Los Angeles Times - 04.10.2019

E4 FRIDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2019 LATIMES.COM/CALENDAR

AT THE MOVIES

LATIMES.COM/MOVIES

Movie recommendations

from critics Justin Chang

(J.C.) and Kenneth Turan

(K.T.). In general release

unless otherwise noted.

American Factory

A complicated, multifaceted

story that deals with very

different cultures in combi-

nation and collision, a story

that both understands

global economic issues and

has the sensitivity to involve

us intimately in the daily

lives of the people involved.

(K.T.) NR Netflix

Blinded by the Light

A high-spirited, unabashed

mash note to the power of

popular music in general

and the life-changing an-

thems of Bruce Spring-

steen in particular, it uses

them in the irresistible

manner of India’s popular

Bollywood musicals. (K.T.)

PG-13 Limited

Downton Abbey

Once feared shuttered for

good, the Crawley family

home has grandly reopened

its doors, and for those who

found pleasure within its

magisterial walls, that is

the best of news. PBS’ high-

est-rated dramatic series

of all time has adroitly

transitioned to theaters

with all its satisfying quali-

ties — and just about its

entire core cast — intact.

(K.T.) PG

The Farewell

Lulu Wang’s tender, funny

and melancholy dramedy

about an elaborate family

deception is personal film-

making at its most incisive,

with superb performances

from a cast that includes

Awkwafina, Zhao Shuzhen,

Tzi Ma and Diana Lin.

(J.C.) PG

First Love

The madly prolific and often

just plain mad Japanese

filmmaker Takashi Miike’s

latest movie, nimble and

sweetly disarming with its

chaste romantic interludes,

slam-bang set pieces and

occasional dubious-taste

sight gags, is a joyous piece,

a demented, multitasking

little scherzo about a termi-

nally ill boxer and a sex

worker with a heart of gold.

(J.C.) NR.

Hustlers

A movie about the seduc-

tions of the flesh and the

satisfactions of a well-ex-

ecuted con, it reconfigures

Jennifer Lopez’s cinematic

image with brazen intelli-

gence and purpose as she

gives her most electrifying

screen performance since

“Out of Sight.” Written and

directed by Lorene Scafaria.

(J.C.) R

Toy Story 4

It will blow you away in ways

you won’t be expecting. As

directed by Josh Cooley and

written by Stephany Folsom

and the veteran Andrew

Stanton, the film surprises

with the amount of genuine

emotion it generates with its

focus on love, loyalty and

what matters most in life, to

humans as well as toys.

(K.T.) G

“DOWNTON”:Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery.

Jaap BuitendijkFocus Features

Hungarian master Béla Tarr announced his retirement from filmmaking in 2011, around

the time his final narrative work was making its way along the festival circuit. He could hardly

have gone out on a more fitting note: Set in a remote, wind-battered house at what feels like

the end of the world, “The Turin Horse” is as complete a closing statement as any artist has

made, a benediction not only for a great career but also perhaps for humanity itself.

It is also a pure distillation of the techniques that have made Tarr a pioneering figure in

cinema: the magisterial long takes, the ritualistic rhythms, the spell that can take hold only

within the confines of a movie theater. The American Cinematheque will screen “The Turin

Horse” on Oct. 12, followed by two showings (Oct. 13 and Oct. 26) of Tarr’s legendary 7 1/2-hour

tour de force, “Sátántangó,” in a new 4K restoration. Neither is to be missed: These are films

that demand, and more than repay, your time and attention.
— Justin Chang

American Cinematheque: Béla Tarr Revisited:“The Turin Horse,” 7:30 p.m. Oct. 12, Aero

Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica, $12 ($8 with membership); ‘Sátántangó,’ 2 p.m.

Oct. 13, Aero Theatre; 2 p.m. Oct. 26, Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, $15

($13 with membership). (323) 466-3456, http://www.americancinemathequecalendar.com/

CRITIC’S CHOICE

Cinema Guild

ERIKA BOKstars in “The Turin Horse,” Hungarian master Béla Tarr’s last film.

A stunning benediction

You can’t fault “Lucy in
the Sky” for false advertis-
ing, and not just because a
cover of the Beatles song
makes a late but inevitable
appearance.
When we first meet Lucy
Cola (Natalie Portman), she
is indeed hundreds of miles
up, hovering alongside a
NASA spacecraft as it orbits
Earth. She’s nearing the end
of her mission but doesn’t
want to leave (“Just a few
more minutes,” she mur-
murs to a colleague), and
you can hardly blame her.
Basking in the otherworldly
silence as her home planet
spreads out beneath her like
a glowing radioactive car-
pet, Lucy is overwhelmed by
wonderment and heartache,
and also by a piercing real-
ization: Life will never be the
same, or as beautiful as this.
It’s a despairing conclu-
sion that she will spend the
rest of this botched but be-
guilingly strange psycholo-
gical drama trying to out-
run. Vigorously overdirected
by Noah Hawley, a television
veteran (“Fargo,” “Legion”)
making his feature debut,
“Lucy in the Sky” tells the
fact-based but heavily fic-
tionalized story of an astro-
naut experiencing an unusu-
ally difficult reentry. Lucy
seems outwardly fine after
returning to her Texas
home: She’s in excellent
physical condition, with
none of the exhaustion or
muscular decay that people
often experience after doing
time in zero gravity. Her
mind, however, has never
come back to Earth; it re-
mains stuck in the cosmos,
and she longs to return there
as quickly as possible.
Hawley works hard to put
Lucy’s dislocation into cin-
ematic terms, sometimes by
splicing a sequence into
flashbacks and flash-for-
wards, and sometimes by
having the aspect ratio shift
almost compulsively
throughout. When Lucy re-
turns from her first mission,
the frame shrinks to a nearly
square box, as if to match
her emotional constriction;
it widens again when other
possibilities rear their head.
Hawley is hardly the only di-
rector of late to tinker with
the shape of the image —
Wes Anderson and Xavier
Dolan come to mind — but I
can’t recall the last movie in

which the screen twitched so

relentlessly, to the point

where you’re not sure if

you’re seeing an experimen-

tal technique or a projection

malfunction.

