Movie Reviews

Drive My Car

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Drive My Car
  • IMDb: link

Movies find you in interesting ways. Drive My Car is the film I’d been searching for through all of 2021, a true cinematic experience that enveloped me, taking me on a completely unexpected journey built on strong storytelling and great performances.

Adapting Haruki Murakami‘s short story, writer/director Ryûsuke Hamaguchi delivers a beautiful look at loss, moving on, and the unexpected relationships that form when you least expect them. Our main character is Yûsuke Kafuku (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a stage actor and director. The script spends more than a half-hour developing his relationship to his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), including some shocking discoveries by Kafuku, which works as backstory for the main film still yet to come, but is still presented with such care it could easily have been fleshed out into its own film.

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The 355

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The 355
  • IMDb: link

There’s a fun, if not bright, story in The 355 once things get going and the female operatives from various spy agencies around the globe decide to work together. I don’t know that the movie is going to do well enough to earn a sequel, but I would suspect a second film, without the need for such lengthy set-up, would be superior. The main takeaway from The 355 seems to be that a female-led action movie can be just as dumb as any with an all-male cast.

The plot, so to speak, involves a technological super-drive (the kind of device you only find in these types of movies) that can crack anything (planes, financial records, power plants, your Spotify account, etc.). Discovered by accident on a drug raid, an agent (Edgar Ramírez) in Columbia attempts to sell it only to see it fall into the hands of a black market auctioneer who plans to sell it to the highest bidder giving them the power to destabilize the world with the press of a few buttons.

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The Tender Bar

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Tender Bar
  • IMDb: link

Adapted from the memoir of J. R. Moehringer, The Tender Bar is a comfortable warm sweater wrapping up the childhood and college life of JR (played by Tye Sheridan and Daniel Ranieri) and his colorful family, most notably his Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck) in whose bar he learned as much about life as four years at Yale.

Directed by George Clooney, The Tender Bar isn’t great drama, nor outrageous comedy, but it’s a light and breezy look at a young man’s life who would be raised by his mother (Lily Rabe), in the often-overflowing home of his grandfather (Christopher Lloyd), and his uncle who would instill in him a love of books leading to his eventual profession. With solid performances and some witty narration by Ron Livingston as an older, and perhaps wiser, version of JR, The Tender Bar doesn’t ask much of the audience other than to enjoy a good story.

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The Tragedy of Macbeth

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Tragedy of Macbeth
  • IMDb: link

Joel Coen‘s take on William Shakespeare’s Macbeth is a stylish affair with minimal but visually stunning sets and striking cinematography by Bruno Delbonnel that boils down the five-act play to 105-minute black-and-white cinematic experience. The story is Shakespeare’s, but Coen and Delbonnel’s presentation sets a standard for Macbeth which will likely lead it into both homes and classrooms for decades to come.

Denzel Washington stars as the Scottish Lord and Frances McDormand his ambitious wife, convinced by a witchy prophecy (Kathryn Hunter) that Macbeth will become the next King of Scotland. What follows is one of the most famous tragedies in literature which Coen takes care to pare down while still keeping to both the text and texture of Shakespeare’s work. It’s a terrific play presented by a talented group both behind and in front of the camera leading to one of the best films of the year.

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House of Gucci

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: House of Gucci
  • IMDb: link

House of Gucci is one of the sillier movies of 2021. Taken from true events of the Gucci family, with some obvious embellishment for effect by screenwriters Becky Johnston and Roberto Bentivegna, it struggles when it needs its more dramatic moments to hit home. With a tone more to parody winking at the camera, and characters who feel ratcheted up to 11, we’re left with an amusing, but largely empty, experience.

The film follows the ups and downs of Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) and Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver) after their marriage. We witness how their relationship changes both of them as the reluctant member of the Gucci family is drawn back into the family business. If there’s a point to director Ridley Scott‘s film it might be that despite their troubles and the eventual misery they caused each other, Patrizia and Maurizio appear to have been made for each other.

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