Tag Archives: KiKi Layne

Outtakes

The Mushy Middle

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The Old Guard 2

by George Wolf

Look, it’s just science. You get a glimpse of Uma Thurman and Charlize Theron in a sword fight, you get your hopes up. I did, hopeful that The Old Guard 2 on Netflix could match – or maybe even exceed the fun of the original.

But while it is a blast to see those two bad asses in a blade battle, it’s too little too late in a sequel that gets bogged down in speeches, heavy meaningful glances, and plans for the future of this group of immortals.

It also really helps to have seen part one, or at least be familiar with the graphic novels by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández. They’re both back as co-writers, with director Victoria Mahoney taking over for Gina Prince-Bythewood. They put the now-mortal Andy (Theron) and her crew (including Kiki Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Matthias Schoenaerts) on a collision course with the long-lost Quynh (Veronica Neo) – who returned at the close of part one after centuries locked in an Iron Maiden.

Andy also has a new friend, Tuah (Henry Golding) who speaks a lot about legends, lore, and the power of Discord (Uma), the original immortal who rescued Quynh as part of a nefarious plan.

This veteran cast looks a bit lost amid the bright neon palettes, plodding dialog and awkwardly choreographed fight sequences. Mahoney never really lets the fun in, returning to tired blocking and exposition dialog every time you think we’re finally gonna get cooking.

And just when you’re wondering what the point of this sequel is…you find out.

Mild spoiler ahead.

This is a just a bridge to the next chapter. And when that works in a film series, it’s because the bridge also supports its own story arc, one that leaves you satisfied while still wanting to follow these characters into the future.

The Old Guard 2 just leaves you frustrated on all counts, with nothin’ mister but boring stories of the glory days.

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Queen City

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Dandelion

by Hope Madden

Filmmaker Nicole Riegel returns to her Southern Ohio roots, but Dandelion delivers a decidedly more lyrical look at the Buckeye state than her remarkable 2021 indie breakout, Holler.

Kiki Layne is Dandelion, a frustrated musician playing to disinterested crowds at a hotel bar in Cincinnati. Confronted by the reality of her shelf life, she heads to a biker rally in North Dakota for an audition to open for a major touring act.  The audition goes terribly, but she meets Casey (Gossip Girl’s Thomas Doherty), who rekindles her dying flame of creativity—among other things.

The film plays a bit like an American version of John Carney’s Once. Loosely plotted around songwriting sessions and picturesque sightseeing, Dandelion delivers more harmony than melody, but that’s often OK. When the script weakens—a convenient stretch of dialog, a predictable turn of the plot—cinematographer Lauren Guiteras’s camera, Layne and Doherty’s performances and the music itself strengthens.

Doherty’s all vulnerability and tenderness. Layne—in easily her best role since If Beale Street Could Talk—finds a way to hold anger, resignation, hope and joy in the same moment.

Riegel’s depiction of intimacy, in the core relationship as well as the act of creation, is tactile: fingertips, chords, a rock’s surface, veins throbbing in a throat. There’s real poetry in the direction, in the way voiceover conversation floats around landscapes and sunsets, Black Hills and backroads.

The live music is as infectious as the romance, although neither is really the point. Dandelion is a character study at heart, and Layne more than delivers on that promise. But Riegel does get a little bogged down with the beauty and atmosphere—as lovely as the film is, at a full two hours, some of the poetic meandering feels like filler.

It’s interesting to see Riegel take such a sharp turn from the grim authenticity of Holler to the poetic beauty of Dandelion, but there is a common thread of fighting to find and keep yourself that gives both films focus and life.

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Tugging Hearts, Slashing Throats

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The Old Guard

by Hope Madden

Let’s start with this piece of obviousness: Charlize Theron can do anything. From indie dramas to bawdy comedies to badass action, Theron commits and convinces.

In Netflix’s The Old Guard, she plays the leader of a small but immortal group of soldiers eluding capture while trying to train a new member. It’s Book One in a series, and that can be a dangerous spot for a film because that tends to mean a lot of exposition and not enough conflict.

Not here.

Greg Rucka adapts his own source material and director Gina Prince-Bythewood makes the most of his screenplay and her cast.

She flanks Theron (spectacular, obviously) with actors who are, first and foremost, talented actors. The fact that they make for believable mercenaries is a really excellent bonus.

The ever versatile Matthias Schoenaerts gives the film its aching heart while KiKi Layne proves herself to be as convincing here busting heads as she was at drawing tears in If Beale Street Could Talk. Though it’s unfortunate he couldn’t have stolen a little more screen time, the great Chiwetel Ejiofor is a welcome presence, as always.

So what Prince-Bythewood does is surround Theron with other talented actors whose versatility compliments hers. This brilliant move let the filmmaker take a somewhat by-the-numbers superhero tale and tell it with a restraint that takes advantage of her cast’s flexibility and talent.

In Prince-Bythewood’s hands, The Old Guard explores the same universal themes mined in most superhero films, but she tells the tale as a taut and tactical military experience. The understatement makes the action sequences stand out, the filmmaker requesting your close examination of each bout and each battle, whether hand-to-hand, bullet-to-brain or saber-to-throat.

It pays off, delivering a thrilling action movie that doesn’t disregard your brain. Even better, this is a movie that tugs at your emotions without the need for swelling strings or sentiment to convince you.

That’s what happens when one formidable women pulls together a group of similarly skilled badasses.

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Voices of Experience

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If Beale Street Could Talk

by Hope Madden and George Wolf

Writer/director Barry Jenkins follows up his 2016 Oscar-winning masterpiece of a debut, Moonlight, with the ambitious goal of translating the work of a beautifully complex writer to a cinematic narrative. By respecting the material with a stirring commitment to character, If Beale Street Could Talk meets that goal with grace.

Based on the novel by James Baldwin (and the first English-language adaptation of his fiction), the film follows a struggling couple as a means to illustrate the intersecting forms of oppression facing African Americans.

Tish (KiKi Layne in an impressive feature debut) and “Fonny” (Stephan James, from Selma and Race) are a young couple in Harlem who embraces their unexpected pregnancy while struggling to prove Fonny’s innocence in a rape case.

As the surface tension is driven by the potentially dangerous chances Kiki’s mother (Regina King) takes to clear Fonny’s name, smaller, more quiet moments around the neighborhood cement Baldwin’s incisive take on what it means to be black in America.

Baldwin’s writing – a mix of brutal honesty, brilliant clarity and weary outrage – is understandably daunting as a film adaptation. Themes which breathe with life on the page can come to the screen in an awkward rush and land as heavy handed melodrama.

Jenkins, whose early script got the blessing of Baldwin’s estate even before the triumph of Moonlight, brings an elegance to the story which fits comfortably. A poetic camera, authentic characters and tender, fully realized performances—especially from the glorious King—weave together to sing the praises of Baldwin’s prose in hypnotic, and often heartbreaking fashion.

Amid a story of grim realities and American resilience lie bonds of love and family that the film never loses sight of, even in its most sober moments, which may be the most miraculous aspect of If Beale Street Could Talk.

It is a film without illusions, but one that carries the unbowed spirit of its characters on a deeply felt journey that honors its origins.