Author: Amy Diaz

Dear Evan Hansen (PG-13)

An anxiety-filled teenager stumbles into a family’s tragedy in Dear Evan Hansen, a film adaptation of the Broadway musical.

Evan Hansen (Ben Platt, who originated the role in the stage musical) is starting his senior year of high school with an arm cast, prescriptions to help him manage his anxiety and depression and an assignment from his therapist to write himself a daily letter of affirmation. “Dear Evan Hansen,” he writes himself in the high school library. He can’t seem to find the life-affirming words to say to himself and instead pens a letter wondering if he matters at all, throwing in a mention of Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever), a girl he’s long liked from a far. When he goes to print it out, though, her brother Connor (Colton Ryan) gets ahold of it first. Connor, an angry kid who briefly has a friendly-ish conversation with Evan before he finds the letter, storms off, thinking the letter is just meant to provoke him.

As Evan explains nervously to Jared (Nik Dodani), his one sort-of friend (we’re just family friends, Jared reminds him), he’s afraid Connor will publish his letter online. But instead, he’s called to the principal’s office, where Evan’s mom, Cynthia (Amy Adams), and stepdad, Larry (Danny Pino), ask him about what they assume is his friendship with Connor. Evan very weakly attempts to explain his whole therapist assignment situation but then Cynthia explains that the “Dear Evan Hansen” note is Connor’s last words because he has died by suicide. Evan ends up accepting a dinner invitation to Connor’s family’s house and, unable to bring himself to tell this grieving family that Connor didn’t write the letter, he makes up memories of a friendship between himself and Connor.

This friendship not only brings him into this family — a wealthy, in his mind idyllic version of a family compared to his absent dad and caring but long-hours-working mother, Heidi (Julianne Moore) — and closer to Zoe but wins him support from the kids at school, including high achiever Alana (Amandla Stenberg), who confides in Evan that she too struggles with mental health issues. As Evan is pulled more into these relationships, he finds himself able to deliver, to others at least, the hopeful message that he and, as he learns, other teens need to hear.

I know that time and Joss Whedon have made this comparison uncool, but during the first half of this movie especially I found myself thinking that the “Earshot” episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer had delivered the basic message of this movie so much cleaner and more succinctly. The “every single person … is ignoring your pain because they’re too busy with their own” speech from that 1999 episode (which, if it makes it better, was written by Jane Espenson, according to Wikipedia) delivered to one high schooler by another gets to what I feel like this movie wants to convey. That, and that you, the “you” of all of teenagerdom, are not alone, which this movie conveys through at least two or three songs.

Here, these messages are delivered often by or to or around Ben Platt — and, look, it’s a musical, I can suspend disbelief regarding a lot of things, including an actor’s age (which has been a subject of internet chatter since the trailer was released). But Platt isn’t just about a decade older than the character he’s playing, he reads as considerably older, both older than his character and older than the other “kids” in the “high school.” In reality, he isn’t all that much older than most of the other main teen-playing actors, but his whole vibe creates something different in this character, something more predatory and, frankly, creepy than what seems to be intended, which, I think at least based on the songs, is more a kid who is sad and lost and so lacking in confidence that he sort of falls into something he doesn’t understand the harm of and can’t handle. I never felt entirely certain who I was supposed to root for, and if always thinking Evan Hansen was awful is what I’m supposed to feel then he makes for a very unappealing central character.

So there’s all that, creating a real “yeesh” in the middle of the movie that I could never quite get away from. But there are also some nice elements here. Moore and Adams both give real depth to their characters as moms dealing with sons they don’t know how to help. Their difficulties, their grief and frustrations are well-portrayed, even though the movie doesn’t give them a whole lot of independent character development. I also like how Dever (who has pretty much been excellent in everything I’ve seen her in) is able to give us the struggle of Zoe to reconcile the crappy parts of her relationship with her brother with her memories of them as kids.

While I don’t think I’ll be shelling out for the cast album, Dear Evan Hansen has some nice songs, that work in the moment. I didn’t love all of the choreography and camera work here, but it was interesting and it was able to break free from the “stuck on the stage”-iness that can hamper some musicals.

