Tag Archives: Katherine Waterston

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Feed My Frankenstein

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AfrAId

by Hope Madden

Artificial intelligence is scary. Mary Shelley knew it. When you create something smarter than you are, with an endless ability to learn, you don’t just become obsolete. You risk becoming a slave.

Writer/director Chris Weitz is the latest to spin the story for its scary implications, although the weekly titled AfrAId is more thriller than horror.  

Good guy Curtis (John Cho—who’s had tech unravel his world once already in 2018’s Searching) is pressured by his overbearing boss (Keith Carradine) to take a new client’s product home for a bit.

The company’s IAI—a kind of superpowered Alexa—immediately ingratiates itself by convincing the kids to do the dishes and watch an educational documentary and giving Curtis and his wife Meredith (Katherine Waterston) some alone time.

In the blink of the surveillance camera’s eye, the buttery voiced AI has befriended each of Curtis and Meredith’s children—Iris (Lukita Maxwell), high school senior with an emotionally manipulative boyfriend; Preston (Wyatt Lindner), the middle schooler struggling to make friends; and wee Cal (crazy cute Isaac Bae).

Well, this AI is a godsend! Which, of course, is entirely and pretty obviously inaccurate. Weitz’s screenplay reflects societal anxieties effectively enough but there’s no center to it, no “but why?” explanation.

Terminator had that. Frankenstein had it, too. It’s a curious omission and without it, the film collapses on itself.

The cast elevates every scene. They are, top to bottom, first rate and the film boasts an always welcome David Dastmalchian sighting. The smooth performances and easy chemistry onscreen heighten tensions, and Weitz does make a narrative choice that feels like a grim surprise. But it’s not enough to make AfrAId one that stays with you.

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Lady in Waiting

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The World to Come

by Hope Madden

Valentine’s Day approaches. If you’re looking for a swoon-worthy way to spend it, and you’re willing to risk a public screening, The World to Come may be the date you want to make.

Abigail (Katherine Waterston) and Dyer (Casey Affleck) share a colorless if efficient bond. It may have been slightly more than that a year ago, before their toddler passed. Now Dyer keeps a ledger of expenses and of crop yields while, at his request, his wife writes down what other facts may be forgotten each season.

Facts. Nothing more.

When Abigail meets new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby, having one hell of a year), facts lose their appeal.

The World to Come is directed with lilting melancholy by Mona Fastvold. She works from a script by Ron Hansen (co-written with Ben Shepard from his short story). The writing boasts the same time stamp and peculiarly observational style as Hansen’s 2007 treasure, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.

Fastvold’s measured approach and the understated delivery from both Waterson and Affleck suit the writing, but they also require patience from the viewer.

This restraint is punctuated by the barely stifled rage of Christopher Abbott (nice to see you) as Tallie’s husband Finney. His energy stands in fierce conflict with the reserve shown by his neighbors, with only Tallie’s unfettered nature to balance things.

Fastvold films Kirby as if she glows from within, a beautiful depiction of both the promise of love and the light she brings to Abigail’s life. Waterston allows Abigail to blossom in that light, and the warmth the two share is sincere and lovely.

Affleck impresses, again, with a performance of resigned grief that sneaks up on you, but it is Waterston who owns the film. At first unsure but willing to wonder, her Abigail embraces the full burst of emotion that she’d never known, and then must wrangle the sizes of the emotions that follow. It’s a fierce performance—maybe Waterson’s best.

Fastvold’s film calls to mind Céline Sciamma’s 2019 masterpiece Portrait of a Lady on Fire. (Indie horror buffs will also be reminded of 2018’s The Wind, for different reasons.) The World to Come measures suffering—particularly that done quietly and expectedly by women—against what pleasures can be stolen in this world.

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Board in the U.S.A.

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Mid90s

by George Wolf

More than just a time stamp, Mid90s emerges as a completely engaging verite-styled slice of place and person, a clear-eyed and visionary filmmaking debut for writer/director Jonah Hill.

While not strictly autobiographical, the film is Hill’s rewind button back to the Los Angeles skateboarding culture so omnipresent during his own coming of age.

13 year-old Stevie (Sunny Suljic) watches a tight knit group of skaters in his neighborhood, envious of the camaraderie missing from his life at home with an angry 18 year-old brother (Lucas Hedges – impressive yet again) and a self- absorbed 36 year-old mom (Katherine Waterson).

Stevie hangs around the skate shop until the boys slowly welcome him with a brand new name: “Sunburn.” With that, Ray (Na-kel Smith), “Fuckshit” (Olan Prenatt), “Fourth Grade” (Ryder McLaughlin) and Ruben (Gio Galicia) become Stevie’s new family, instantly giving him the sense of belonging and male role models he is craving.

