Category: Film Reviews

Catching up on Oscar nominated (and not) performances

In catching up on the Oscar-nominated actor and actress performances, I also checked out some of the performances of non-nominated recent actress-spotlighting movies. Which is to say I made an excuse to go see “Wuthering Heights”(in theaters), a 2026 release that has a good shot at production and costume design nods in next year’s awards season. This Emerald Fennell-directed (she also adapted the screenplay) version feels as much like an adaptation of the Kate Bush song “Wuthering Heights” as it does of Emily Bronte’s book — we mostly get main characters and vibes but only a loose riff on plot from the original text.

Margot Robbie is the Cathy and Jacob Elordi is the gruff Heathcliff, an idea the movie sells mostly by making him look like 2 feet taller than her and eventually giving him a gold tooth. In Bronte-era England, child Heathcliff is “adopted” by Cathy’s drunken father (Martin Clunes) and the two grow up together, forming a deep attachment that turns all heaving chests and longing looks as they get older. But as Cathy’s dad has gambled away the family fortune, Cathy feels compelled to marry wealthy neighbor Edgar Linton (Shazad Latif) to secure her future. Angry Heathcliff runs away for a few years and comes back with money of his own but still as angry and heaving as ever. Everybody here seems more comically unhinged than in the book with Edgar’s ward, Isabella (Alison Oliver), whom Heathcliff marries out of revenge, being the kookiest. Perhaps the movie’s most compelling character is Nelly (Hong Chau), presented here not as a servant who grows up with the main characters but as Cathy’s hired companion who is the child of a titled father and mother who is unmentioned (but it’s implied was not married to him) and is stuck by classism and racism in a lonely existence. There are problems with story and character construction but while not good exactly the movie is an enjoyable watch with Cathy’s enormous red dresses, the windy cliffsides and its “let’s do a silly one” approach to the material. For actresses, this movie probably gives more interesting stuff to do to Chau and even Oliver (she wins the “understands the assignment” award with the delivery of a wink) than Robbie, though she does get some great costumes.

Speaking of unhinged fun, I also checked out The Housemaid (rent or purchase), an adaptation of the book by Freida McFadden, directed by Paul Feig and starring Amanda Seyfried having the most fun. She plays Nina Winchester, wife of extremely rich Andrew Winchester (Brandon Sklenar) and mother of sullen child Cece (Indiana Elle). She hires Millie (Sydney Sweeney) as a live-in housemaid — which is a relief for Millie, who is out on parole and in desperate need of a job and a place to live to keep from going back to prison. I haven’t read the book so I had the fun of spending the first chunk of the movie trying to figure out who — the perfect wife, the doting husband, the eager housemaid — will go bananas. The movie then takes you on a fun rollercoaster ride, in which all performers acquit themselves quite well but Seyfried is the standout. This is a truly fun movie night watch.

I also wanted to see what all the fuss (i.e. gleeful derision) was about Ella McCay (Hulu, rent or purchase), a James L. Brooks movie starring Emma Mackey, Jamie Lee Curtis and Albert Brooks, among others. This strange dramady with its 1990s vibes (but set for no particular reason in the late aughts) feels very much “what if a tween girl became governor.” The movie writes Ella, an adult woman in her mid 30s, as if she was 13 Going on 30-ed from a middle school student government meeting to the lieutenant governor’s office of some pretend state. Here, this patronizingly drawn character gets the top spot when the previous governor is appointed as a U.S. Secretary of something. Ella is supposed to be hyper-competent and love government and public policy but the character acts as though she’s never paid attention to politics at all, even during an election (including her own). This disconnect does fit with the rest of the movie in that nothing about the characters really makes sense. Everybody — Ella’s beloved aunt played by Curtis, Ella’s estranged father played by Woody Harrelson, Ella’s bodyguard played by Kumail Nanjiani — seems like they are in their own separate movie, with tones and plot focuses entirely different from each other. It’s so thoroughly weird and sexist in a very specific mid 1990s way that I almost recommend it as an oddity that needs to be seen to be believed. Almost.

Back to the Oscars and the lead actress nominations. I enjoyed Jessie Buckley’s performance as Agnes, aka Mrs. Shakespeare, in Hamnet (available for rent or purchase). It really is her movie as she plays a mother dealing with grief and a wife dealing with an artistic husband who needs London — and a life largely away from Agnes and her children — to succeed. She does good work making us feel the weight of all this.

Song Sung Blue (Peacock, rent or purchase) gives Kate Hudson her Oscar nomination for playing Thunder, the stage name for Claire, wife of Lightning or Mike (Hugh Jackman), a journeyman musician playing rock medleys at fairs and the like. When he meets Claire he is both instantly smitten and inspired by her to create a Neil Diamond Experience act, which he names Lightning and Thunder, giving Claire a nickname that she finds delightfully empowering. Hudson is truly the movie’s center, turning in a strong performance of someone who has to fight her way through considerable life hurdles while trying to keep optimistic about what she can accomplish. She’s able to show us all of of that, and a sense of humor, in small gestures and expressions. I am fully team this-era Kate Hudson. I also liked what Ella Anderson and the musician King Princess do here, playing Claire’s and Mike’s, respectively, teenage daughters from previous marriages. This is a movie tells a straightforward story but truly sings because of its performances. Plus some extremely fun music, including, of course, “Sweet Caroline” — bum bum BUM.

