August 2019 | Rolling Stone | 91
‘Walk Hard’: Faux-hemian Rhapsody
THE GREATEST musical biopic of the past 20 years isn’t about Johnny, Reggie, or Freddie —
it’s all about Dewey. A hard-livin’, hard-lovin’ country singer with his share of childhood trage-
dies and career detours, Dewey Cox is the quintessential 20th-century chart-topper. So what if he’s
not real? Jake Kasdan’s comedy mercilessly skewers every cliché, from the “eureka!” moment to the drug-in-
duced downfall. Thanks to John C. Reilly’s musical chops and Method approach — he went on tour in charac-
ter — what could have been the Scary Movie of biopics morphs into a parody even better than the real thing.
(His “Dylan phase” song could be a Blonde on Blonde outtake.) Our current wave of rock-star melodramas
only makes Walk Hard sharper with age. Thanks to bad timing, it tanked upon release. Meanwhile, the
unintentionally hilarious Oscar bait Bohemian Rhapsody became a hit. The wrong film died. DAVID FEARWalk Hard
2007
AVAILABLE ON
YouTube, Amazon
Video, iTunes,
Google Play,
VuduJenna
Fischer
and ReillyRECONSIDEREDCLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: NICK WALL/WARNER BROS. PICTURES; AMAZON STUDIOS; IFC FILMS; GEMMA LA MANA/COLUMBIA PICTURES
RUN FOR YOUR LIFE
BIRD ON A WIRE
GLORY DAYS
FOR SOME people,
Bruce Springsteen
doesn’t just write lyr-
ics — he sings words to
live by. That’s the case
for Javed (dynamite
newcomer Viveik
Kalra), a no-hope
British Pakistani teen
feeling the financial
squeeze of Thatcherism in 1987 Luton. Then
he hears Springsteen for the first time, and
the words of “Dancing in the Dark” jump
out of his headphones and onto the screen.
He’s exhilarated. Look for this exuberant gift
of a movie to have the same effect on you.
Directed by Gurinder Chadha (Bend It Like
Beckham), from a memoir by the Javed-like
Springsteen fan Sarfraz Manzoor, Blinded by
the Light is a joyous antidote to cynicism. Cyn-
ics, of course, will hate it. But as Javed finds
a teacher (Hayley Atwell) to inspire, a friend
(Aaron Phagura) to brace him, and a girl
(Nell Williams) to kiss, the movie becomes an
irresistible blast of pure feeling. Is the music
of Springsteen, who gave the film 15 songs and
his blessing, really “a direct line to all that’s
true in this shitty world”? Go ahead and argue.
But from Thatcher’s England to Trump’s
America, it sure as hell couldn’t hurt. P.T.Bell takes
a run at
reinvention.The
Nightingale
STARRING
Aisling Franciosi
Sam Claflin
DIRECTED BY
Jennifer Kent
4I A FUN RIDE, spiked
with touching gravity,
is not a shabby way
to end the movie
summer. Thanks to
Jillian Bell, a comic
force of nature with
real dramatic chops,
that’s what you get
at Brittany Runs a
Marathon. Bell (22 Jump Street) plays the title
role, an aggressively upbeat twentysomething
who gets a medical wakeup call about weight,
high blood pressure, and Adderall addiction.
There’s a downside to being the plus-size best
friend to her skinny, narcissistic roommate
(Alice Lee). And it’s not pretty.
It’s running the New York City Marathon
that reps Brittany’s impossible dream. Luck-
ily, debuting director Paul Downs Colaizzo
doesn’t build his script for easy sitcom
miracles. For Brittany, it’s all baby steps, and
the same goes for the movie, which refuses
to leave Brittany’s demons unexplored. It’s
the backsliding that gets to the roots of her
self-loathing. Brittany and Colaizzo do it the
hard way, creating a character to root for
without glib shortcuts. When you cheer at the
end — and you will — the laughs and the tears
feel honest and richly earned. P.T.Brittany Runs
a Marathon
STARRING
Jillian Bell
DIRECTED BY
Paul Downs
Colaizzo
#Blinded
by the Light
STARRING
Viveik Kalra
DIRECTED BY
Gurinder
Chadha
# Above: Kalra
finds religion
in Springsteen.
Below:
Franciosi
exacts bloody
revenge.IT’S INSTRUCTIVE
to point out that The
Nightingale is not for
the faint of heart.
Rape scenes abound,
including one where
the rapist violates his
victim while her baby
screams in his ear. For
those made of stron-
ger stuff, The Nightingale is a potent, artistic
triumph that refuses to traffic in coddling.
In her second film, after 2014’s scarily
haunting The Babadook, Australian writer-
director Jennifer Kent pursues a more literal
kind of horror. Set in the 1825 Tasmanian Out-
back, the film stars Aisling Franciosi in a tour
de force as Clare, a young Irish convict who’s
kept as a sex slave by the virulent Lieutenant
Hawkins (Sam Claflin). Having served her
seven-year sentence, Clare longs to break free
with her husband (Michael Sheasby) and baby.
When Hawkins brutally ends that dream,
Clare vows revenge. She pursues him into the
wilderness with only an Aboriginal tracker,
Billy (a superb Baykali Ganambarr), to guide
her. As Kent shows their mutual hostility
soften into a fragile bond, she uses Clare to
deconstruct the complex nature of a woman’s
retribution. Kent never loses sight of the psy-
chological wounds that fester underneath. P.T.