Though the film does feel like a labor of love for Hill, it’s not draped in undue nostalgia, but rather a gritty sense of realism resting comfortably between 1995’s “Kids” and Bing Liu’s current skateboarding doc “Minding the Gap.”

The group of skaters moves like an animal pack, and Suljic (Killing of a Sacred Deer, House with a Clock in Its Walls) perfectly captures the attentive innocence behind a young boy grasping at masculinity.

The group of actors in Stevie’s skater family boast little screen experience but are long on authenticity. Smith and Prenatt especially impress as Ray and Fuckshit, two lifelong friends slowly moving in different directions. When Ray quickly and gently admonishes Stevie’s behavior, it is a touching moment that rings with genuine concern borne from experience.

Hill treats his characters with equal trust, presenting their lives without judgement, apology or condescension. He’s equally confident is his mechanics, crafting the film with abrupt cuts, a fluid camera and alternating blasts of sound and silence that help define the mood of longing masked by bravado.

An often funny, sometimes startling and endlessly human film, Mid90s is a blast from the past that points to a bright filmmaking future for Jonah Hill.





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Hillbilly Heist

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Logan Lucky

by George Wolf

You’re not long into director Steven Soderbergh’s latest before you expect to see Brad Pitt standing around eating something.

Why?

Because Logan Lucky is essentially Soderbergh’s Ocean’s 11 with hillbillies, which had to intrigue Soderbergh when he first read the script from Rebecca Blunt. If that is her real name.

No, seriously, Blunt is rumored to be a pseudonym for the actual writer, who should just ‘fess up and take credit for this hoot of a heist homage.

Jimmy Logan (Channing Tatum) gets laid off from his job fixing sinkholes underneath Charlotte Motor Speedway, so he puts together a 10-point plan for his next career move. Two of those points are labeled “shit happens.”

The rest is simple.

Jimmy, his one-armed brother Clyde (Adam Driver) and their sister Mellie (Riley Keough), will bust redneck robber Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) out of jail to help them rob the speedway during the biggest NASCAR race of the year, and then have Joe back in the slam before anyone is the wiser.

Soderbergh structures everything to parallel his Ocean‘s films so closely that when he finally addresses that elephant outright, the only surprise is how often the rubes draw a better hand than the Vegas pretty boys.

Logan serves up indelible characters, fun suspense, finely tuned plotting and solid humor, including a hilarious bit with a prison warden (Dwight Yoakam) explaining to some rioting inmates why the next Games of Thrones novel isn’t available yet.

As Bang, Craig is a flat out riot, doing fine justice to the best character name since Chest Rockwell, and standing out in an ensemble (also including Katie Holmes, Seth MacFarlane, Katherine Waterston, Hilary Swank and Sebastian Stan) that shines from top to toe.

Assembled as precisely as a letter-perfect grift, Logan Lucky has smarts, charm and some downright weirdness. It’s a late August blast with more than enough fun to beat our summertime blues.

Verdict-4-0-Stars

 





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Royal Pains

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Queen of Earth

by George Wolf

Don’t bother trying to guess where Queen of Earth might be going, you’ll miss the beauty of getting there.

It’s a wildly enigmatic take on the dynamics of female friendship, ambitiously (and surprisingly?) told by writer/director Alex Ross Perry, who laces the character studies with descents into madness and subversive humor.

Catherine (Elisabeth Moss) is reeling from a traumatic breakup that hit not long after her father’s death. Her longtime friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston) offers the family lake house for some girl time, much like their getaway a year earlier when it was Virginia who was suffering.

As the women meet at the picturesque setting, it is clear they have grown apart from their days as BFFs, and Perry is no hurry to tell you why. Catherine’s ever-present sketch pad is an apt metaphor for the narrative structure at work here. Perry utilizes extreme closeups, shaky cameras, out of focus shots and quick fades to provide beautiful glimpses into a complicated relationship.

Slowly, the often combative dialogue and the out of sequence flashbacks provide some possible answers, even as more questions are raised. With a Gothic soundtrack and a constant sheen of despair, you begin to wonder if Perry’s vision will ultimately include a murderous rampage. 

But that would be too easy, and a betrayal of all that’s been building. Perry presents a perceptive tableau of emotions, all driven home to perfection through wonderful performances from his leads. Moss is downright electric, rolling through a spectrum of emotional outbursts and withdrawn silences with an authenticity that leaves you nervous to look away. Waterston may have the more “straight woman” role, but she gives Virginia a steely resolve that grounds the film, and invites curiosity into her side of this story.

Perry (The Color Wheel, Listen Up Philip) makes the comedy less overt and the psychological warfare more pointed this time out, but his familiar elements remain. Queen of Earth brings unlikeable characters who struggle with alienation, disenchantment and dangerous depression, and leaves you glad you didn’t pass on the chance to spend time with them.

 

Verdict-4-0-Stars