Four movies you missed over winter break
Winter is the best time to be a movie fan. Hollywood studios always release their award-season hopefuls, new attempts at Christmas classics and movies (hopefully) good enough to convince the whole family to go out during the holidays. This year was no different, but certain films definitely stood out above the rest -- here are four films that were released over winter break that you may have missed.
“Babygirl”
Halina Reijn, director of “Bodies, Bodies, Bodies”, secured A24’s Christmas Day release this year with her third feature film “Babygirl”, a thriller harkening back to the erotic thriller genre popularized in the 1990s. In this case, Nicole Kidman portrays a tech CEO who starts an affair with an intern at her company, creating escalating tension in her professional and personal lives.
While not as exploitative as its contemporaries like “Basic Instinct”, or as artful as Kidman’s previous work in the genre, seen in “Eyes Wide Shut”, “Babygirl” does succeed in creating an engaging ride that toes the line between a genuine exploration of desire’s relationship to power, and straight-up pulp nonsense.
The lead trio of the aforementioned Kidman, Harris Dickinson as the intern, and Antonio Banderas as the husband is what makes the movie: they are all excellent at doing exactly what is demanded of them, whether that be insecurity, naïvety or sheer anger. These performances firmly drive the drama, which is confusing and disparate on the page but is certainly magnetic on the screen.
“Carry-On”
Netflix’s holiday streamer this year was “Carry-On”, a new thriller in which a TSA agent is held hostage by a group of terrorists and instructed to let a bag through security. If that premise sounds at all fun or interesting to you, “Carry-On” is worth watching. It’s a solid, well-made thriller with strong action sequences, a fun coterie of characters and satisfying (if not surprising) twists and turns.
Outside of the premise, the performances are what make the film worth watching. Taron Egerton portrays a likable and clever protagonist and perfectly balances a smart-aleck attitude with genuine depictions of exasperation. Jason Bateman as the antagonist, however, is so despicably charismatic that he manages to make an on-paper throw-away villain into one of the most memorable characters of the year. It’d be a perfect plane movie if it wasn’t about an airport under attack.
“A Complete Unknown”
It’s embarrassing to admit that I knew almost nothing about Bob Dylan before watching “A Complete Unknown”. However, director James Mangold’s latest was a rewarding watch because of this: it felt like I was taking a Dylan 101 course, learning the key moments in Dylan’s musical development, the context surrounding his seminal works and his reaction to fame.
This sounds stock standard for a music biopic, but Mangold correctly identifies that the thrust of this story comes from Dylan’s music. Over half of this movie is people playing music, with Timothée Chalamet himself actually playing guitar and singing in a variety of wonderfully shot sequences.
This sharp focus and Chalamet’s excellent performance subdues the frankly trite and cliched script that surrounds the otherwise beautiful moments of musicianship. I don’t know if Dylan scholars will get much out of it, but if you love music and similarly don’t know much about one of rock music’s most influential artists, definitely check this out.
“Juror #2”
Clint Eastwood is 94 years old and directing movies better than most people younger than him. “Juror #2” is a classical legal thriller about a juror (Nicholas Hoult) who realizes that he may have been responsible for the crime central to the case he is sitting for. Instead of overdramatizing or sensationalizing this pulpy premise, Eastwood instead chooses to explore complex philosophical questions about justice, and its relationship to the greater American legal system.
The result is a film that is simultaneously intelligent and captivating, as new details keep wrinkling our understanding of the characters, philosophically and emotionally. It feels as though Eastwood is reckoning with his own relationship to the law as an American citizen by acknowledging its shortcomings in an attempt to find a new solution if one exists. This is what makes the film worth watching — it has something very interesting to say and poses questions that cannot be answered in a very singular way.
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