With its premise that I feel like it doesn’t entirely do justice to and its whole “this could easily be a horror movie” thing, Dear Evan Hansen is pretty solidly not for me. But I could see a world in which fans of the musical (of which there clearly are plenty; it was nominated for multiple Tonys, according to Wikipedia) might enjoy this adaptation. C

Rated PG-13 for thematic material involving suicide (which, for real-world help: the number for the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255), brief strong language and some suggestive references. Directed by Stephen Chbosky with a screenplay by Steven Levenson (from the stage play with music and lyrics by Justin Paul and Benj Pasek and book by Steven Levenson), Dear Evan Hansen is two hours and 17 minutes long (and oh boy is it ever) and is distributed in theaters only at the moment by Universal Studios.

The Eyes of Tammy Faye (PG-13)

The life of the televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker gets the biopic treatment in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, a feature film that shares that title with a 2000 documentary about Bakker (who by then was Tammy Faye Messner).

I forgot, until rewatching the trailer for that doc (available for rent or purchase), how deeply weird it could be, with its puppets reading title cards and its talking head interviews with Tammy herself. Tammy Faye died in 2007 and really by that point did seem like someone whose life and on-screen personality were so much bigger and stranger than the late 1980s collapse of the TV evangelist network she fronted with her then-husband Jim Bakker.

Here we much more specifically stick to Tammy Faye (Jessica Chastain) from roughly the early 1960s, when she first met Jim Bakker (Andrew Garfield) at bible college, through the end of their religious entertainment and real estate empire. After an initial glimpse at child Tammy Faye, eager to be a part of the church community where her mother, Rachel (Cherry Jones), played piano, we see maybe-20-ish Tammy become instantly attracted to Jim, whom she watches honing his tight five on the prosperity gospel in class. The teacher is not impressed by his “God wants you to be rich” shtick but it fits with Tammy’s “just spreadin’ joy” approach to religion. The two quickly get married and decide to hit the road as traveling preachers, with Tammy finding a crowd-pleasing gimmick in puppetry.

Their show, with its kid-grabbing puppets and parent-captivating humor and messages, is exactly the kind of four-quadrant entertainment that Pat Robertson (Gabriel Olds) is looking for at his Christian Broadcasting Network. The couple goes to work for him and makes a nice living — but Robertson’s living is nicer, Bakker realizes. Tammy meanwhile is not thrilled with how pregnancy and a new baby has pushed her off the air. They decided to go it on their own, starting their Praise The Lord network and earning big off the contributions of their audience.

But there is no “enough” for Jim, whom the movie shows constantly trying to expand the PTL’s reach with an amusement park and real estate. Along the way, Tammy doesn’t realize (or maybe has decided not to realize) the financial troubles the couple is getting themselves deeper and deeper into but she does realize that there are serious troubles in her marriage.

This movie seems to have one strongly held belief and that is that Jim Bakker is a real jerk. The movie paints him as manipulating and gaslighting Tammy Faye, shows him being cruel to her and shows him leeching off her talent to bolster his house-of-cards empire. Is Tammy an earnest dupe who doesn’t understand her husband’s dodgy business dealings? Is she sort of a willing dupe who doesn’t understand because she doesn’t want to understand? Is she a True Believer who is on a mission from God? Is “True Believer” another bit of stagecraft, like the sparkly clothes and the loud makeup, that she puts on because it gains her affection? I’m not really sure where the movie comes down on all of these issues or what it wants us to come away believing about her. I feel like it presents us sort of an appetizer sampler of Tammy Faye’s life and who she is and lets us pick whether we think the jalapeño poppers of “making up for childhood hurts” or the mozzarella sticks of “a natural-born performer whose skills didn’t have a lot of outlets in the deeply religious mid-century rural South” are the true centerpiece of the dish.

