The weekend before Xmas I’ll be found shoving families of tourists out of my way as I get in a final slate of 2023 showings. The avalanche of post-strike releases has me racing to get a few more in, and these are just a few of what I caught recently. Expect more in my end-of-the-year lists, which will come out in January and will be a little ~special~ this time around. I still have some wiggle room so if there’s something you think I shouldn’t miss, drop it in the comments!
My zine all about the many sides of Taylor Swift will drop January 1 (sign up here to be alerted the second it’s available), but for now, some spoiler-free movie talk:
The Iron Claw (Sean Durkin, in theaters)
The true-life tragedy of a family that transformed professional wrestling.
Even if you have never heard of the Von Erichs, the framework of their oppressive North Texas home is immediately familiar. Patriarch Fritz runs the household like a boot camp, where each son is ranked by their athletic achievement, diligence, and general swag. The Iron Claw has been cast as Zac Efron’s triumphant return and Jeremy Allen White’s leap onto the big screen—but it’s so obviously Harris Dickinson who walks away with the movie as David Von Erich, the most charismatic of the brothers. I left the theater thinking that Dickinson might be one of our most underrated young actors, but I have yet to see his star turn in the Kingsman series, so I’ll get back to you on that.
The Iron Claw has some stunning moments: the wrestling is mostly riveting, and the constant, soft movements of the camera let us walk through the Von Erich pressure cooker. But the film is also dealing with a family that is still very much alive and who participated in production, and that carefulness is intrusive to a narrative arc. I appreciate the film’s artistic flourishes, in particular its attempt to imagine a peace for the Von Erichs, though I question what The Iron Claw might have said were it less deferential.
Poor Things (Yorgos Lanthimos, in theaters)
In this modern feminist retelling of Frankenstein, a nineteenth-century creation (Emma Stone) discovers sex and independence.
Yorgos Lanthimos is probably one of my favorite directors by the numbers—The Favourite was my favorite movie the year it came out, and so was The Killing of a Sacred Deer the year before that. Lanthimos is often compared to Wes Anderson because of the stylized precision in his films but I think this is a fundamental misreading of his interests: Lanthimos is fascinated by the grotesque, not the charming, and how the grotesque represents weaknesses in seemingly impenetrable social mores.
Poor Things is a lovingly constructed dollhouse for Emma Stone’s Bella Baxter, and I think this is what I liked most about the movie: how clearly the film adores Bella. She is radiant and exciting, her curiosity electrifying rather than simpering. Stone is wonderful, as is most of the main cast—Mark Ruffalo as a caddish parvenu, Ramy Youseff as a glittering-eyed true friend.
The movie is genuinely delighting but while watching I was puzzled by its direct simplicity, especially from a director who has spent most of his time with thornier matters. Yes, a woman should get to own her body and her choices, but is that all Lanthimos has to say? For as subversive as the movie promises to be, it ends up being a rather straightforward depiction of the good of liberation. The tangles of Bella’s dual nature as her own mother and daughter, a human recursion, is not explored. What I crave from Lanthimos is something a little harder to stomach: instead I left as smiling and empty-headed as a newborn babe (created yesterday as an adult woman through the miracle of Victorian science, that is).
Silent Night (John Woo, in theaters and available to rent)
A regular-degular guy loses his young son to a random drive-by shooting and vows revenge.
I had high hopes, but low expectations, for John Woo’s return to Hollywood. Frankly all I can say about this is: oh dear.
The Killer (David Fincher, on Netflix)
A methodical contract killer seeks revenge after a botched hit—but not in a John Wick way.
I’m amused by people describing Michael Fassbender’s killer as cool: yes he is icy, but hip he is not. The man traffics in sixties sitcoms and an astonishing number of Smiths deep cuts. It’s a real return to form for Fincher, something genuinely slick and wry after the frankly unbearable Mank (2020) even if it’s not making anyone’s best of list. A marvelous piece of technique and choice that has me once again down on my hands and knees, begging for director’s commentary.
Napoleon (Ridley Scott, in theaters)
See title.
I can best describe Phoenix's portrayal of Napoleon as Richie-like—that is, the brilliantly obnoxious little brother in the seminal text Teen Witch. Napoleon pouts, stomps, and throws fits in a way that makes it immediately clear few French people were involved in the making of this movie, though those that were probably experienced harm. Because while historians might be yelping about how Napoleon gets minor historical details wrong, one should also note it gets the main facts wrong too. Ridley Scott’s approach to the French Revolution is Forrest Gump-ian, with names and dates thrown about as color rather than truth.
And yet the battle scenes here are so stunning I am tempted to catch this a second time. The warfare is so gruesome that while watching I started to question my own morals as a professed pacifist. What is it about the honest brutality of warfare that is so addictive to an audience? Is it an innate tendency of human cruelty, or is this something film has trained us to enjoy? I don’t have answers to what I suppose is an unsolvable question. I do have one definitive statement, which is thank god Jodie Comer was recast with Vanessa Kirby, who should win something for her deliciously vulpine Joséphine.
Happy New Year everyone!
I really loved Poor Things, but I agree that the story is somewhat simplistic. It honestly felt like the other side of a Barbie coin to me. Both films pretty much told the story, but with different amounts of genitalia involved.