The point of all this visual

fluctuation is clear, however:

Outer space has ruined ordi-

nary life for Lucy, who begins

to register her indifference

through small, secretive acts

of protest. No longer satis-

fied with the happy but

humdrum home she once

enjoyed with her strait-laced

husband, Drew (Dan

Stevens), she begins a torrid

affair with a fellow astro-

naut, Mark Goodwin (Jon

Hamm, a perfect heel as al-

ways). She applies herself

with even more effort than

usual to the various tests

and training sessions that

will determine the next

NASA space crew and ex-

changes the occasional barb

with a younger candidate,

Erin Eccles (Zazie Beetz),

who just might elbow her

aside.

You may have an inkling

of where all this is headed,

especially if you followed the

story of Capt. Lisa Nowak,

Lucy’s real-life inspiration.

(The historical record

shouldn’t be subject to

spoiler warnings, but if you

wish to see “Lucy in the Sky”

knowing as little as possible,

read no further.) In early

2007, Nowak was arrested in

Orlando, Fla., and charged

with the attempted kidnap-

ping of U.S. Air Force Capt.

Colleen Shipman, whose

boyfriend, the astronaut

William Oefelein, Nowak

had also been romantically

involved with.

The story fascinated the

public not only because it

was a love triangle involving

the NASA elite, but also be-

cause of the jaw-dropping

nature of Nowak’s mission,

as outlined by prosecutors.

She had a black wig, a BB

gun, pepper spray, a drilling

hammer, a folding knife and

other paraphernalia in her

possession when she made

the 900-mile drive from

Houston to Orlando to ac-

cost Shipman, authorities

said. The juiciest detail in

the police report, the one

that turned a piece of tabloid

filler into a punchline, was

that she had brought adult

diapers (an astronaut ne-

cessity) with her so as to

avoid having to stop on the

way, though Nowak later de-

nied having worn them.

Diapers are neither seen

nor worn in “Lucy in the

Sky,” an omission that drew

disappointed chuckles and

generated headlines at the

recent Toronto Interna-

tional Film Festival. Hawley,

who wrote the script with

Brian C. Brown and Elliott

DiGuiseppi, has said in in-

terviews that he avoided it

because he wanted to “rehu-

manize” his off-screen sub-

ject.

That’s a debatable no-

tion — is there anything

more humanizing, really,

than the inescapable reality

of our most basic biological

functions? — but given the

near-impossibility of dis-

cussing this movie without

even making reference to the

diaper incident, you can

understand the director’s

reluctance to compound

Nowak’s humiliation.

You can also appreciate

the sensitivity of his ap-

proach to Lucy, whom he

treats less as a stand-in for

Nowak than as a woman

whose dreams, desires, frus-

trations and impulses defy

conventional dramatization

or diagnosis. Her family life

has been wholly reinvented.

Lucy has a sharp-tongued

grandmother (an F-bomb-

dropping Ellen Burstyn),

who keeps a Chekhovian

loaded gun in her purse, and

a moody live-in niece (Pearl

Amanda Dickson) whose

narrative function is harder

to divine. Together, though,

they do form a collective por-

trait of female solidarity in a

movie that’s about, among

other things, the insulting

assumptions and dimin-

ished expectations that

women face in matters of

work and love.

One salutary way to ap-

proach “Lucy in the Sky” is

to see it as a companion vol-

ume to the season’s other

stargazing character study,

“Ad Astra,” answering that

picture’s masculine aloof-

ness with a portrait of a fe-

male astronaut in emotional

flux. The feminist thrust

may explain the way Hawley

and his co-writers have se-

lectively retooled Nowak’s

story, especially what awaits

her at the end of her long, im-

pulsive road trip. Unfortu-

nately, it’s an anticlimactic

conclusion at best, full of

tacked-on thriller shenani-

gans that, once they’ve pe-

tered out, make you wonder

exactly why this story drew

the filmmakers’ attention to

begin with.

The answer to that, hap-

pily, can be found in Port-

man’s every glimmer of nu-

ance. She’s been fond of big

accents and big histrionics

of late, as suited the larger-

than-life celebrities she was

playing (“Vox Lux,”

“Jackie”), but here her mild

Texas drawl complements a

performance that always

feels focused and measured

in its volatility, never falter-

ing even when the filmmak-

ing does.

You don’t need so many

lyrical butterfly shots when

you have an actress who can

show you, in a simple glance

or gesture, a woman who’s

more than outlived her co-

coon.

A spacey ‘Lucy in the Sky’

Natalie Portman’s focused performance anchors a messy but absorbing drama

Hilary GayleTwentieth Century Fox

FELLOW NASAastronauts Lucy (Natalie Portman) and Mark (Jon Hamm) are caught up in a torrid affair.

‘Lucy in

the Sky’

Rated:R, for language and

some sexual content

Running time: 2 hours,

4 minutes

Playing: In general release

JUSTIN CHANG
FILM CRITIC

REVIEW

The movies “Cuck,” “Har-

poon,” “The Parts You

Lose,” “Semper Fi” and

“Wrinkles the Clown” also

open Friday in limited re-

lease. The reviews can be

found online at latimes.com

/entertainment/movies.

Reviews online