As mentioned in my year-end look at films, I lovedRose Byrne as a mom clinging to sanity in If I Had Legs I’d Kick You(HBO Max and for rent and purchase). I saw Bugonia(Peacock, rent and purchase), which got Emma Stone a nomination, a while back and generally did not enjoy it or her performance, which felt like a faded copy of a role she’s played a lot recently, including in 2023’s Poor Things.

In the supporting actress category, I feel like there are no bad options of the three performances I’ve seen: Amy Madigan in Weapons(HBO Max, rent or purchase); Wunmi Mosaku forSinners (HBO Max, rent or purchase) and Teyana Taylor for One Battle After Another (HBO Max, rent or purchase).

I’m setting aside for a moment the two actress nominations for Sentimental Value, which I’ll catch up with when I see the movies nominated for International Feature Film. The movie also earned a supporting actor role. And, in the leading actor category, The Secret Agent, another international film nominee, got a nod.

Diving into the rest of lead actor nominations, I finally caught up with Richard Linklater’sBlue Moon (Netflix, rent or purchase), which received a nomination for Ethan Hawke’s performance as Lorenz Hart. I found Blue Moon thoroughly charming even though (or maybe because) it is self-consciously talky. Hawke is great as suffering chatterbox Hart, living through the nightmare that is longtime professional partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) getting raves on the opening night of Oklahoma!, his first production with Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney). Hart praises the musical, derides the musical, snobbily bemoans its popular aspects and begs Rodgers to do another brand new production with him. Through it all he bounces clever anecdotes off the bartender (Bobby Cannavale), the piano player (Jonah Lees) and fellow patron E.B. White (Patrick Kennedy). Hart is at Sardi’s, right where he shouldn’t be to endure all this but also maybe right where he can’t help but be. Among his disappointments is Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), a 20-year-old Yale student attending the party who Hart is in love with? Or fascinated by? Or some other kind of tragic situation, that he seems to realize is doomed and yet still has a “but maybe?” hope about it. Hawke turns in a good performance bringing humanity to a character who could have been written off as a passive aggressive blowhard.

Speaking of aggressive aggressive blowhards, let’s talk Marty Supreme(rent or purchase). Directed and co-written by Josh Safdie, this movie has that Safdie brothers sweaty desperate energy that made Uncut Gems such a — not pleasure, exactly. Engaging cinematic panic attack, maybe? Here, while my gut “ugh, with this guy” reaction to Timothée Chalamet’s Marty Mouser, wanna-be table tennis star in the 1950s, didn’t really change throughout the movie I did warm to how good Chalamet was at being a jerk on the come up, whose single-minded graspiness has just enough of a spark of charm. He is a good table tennis player and he is horrible at everything else, including basic “being a human” things. He is a guy whose whole vibe is asking for money he will definitely never pay back. It shouldn’t shock Odessa A’zion’s Rachel, Marty’s sometimes situationship, when his immediate reaction to her pregnancy is something like “it’s not mine.”

Solid performances are also to be had from Fran Drescher as Marty’s mother, from Tyler the Creator and Luke Manley as Marty’s friends, from Gwyneth Paltrow as a 1930s film star trying to organize a theatrical comeback and even from, I guess, Kevin O’Leary, Mr. Wonderful himself, as Paltrow’s husband demonstrating a different kind of jerkishness from Marty’s.

Of the movies I’ve seen before, One Battle After Another also got nominations for Leonardo DiCaprio in lead (shrug, sure), and Benicio Del Toro (yay!) and Sean Penn (boo for this cartoon character) in supporting. I would be delighted to watch Michael B. Jordan win for his double performance in Sinners and Delroy Lindo win supporting for his role in that movie. And I didn’t dislike Frankenstein(Netflix) as much as many critics — it’s so pretty! — but c’mon with that Jacob Elordi supporting nomination (for the role of the Creature).

Filmmaker looks at colonial territories

Jay Craven is an award-winning veteran New England filmmaker. He spoke with the Hippo about his 10th narrative feature film, Lost Nation. Craven is known for making Northern New England Westerns. His titles include Where the Rivers Flow North with Rip Torn and Michael J. Fox, Disappearances with Kris Kristofferson, and Northern Borders with Bruce Dern. He has taught for 25 years at Marlboro College in southern Vermont as well as Sarah Lawrence College. At Marlboro he educates students on how to make movies by involving them in the movie-making process. Lost Nation will kick off a series of New Hampshire screenings at Red River Theatres on Friday, Dec. 13, running through Thursday, Dec. 19. Craven will be appearing at select showings that opening weekend. Visit redrivertheatres.org for more information.

Would you like to give a brief overview of the film?

