren Redniss; Sam Riley

plays Pierre Curie. In “Antebellum”

(April 24), the first feature directed by

Gerard Bush and Christopher Renz

(who also co-wrote the script), Janelle

Monáe plays a writer who gets trapped

in an imaginary world of horror. Eric

Lange, Jena Malone, Kiersey Clemons,

and Gabourey Sidibe co-star.

Classic franchises will be getting

new workouts, as in “No Time to Die”

(April 8), the twenty-fifth film in the

James Bond franchise, starring Daniel

Craig in his final performance as 007.

It’s directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga,

who co-wrote the script with Phoebe

Waller-Bridge, Neal Purvis, and Robert

Wade; the cast includes Rami Malek,

Léa Seydoux, Lashana Lynch, Nao-

mie Harris, Christoph Waltz, Jeffrey

Wright, and Ralph Fiennes. Reese

Witherspoon returns as Elle Woods

in “Legally Blonde 3” (May 8), directed

by Jamie Suk and co-starring Alanna

Ubach and Jessica Cauffiel.

—Richard Brody

MOVIES

SPRING PREVIEW

Personal Problems, Political Crises