This movie feels like it was constructed by figuring out the makeup and costumes first, with everything else built off that. Everybody looks and sounds the part (or enough of the part) that you can believe who they are. But I didn’t get a sense that the movie went much deeper than that. The Eyes of Tammy Faye absolutely sells us on the idea that Tammy Faye is deserving of a biopic, but doesn’t offer a clear picture of who it thinks she is. B-

Rated PG-13 for sexual content and drug abuse, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Michael Showalter with a screenplay by Abe Slyvia, The Eyes of Tammy Faye is two hours and six minutes long and distributed by 20th Century Studios in theaters.

Copshop (R)

A police officer at a lonely Nevada police station finds herself in the middle of a shootout in Copshop, the dusty, 1970s-vibed Western you want when you want some popcorn and escapism.

Officer Val Young (Alexis Louder — ladies and gentlemen, meet action movies’ newest badass) gets punched breaking up a rowdy wedding party fight at a local casino and arrests the puncher, Teddy Murretto (Frank Grillo), a man who wasn’t actually part of the wedding. And, as Young figures out pretty quickly, he wanted to get arrested. Perhaps he figured even the bored, shifty and generally annoyed officers at this small station were safer company than the likes of Bob Viddick (Gerard Butler), a man also arrested that night. Bob appears to be falling down drunk — but of course that’s just his way of getting into the same small cell block as Teddy. Though locked up, Bob proves pretty quickly that he can still get to Teddy. But they both learn that Bob wasn’t the only person hired to take Teddy out. But, whatever the workplace politics of Teddy, Bob and their criminal bosses, no-nonsense Val isn’t having any of it.

Everything in this movie feels very intentional. The movie appears to be set in roughly the now but it plays with what feels like a throwback sensibility — a little bit 1970s stylized police and Western tales, a little bit 1990s indie crime tales with a violent sense of humor. And it manages to do this — and play with some very stylized camera shots — without tipping into Quentin Tarantino territory.

This movie is also very intentionally (maybe even impeccably?) cast. Everyone brings a kind of griminess to their characters — none more so, of course, than Butler, whom I have seen deservedly praised in other reviews for his work here. His Bob Viddick is both a precise and professional assassin and kind of a sweaty, hairy mess and it all works great. And then there is Louder, who just leaps off the screen as the confident but capable enough to justify the confidence young officer. Get this woman a John Wick-style franchise!

Copshop feels like real effortless fun, like exactly the kind of movie you’re hoping for when you go to a midday matinee, as I did in the reopened and newly named Apple Cinemas in Hooksett (which is the new owner of the old Cinemagic; both the Hooksett and Merrimack locations are now back in operation). Improbable shootouts and the nuttiness of a not-the-good-guy Gerard Butler performance — now this is why you go to the movies. B

Rated R for strong/bloody violence and pervasive language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Joe Carnahan with a screenplay by Kurt McLeod and Joe Carnahan, Copshop is an hour and 47 minutes long and distributed by Open Road Films. It is screening in theaters.

FILM

Venues

AMC Londonderry
16 Orchard View Dr., Londonderry
amctheatres.com

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

Cinemark Rockingham Park 12
15 Mall Road, Salem

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester; 151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua; 150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

O’neil Cinemas at Brickyard Square
24 Calef Hwy., Epping
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

The Strand
20 Third St., Dover
343-1899, thestranddover.com

Shows

• Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (PG-13, 1986) part of the Film Frenzy $5 Classics series at O’neil Cinemas in Epping with multiple daily screenings on Thursday, Sept. 30.

• Composer Amy Beach, a documentary about the NH composer, screened at Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Thursday, Sept. 30, 7 p.m. Tickets cost $12.

• 21+ Trivia Night for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows at Chunky’s in Manchester on Thursday, Sept. 30, at 7:30 p.m. Reserve a seat with the purchase of a $5 food voucher.

• The Lost Leonardo (PG-13, 2021) screening Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 4 & 7 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 2, at 5:30 & 8:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• The Eyes Of Tammy Faye (PG-13. 2021) Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30, 3:30 & 6:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Blue Bayou (R, 2021) Friday, Oct. 1, and Sunday, Oct. 3, at 1 p.m. and Saturday, Oct. 2, at 2:30 p.m. at Red River Theatres in Concord.

• Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931) double-featuring on Saturday, Oct. 2, at 1 p.m. at AMC Londonderry, Cinemark Rockingham Park 12 and Regal Fox Run Stadium 15 via Fathom Events.

• National Theatre Live Follies, a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• Week of Witches see films daily at The Strand in Dover Sunday, Oct. 3, through Sunday, Oct. 10. One ticket to all 8 films costs $25.

• Spirited Away (PG, 2001) at Cinemark Rockingham Park, AMC Methuen 20 and Lowell Cinema Showcase on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 3 p.m. (dubbed); Monday, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. (subtitled), and Wednesday, Oct. 6, at 7 p.m. (dubbed) via Fathom Events.

Featured photo: Dear Evan Hansen. Courtesy photo.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie (PG-13)

A teenager living in Sheffield, England, and dreaming of a future of fabulousness pursues his desire to become a drag queen in the musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, a joyous movie about figuring out who you are, with original songs

Jamie New (Max Harwood) is an out, proud and happy-seeming teen, even if he does have some family difficulties — his dad (Ralph Ineson) doesn’t keep in contact — and he’s the object of some bullying from schoolmates, including popular kid Dean (Sean Bottomley). But Jamie has a supportive best friend in Pritti Pasha (Lauren Patel), whose headscarf and nerdiness have also made her a bullying target, and a supportive mom, Margaret (Sarah Lancashire).

It’s Margaret who buys Jamie the sparkly pair of red pumps he’s been saving for as a birthday present — and she gives him the card and cash that she says is from his dad. Though Jamie is clearly worried about what people — the kids at school, his dad — will think, he uses the shoes as a springboard to more fully develop a drag queen persona with the intention of debuting her at the school prom. It’s this plan that takes him to a drag queen clothing store and its owner, Hugo Battersby (Richard E. Grant), who on stage is the warrior queen Miss Loco Chanelle. Hugo helps to school Jamie in the art of being a drag queen and in also his history, particularly in late 1980s and early 1990s England.

Grant really brings it in that particular song, which captures the joy of his performance days and the struggles of that particular time in history. It’s one of many times when, even if the movie is being very on the nose, it’s nonetheless deeply moving and really captures the emotions of the characters. There are times here that reminded me of the scene in the recent movie CODA, when the teen learning to find her singing voice describes what music means to her in sign language, which is presented as her most precise way of expressing her emotions. Similarly, this movie uses song to really get to what things like performing in drag means to Jamie — and to the hurt of his relationship with his father. The movie also does a good job of making us understand what the power of a drag persona means to Jamie and how he wields it and has to learn to wield that power with care.

Strong relationships also help to sell this story, despite its fantasy elements of lunch room dance numbers and high school hallway as runway. Even though most of Margaret’s scenes are about Jamie, Lancashire is able to give us so much of her life and what she’s going through — particularly the very relatable parental heartache of putting all her energy into supporting Jamie with the knowledge that success means he’ll one day leave her behind. Likewise, we get glimpses of Pritti’s inner life and even some of the more antagonistic characters get layers. This is a sweet, good-hearted movie but it lives in the realm of reality, in terms of the way its people relate to each other, which helps all the joyful aspects of it have even more impact.

And the music and dancing — including some really spectacularly choreographed and production design-having big-cast dance numbers — are universally great too.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is a brightly colored, big-hearted, delight-filled movie. B+

Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, strong language and suggestive material, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Jonathan Butterell with a screenplay by Tom MacRae (and based on the stage musical of the same name), Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is an hour and 55 minutes long and is distributed by Amazon Studios via Amazon Prime Video.

Cry Macho (PG-13)

Clint Eastwood dons a very Clint-Eastwood-y cowboy hat to play a very Clint-Eastwood-y old-man cowboy in the Eastwood-directed Cry Macho.

