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From left, Lorraine Bracco, Talia Shire, Brenda Vaccaro and Vince Vaughn in a scene from 'Nonnas'. Photo by Jeong Park/Netflix

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

At Enoteca Maria we celebrate cultural diversity by serving cuisines from around the world, but we do it in the most uniquely authentic way possible. Real grandmothers from every country across the globe are invited and hired as chefs to cook the recipes handed down to them that they cook at home for their families, that make up the fabric of the culture they were born and raised in. We aspire to build cultural connections through the universal language of cooking […].

Culture is a resource worth preserving. After all a tree can’t grow and change without its roots. 

— from the Enoteca Maria website

In Nonnas, Netflix offers a highly fictionalized but loving celebration of Joe Scravella’s Staten Island restaurant, Enoteca Maria. Novelist-turned filmmaker Stephen Chboksy leaves his edge behind in directing Liz Maccie’s by-the-numbers screenplay and presents a heartfelt but wholly predictable salute to family and food.

The film opens with young Joe (Theodore Helm) and a Sunday dinner in Brooklyn, watching his mother and grandmother in the kitchen, while the extended clan eats, sings, and dances in the living room. Observing his grandmother add ingredients to the sauce pot, the boy asks, “How do you know how much to use?” His grandmother responds: “You feel it in your heart. You put in your heart.” The rest of Nonnas’ two hours fall along the same line in simplicity and intent.

The story fast forwards several decades. The grown Joe (Vince Vaughn) has lost his mother to cancer. Saddened and more than a little broken, he stares into the emptiness stretching before him. After some emotional struggle, he uses the two hundred thousand dollars inherited from his mother’s insurance policy to open a restaurant to honor her memory. His concept is simple: he will hire “nonnas” (Italian grandmothers) as chefs.

He first recruits his mother’s best friend, the irascible Roberta (Lorraine Bracco). He then runs an ad in Craig’s List, garnering a “retired” nun, Teresa (Talia Shire), and Antonella (Brenda Vaccaro), the neighbor of Joe’s high school prom date, Olivia (Linda Cardellini). His mother’s hairdresser, Gia (Susan Sarandon), rounds out the staff, serving as pastry chef. His childhood friend, Bruno, with a touch of strong-arming from Bruno’s wife, Stella (Drea de Matteo), reluctantly serves as contractor. 

Nonnas follows this rag-tag crew as they benignly bicker and quickly join forces to open the restaurant. They face predictable challenges—code issues, building violations, a kitchen fire (from an incinerated sheep’s head used for Capuzzelle), opening in a thunderstorm to no business, a snobbish food critic (Campbell Scott), etc. The problem is that the hurdles feel artificial; therefore, nothing plays on two levels—whether grief or goals. No point is allowed to simmer; everything must come to an immediate boil, then taken off the stove. There is a brief food fight, a makeover montage, and a vague drinking scene with personal revelations, but no surprises.

The dialogue is a string of clichés and aphorisms: “The tomato is the heart of your dish. If you don’t have heart, you don’t have nothin’.” “You make the food. People eat the food. You make people happy.” “Food is love.” “Age is not a disease.” And, stated more than once, “One does not grow old at the table.” 

Vince Vaughn is not plumbing any depths; his performance falls into his long line of likable everymen. But his wide-eyed charm and easy earnestness hold center. The same is true of the entire cast. The quartet of kitchen cooks play to type but are delightful as they do so. Cardellini’s widow is just the right romance-light that Joe—and the story—needs. Everyone seems to be in on the celebration and having a terrific time. 

While Nonnas could easily be accused of overly sentimental (tipping occasionally into saccharine), its genuine sincerity comes through. The combination of food-porn-with-a-point and making the family you need synthesize in this Italian Valentine. Borrowing from another culture’s cuisine, Nonnas is pure schmaltz.

Enoteca Maria opened in 2007 and, unlike as portrayed in its cinematic counterpart, was an immediate success and continues to thrive. If Nonnas is not quite art, it cannot help being a boon for the restaurant and its mission.

Rated PG, the film is now streaming on Netflix.

See trailer here.

 

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The cast of 'Miss Austen'. Photo courtesy of PBS

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

The following is based on viewing Part One of Masterpiece’s presentation of ‘Miss Austen.’

Jane Austen’s correspondence was vast, with an estimation of her penning thousands of letters: Only 160 remain. For reasons unknown, years after Austen’s death, her sister, Cassandra, burned the bulk of Jane’s letters.

Gill Hornby’s intriguing and entertaining Miss Austen: A Novel of the Austen Sisters (2020) speculates why. Hornby’s fictional explanation captures Jane Austen’s style, tone, and diction, with Hornby remarkably echoing Austen’s sly wit and keen observations. Hornby’s book could be seen as a seventh novel in Austen’s sadly small canon. 

A scene from ‘Miss Austen.’ Photo courtesy of PBS

Played in two timelines, the story follows the older Cassandra, in 1830, traveling to Kintbury on the pretext of helping Isabella Fowle, who is mourning her father’s death. However, Cassandra’s true motivation is retrieving the letters written by Jane and herself to Eliza Fowle, Isabella’s mother. Hornby uses Cassandra’s discovery and reading of the cache to flashback to the late 18th and early 19th century. 

