Drama

Fireheart

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Fireheart
  • IMDb: link

Set in New York during the 1920s, L’Atelier Animation’s Fireheart stars Olivia Cooke as Georgia Nolan who has grown up dreaming of becoming a firefighter. When her father (Kenneth Branagh), retired firefighter turned tailor, is brought back by the department after the rest of the city’s firefighters go missing, Georgia sees her chance to live her dream in the gender-bending farce / coming of age story. Passing herself off as a male volunteer, Georgia discovers what being a firefighter is all about.

Relying on a host of goofy secondary characters including a narcoleptic cab driver, William Shatner as the city’s sleazy mayor, cute dog, and a villain with bizarre motives but seemingly endless supply of money and technology, along with a generic chasing your dreams kind of story, Fireheart is mostly forgettable fare with a nice message for young girls about breaking through the glass ceiling.

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The King’s Man

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  • Title: The King’s Man
  • IMDb: link

Removing all the humor, and most of the over-the-top action, from the franchise, writer/director Matthew Vaughn delivers the dreary prequel The King’s Man. Set during World War I, the film isn’t about the creation of the Kingsman but instead the story of the man (Ralph Fiennes) who would eventually put the group together and his turbulent relationship to his son (Harris Dickinson). As in the other films, there is, of course, a secret organization led by a Scottish madman behind the events of WWI whose reveal turns out to be as lame as the rest of the film. …

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Cyrano

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Cyrano
  • IMDb: link

While it may not be my favorite adaptation of Edmond Rostand‘s 19th Century play, Cyrano proves to be a perfect vehicle for Peter Dinklage who shines as the title character. Our brave and witty protagonist yearns for the beautiful Roxanne (Haley Bennett) only to see her attentions fall on the gaze of a strapping young soldier (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) instead, who Cyrano agrees to help woo the woman they both love while hiding the depth of his true feelings from them both.

All the basic trappings from the story are here including Ben Mendelsohn as yet another, more villainous, rival for Roxanne’s affections and the humorous balcony sequence in yet another stylish period piece from director Joe Wright. Added to the mix are a number of musical numbers which vacillate between additions or distractions from the main plot at various points in the tale.

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The Worst Person in the World

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: The Worst Person in the World
  • IMDb: link

If there’s a weakness for me in writer/director Joachim Trier‘s The Worst Person in the World it’s that I never come to love the lead character of Julie (Renate Reinsve) nearly as much as the writer nor the characters who cross her path. Don’t get me wrong, Reinsve is terrific here in the role of a woman who abandons careers and relationships at the drop of a hat while searching blindly for something she can never quite articulate. I’m never won over to root for or against Julie’s choices; I’m simply along for the ride.

It’s in the small moments of Julie stumbling through life, largely without any self-reflection or regard to more than the moment, that the movie provides some of its most memorable scenes, such as an unexpected slow-motion sequence that highlights the delight of potential new love versus that which been worn down with age.

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Parallel Mothers

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Parallel Mothers
  • IMDb: link

For a film that centers around a plot point that would be right at home in any soap opera, Parallel Mothers provides a surprisingly strong drama. Penélope Cruz and Milena Smit are strangers who meet in the hospital, both giving birth to their first child. Each will take home a boy, but what they won’t realize for quite some time is that each mother was given the other’s son.

It’s Janis (Cruz) who begins to suspect the truth when the father (Israel Elejalde), a flirtatious archeologist with a wife and no real interest in a more permanent relationship with the photographer, sees no resemblance in the child to anyone in his family. A chance meeting with Ana (Smit) brings the characters back into each others orbit as Janis’ suspicions are realized and a gnawing guilt over the truth begins to color all that will follow.

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