It’s 1979 and Mike (Eastwood) is a fading horse trainer living in Texas. After a clunkily exposition-filled but wholly unnecessary opening scene where he is fired, we see that same former boss, Howard Polk (Dwight Yoakam), hire Mike a year later to go to Mexico to get Howard’s teenage son Rafael. Howard gives Mike, who has never met Rafael, who goes by Rafo (Eduardo Minett), a picture of the boy when he was like 6 (Rafo is now like 13) and some cash and mentions that Rafo’s mother, Leta (Fernando Urrejola), is nuts and that he (Howard) can’t go himself because he has vague legal troubles in Mexico.

Sure, this should all work out fine.

Mike first goes to see Leta, a cartoonishly Bad Mother, at her mansion, where a fancy party is taking place. She drunkenly tells Mike to take Rafo if he can find him — Rafo is wild and lives in the streets, taking his rooster to cockfights. And indeed Mike does find Rafo and his rooster, Macho, on the streets. After some convincing, Mike seems to get Rafo to agree to go with him to Texas, but later Leta threatens Mike that she will send the Mexican authorities after him if he tries to take Rafo. Mike seems to give up on the whole endeavor and drives away but then he finds Rafo has stowed away in his car and eventually agrees to take the kid north.

Because there is now a certain amount of peril involved in their journey — both from the police and from Leta’s henchmen — the duo takes back roads, running in to various types of difficulty. Eventually they end up in a small town where Marta (Natalia Traven), a widow raising her four granddaughters and running a restaurant, shows them kindness.

Cry Macho is not as aggressively offensive as 2018’s The Mule (which, rereading my review, I was way too nice to) but it is generally unpleasant and unfun to watch with regard to everything it does with its Mexican characters. Not that the two Texan characters come off much better, in terms of development and believability, but everything with the Mexican characters has a real hacky stereotype quality that I did not enjoy. The movie’s two female characters are painted with extravagant lack of subtlety as saint (the generous Marta, who finds Mike and Rafo when she goes to light candles in the shrine of the Virgin Mary) and devil (the boozy Leta, whose villainy is so over-the-top it doesn’t really make sense). It’s all so “ugh” that it gets in the way of whatever emotional story it’s trying to build about Mike and his mentor-y relationship with Rafo.

This movie is also clunky and inartful in its plot mechanics and its dialogue. You can see every seam of how this story was put together and the dialogue often feels like a first draft rough sketch of the ideas you’re trying to convey in a scene, not something the characters would actually say. These people never read as humans, only as characters and sometimes only as character types, which also makes it hard to judge whether the performances are any good.

This movie does look good, even if it leans on the dusty landscape to do most of the heavy lifting in that regard. Cry Macho isn’t as off-putting as The Mule — but it also isn’t the graceful The Old Man and the Gun (Robert Redford’s allegedly final acting turn), the movie Cry Macho most made me think of, with its nostalgia-filled “give it up for Your Favorite Actor, ladies and gentlemen” vibe. C

Rated PG-13 for language and thematic elements, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Clint Eastwood with a screenplay by Nick Schenk and N. Richard Nash (based on the book Macho by N. Richard Nash), Cry Macho is an hour and 44 minutes long and is distributed by Warner Bros. It is in theaters and streaming on HBO Max through Oct. 17.

FILM

Venues

Bank of NH Stage in Concord
16 S. Main St., Concord
225-1111, banknhstage.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• The Eyes of Tammy Faye (PG-13, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Sept. 24, through Sunday, Sept. 26, at 12:30, 3:30 and 6:30 p.m.

• Blue Bayou (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Sept. 24, through Sunday, Sept. 26, at 1, 4 and 7 p.m.

• National Theatre Live Follies,a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets $15 ($12 for students).

• National Theatre Live Cyrano de Bergerac, a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• Frankenweenie (PG, 2012) at the Rex Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets cost $12.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG, 1993) at the Rex Monday, Oct. 18, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets $12.

• The Phantom of the Opera (1925), a silent film starring Lon Chaney, with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Thursday, Oct. 21, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth. Tickets start at $10.

• Nosferatu (1922), a silent film directed by F.W. Murnau, on Thursday, Oct. 28, at 7:30 p.m. at the Rex in Manchester, featuring live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis. Admission $10.

Featured photo: Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Courtesy photo.