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Review of reviews: Film
“The most efficient review of Minari
would be something along the lines of ‘It’s
wonderful. See it. You’ll love it,’” said Joe
Morgenstern in The Wall Street Journal.
A quasi-autobiographical film from direc-
tor Lee Isaac Chung, it builds a modern
pioneer story around a Korean immigrant
who moves his family from California to a
mobile home in 1980s Arkansas so he can
try his hand at farming. His wife doubts
his vision, and his mischievous young son
objects when told he has to share a room
with his grandmother who’s come straight
from Korea. We get to know each of these
characters like our own kin, because Chung
manages them all “like a maestro conduct-
ing a chamber orchestra.” Audiences will
connect instantly with 7-year-old actor Alan
Kim, said Ty Burr in The Boston Globe. But
veteran Korean screen star Youn Yuh-jung“makes the grandmother a chain-smoking,
gambling, delightful force of nature,” and
Yeri Han delivers the most touching per-
formance, helping us feel the wife’s fear
that she can no longer trust her husband
to secure the family’s future. Steven Yeun
proves “spellbinding” as the man whose
American dream of belonging initiates
the entire drama, said David Ehrlich in
IndieWire.com. Gentle as a stream, “yet
powerful enough to reverberate for genera-
tions,” this beautiful film “posits family as
the ultimate journey, only to explore how dif-
ficult it can be to agree on a destination.” (In
select theaters or via virtual cinemas) PG-13Other new movies
Barb & Star Go to Vista del Mar
Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo’s zany
new comedy seems “preordained for cult
status,” said Bilge Ebiri in NYMag.com. The
erstwhile co-writers of Bridesmaids com-
mit fully to their roles as middle-aged best
friends who take a trip to the kitschy heart
of Florida. The movie isn’t a mainstream
laugher; it’s “weirdo cinema all the way”—a
comedy that wins us over “not through belly
laughs but by making us feel like we’re privy
to a wonderfully bizarre in-joke.” ($20 on
demand) PG-13Falling
Viggo Mortensen’s directorial debut “isn’t
always fun to watch,” said Ann Hornaday in
The Washington Post. Because the drama
focuses on a son coping with an irascible
elderly father in the grip of dementia, “it’s
often downright uncomfortable.” But withMinari
++++
Yeun and family: Putting down rootsMortensen playing off a ferocious Lance
Henriksen, Falling turns out to be “an exam-
ple of how, in the hands of gifted artists, the
most mortifying parts of being human can
give way to unexpected beauty.” (In theaters
or $4 on demand) R
A Glitch in the Matrix
Rodney Ascher’s latest documentary “will
at least serve as the jumping-off point for
a strange conversation or two,” said Jacob
Oller in PasteMagazine.com. The director
of Room 237, which probed the wild theo-
ries that surround Stanley Kubrick’s The
Shining, this time immerses viewers in the
belief systems of a handful of subjects who
have in one way or another embraced the
idea that we all live in a simulated reality.
Despite some “genuinely gripping” seg-
ments, the film is too scattershot to make
a lasting impact, getting by mostly on its
“tourist’s eye for novelty.” (In theaters or
$7 on demand) Not rated
The Mauritanian
Mohamedou Ould Slahi’s story might have
made a sensational documentary, said
David Rooney in The Hollywood Reporter.
Arrested shortly after 9/11, he was tortured
by his U.S. captors and held at Guan-
tánamo Bay for 14 years without being
formally charged. But this dramatization,
despite “a gripping central performance”
from Tahar Rahim and the presence of
Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch
as opposing attorneys, proves “strangely
flat.” Though “unimpeachably well-
intentioned,” it’s also “methodical and
serious-minded to a fault.” (In theaters) RSia’s autism movie: The skunk at the Golden Globes party
One question repeatedly comes to mind dur-
ing “almost every baffling minute” of Sia’s
debut as a feature film director: “Why?”
said David Ehrlich in IndieWire.com. Why
did the Australian songwriter and pop star
veer into filmmaking to make a musical fea-
turing a nonverbal autistic teenager? “Why,
against the advice of virtually every living
human, did she cast her neurotypical teen-
age muse Maddie Ziegler as the nonverbal
autistic girl?” Why did the stubborn auteur
engage in heated social media spats with
autistic people about that casting choice?
And why, finally, did this movie, with its
dismal reviews and a script that “feels like
it was Human Centipede-ed together from
400 uplifting Instagram Stories,” wind up
garnering two Golden Globe nominations
that have put an international spotlight on it?We all got an early warning when Sia
pitched her vision of Music as “Rain Man
the musical, but with girls,” said Ashley
Spencer in The New York Times. The
earlier movie, with Dustin Hoffman as an
autistic savant, features “exactly the kind
of stereotypical portrayal that disabilityrights advocates say they don’t want to
see.” Petitioners describe the exaggerated
autistic mannerisms of Music’s neurotypi-
cal performers as “nauseating,” and they
protested two scenes in the prerelease
version that show the 14-year-old title
character subjected to a practice, known
as prone restraint, that has caused death.
Leslie Odom Jr.’s character actually claims
such restraint is an expression of love, while
Globe nominee Kate Hudson is taking shots
from critics because her character’s journey
as an unlikely parent figure becomes more
important than anything young Music isgoing through. The songs Sia wrote for the
movie are fine, said David Fear in Rolling
Stone. They remind you of why her best
music is “such a pure rush,” and each one
plays out in a Skittles-hued alternate realm
that is supposed to represent Music’s imagi-
nation. Unfortunately, everything set in the
real world “hits all the wrong notes.”
“I feel sorry for Ziegler,” said Sara Luter man
in Slate.com. A dancer whom Sia has fea-
tured in many music videos, she was 14
when Music was filmed, and knowing that
she meant no insult to autistic people like
myself “does not reduce the acute discom-
fort of watching her clumsily ape disability.”
The adults around her should have known
better. That said, Music’s central players
don’t deserve to have their careers torpedoed
by this mess, said Matthew Rozsa in Salon
.com. “They do, however, need to realize
what they did was wrong and hurtful.” If
Music does nothing else worthwhile, it “can
serve as an object lesson for future filmmak-
ers dealing with sensitive subjects, reminding
them to pay attention to the voices of the
communities they aspire to represent.”Ziegler with Hudson: Empathy misplaced