It’s basically a historical action drama and it’s set in the North Country during the period of the American Revolution. It involves the fact that the huge territory that is now considered Vermont was contested territory at that time between New York and the territory. Meanwhile, a scrappy and some could argue somewhat corrupt New Hampshire governor, Benning Wentworth, started issuing titles to poor farmers and settlers coming out of southern New England, New York claimed. It precipitated an intense struggle between the settlers who were settling the land and New York, which late in the game decided they’d better start settling the land or else it was going to disappear.

A drama unfolded where the New Hampshire grants holders, led by Ethan Allen and others — Ethan Allen considered sort of a founding father of Vermont — resisted New York encroachments on the land that they were settling. It’s the drama of this land conflict between New Hampshire and New York, led by the settlers on the New Hampshire grants. Ethan Allen is a central character, and also Lucy Terry Prince, who was a pioneering Black poet who settled with her family on a New Hampshire grant in southeastern what is now Vermont, Guilford, near Brattleboro, an area that was a stronghold of New York sentiment. It was a very turbulent setting for them to try to both settle their homestead, also as Black people. The film captures the drama of land and freedom — in the case of Ethan Allen, on a huge scale, involving the entire state of Vermont, which frankly he and his brother ended up owning 200,000 acres, because they were land speculators, too. And on a smaller scale, the Prince family, which was trying to simply secure and develop their 100-acre homestead using a New Hampshire grant. It’s a historical action drama around the high-stakes land struggle between New Hampshire and New York, which resulted in that contested territory becoming at first the independent republic of Vermont and later the state of Vermont.

Would you want to go more in depth on Lucy Terry Prince?

Yeah, Lucy Terry Prince was enslaved at the age of 3 to a family in western Massachusetts for 30 years, serving that family, but she also was a poet, and only one of her poems actually survives, which is called ‘Bars Fight,’ about the 1746 Deerfield Massacre, where indigenous fighters allied with the French attacked settlers in Deerfield, Massachusetts. Her poem told the story and was known far and wide and was passed on orally, but it’s the first known work of African American literature. And she was known for convening sort of story soirees on the porch of the family that she was working for, of their house, and would bring by storytellers and poets and people making up stuff as they went along. Another former slave, Abijah Prince, married her and bought her freedom with money that he earned fighting in the French and Indian War, and he was gifted this 100-acre plot of land in Guilford, and over five years developed [it] and brought his family here. When they brought their family here, their closest neighbor became an antagonist, wanting their land and also just sort of harassing them and making their life very difficult. You know, spoiling their crops and scattering their feed to the wind and letting their animals loose and, you know, attacking and beating them and burning their hay rake and stuff like that, so Lucy developed a strategy essentially to defend her family in the moment but more so in court all the way to what was called in Vermont the governor’s supreme council. [She] prevailed, you know, which would have been extremely unusual, frankly, for a woman, let alone a Black woman, to accomplish during this time. She was smart, and she was not going to take it lying down, and she, in what was already a very turbulent, deeply divided political situation, was able to push through and assert her family’s rights and two of her sons fought the American Revolution. Only one of her poems survives, but … she was definitely known as a storyteller and to a certain extent a visionary. … So it’s two different stories of the struggle for land and freedom, one on a big scale, one on a small intimate scale, but they are parallel and they overlap briefly.

With Ethan Allen, could he be considered a founding father of New Hampshire as well?

Well, he was working under New Hampshire jurisdiction when he started the struggle, so absolutely he would have been considered a New Hampshire pioneer because it was New Hampshire territory that he was defending against New York, so in some ways Vermont was born out of New Hampshire and was born out of a sort of, we could call solidarity, generosity, imagination, greed, whatever you want to call it. But no, there’s no question that when Ethan began his land struggle against New York, he was doing it on behalf of the New Hampshire granted territory.

How did this whole specific situation arise?

Benning Wentworth, the New Hampshire governor, commissioned 131 towns in that territory and he kept parcels of land in each town that were his, but they were running a pretty active land business. If it weren’t for this land struggle, the territory of Vermont would be New York. Although, what we also show in the movie is that when things got tough in this land struggle, Ethan Allen and his brother entered negotiations with the British during the American Revolution to actually deliver that territory to the British. So it could have also ended up part of Canada because there were some attacks coming from Quebec into Vermont. The Americans were not defending them and the Continental Congress did not like what Ethan was doing, because New York had a lot of power in the Continental Congress, including the fact that Alexander Hamilton was a representative from New York. Likewise, the governor of New York, George Clinton, was a very powerful figure. Ethan went to the Continental Congress twice begging the case of vermont or the territory against New York and was rejected.

What area of land is this referencing? What would it have made the United States look like today?

Well it would have been the whole state of, the area that is currently the whole state of Vermont would have been New Hampshire, all the way over to Lake Champlain. Because it’s interesting, New Hampshire Gov. Benning Wentworth, the New Hampshire governor, claimed he settled it first and established political control on the entire western part of the state. So it was odd. The area that was closest to New Hampshire was controlled by New York. The area that was closest to New York was controlled by New Hampshire. … I mean, it was intense. But then the film goes over how all the colonies came into their own statehood. —Zachary Lewis