In the teleplay, Andrea Gibb puts Isabella’s father, Reverend Fowle, on his deathbed (flickering candles and soft focus), imparting Cassandra a dying wish for Isabella. In this moment, the series sets itself at odds with the source—darker and leaning into the drama (or even melodrama)—rather than the edgier, droller, but more inspired world of the novel. Both touch on the themes of women in society, family obligations, and the pressure for marriage and children. But the approaches are distinctly different, with Gibb’s version trodding heavily, highlighting the romantic elements. The teleplay’s tone (and Aisling Walsh’s direction) departs from Hornby, and in essence, Austen: the author’s brilliance was balancing heartbreak with humor, satire with a sense of humanity. Lacking these vital elements, the filmed version seems bleached and untextured. 

Keeley Hawes is particularly effective as the older Cassandra, conveying thought with subtlety and presenting the older Austen sister as a woman missing nothing but keeping her own counsel. Synnøve Karlsen easily matches her as the young Cassandra, giving an equally rich performance. Patsy Ferran makes Jane quirky and likable and easily drops the few bon mots expected of the witty writer. However, along with Madeline Walker’s pleasant Eliza Fowle, the relationships feel more Little Women than Mansfield Park. 

Rose Leslie’s Isabella is lovely if reinvented as a more traditional heroine. Jessica Hynes’ waspish sister-in-law, Mary, is more ominous than necessary due less to her choice than the approach to her plotline. The same is true of the always wonderful Phyllis Logan, who plays matriarch Mrs. Austen. The book’s Mrs. Austen possesses more than a few shades of Mrs. Bennett; instead, she is given a less colorful portrait to create. Mirren Mack, in her brief appearance, manages the right blend of “respectful impudence” as the Fowles’ maid, Dinah. As for the men, they do little but respond or spout platitudes. 

Ultimately, the major point is legacy. When clergyman Mr. Dundas (Thomas Coombes, in a delightfully wicked cameo suggesting Pride and Prejudice’s unctuous Mr. Collins) suggests to Cassandra that the world is lacking a definitive biography so the public could know the real Jane Austen, she rebukes him. “Everything one needs to know about Jane Austen is to be found in the pages of her novels. There is nothing more.” In essence, this is the thesis. Jane’s life should be defined only by what she offered the public, and her private life and thoughts should remain just that—private. 

Miss Austen offers an interesting—if fictional—glimpse into one of the great literary figures of all time. That said, it is clearly the old saw: “The book was better.” 

The four-part series streams Sundays on PBS.org through May 18.

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Actor Laura Dern, center, with 'Common Ground' directors Rebecca Harrell Tickell and Josh Tickell.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

According to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, regenerative agriculture “describes holistic farming systems that, among other benefits, improve water and air quality, enhance ecosystem biodiversity, produce nutrient-dense food, and store carbon to help mitigate the effects of climate change. These farm systems are designed to work in harmony with nature, while also maintaining and improving economic viability.” Regenerative agriculture includes practices like no-tillage, planting cover crops, reducing chemical use, and planned grazing. 

In 2017, Josh Tickell published Kiss the Ground: How the Food You Eat Can Reverse Climate Change, Heal Your Body, & Ultimately Save Our World. The book purports that climate change is reversible through changing diets based on harvests from soil-nourishing, regenerative agriculture. 

Tickell (along with Rebecca Harrell Tickell) produced and directed the documentary Kiss the Ground (2020), which explored the issues raised in the book. The film shares interviews with farmers, scientists, and environmentalists. The focus is the power of healthy soil and its healing powers for humanity and the earth as a whole. Narrated by Woody Harrelson, the film features the well-known {model/ U.N. Good Will Ambassador Gisele Bünchden, NFL quarterback Tom Brady, etc.) along with authors and environmentalists. Kiss the Ground was lauded for its good intentions but received criticism for an often simplistic approach to the solution, especially concerning climate change. 

The follow-up, Common Ground, which launched globally on Amazon Prime on April 22 in honor of Earth Day, covers some of the same territory, with a spotlight on preservation of the soil. Again, central is the importance of properly cultivating the soil through regenerative agriculture. 

Common Ground opens with a letter “written” by various celebrities. Each is presented with a sonorous voiceover steeped in gravitas. The letter ends with, “It’s a matter of life and death.” If the information presented in Common Ground is even twenty percent accurate, this dark statement is harbinger of long-term and perhaps irrevocable damage. The film begins with a detailed explanation of regenerative agriculture, comparing it to the other less environmentally-friendly approaches. 

The film is most interesting and effective when it addresses agribusiness issues driving the market. Following the money trail exposes the private sector’s influences on government and education, with money filtered through land grant universities. Larger corporations have suppressed scientists and pressured the USDA, influencing the Farm Bill and driving subsidies into soy, wheat, and corn—all commodity crops. Agribusiness possesses the largest lobbying industry with twenty-three registered lobbyists for every member of Congress.

An exploration of the rise of industrial farming in post-World War II highlights the uses of chemicals in the forms of pesticides and toxic herbicides, labeled “the Green Revolution.” Most notably, Monsanto Company’s glyphosate product, Roundup, led to the 1980s genetically engineered crops—“ready grains”—that could resist Roundup. Gradually, revelations held Roundup responsible for damaging the health of thousands, leading to multiple successful lawsuits. (Monsanto sold the company to the German Bayer AG for sixty-three billion dollars.)

Common Ground gives a bleak picture of the small farmer who lives in hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. The Farm Bill Cycle of Debt is a cyclical trap of the system dictating what (and how) to grow, boosting corporate profits, consumer illness, and farmers’ debt. Suicide rates among farmers are five times higher than the general population. Additionally, Common Ground touches on the racial disparity in farming, with the system showing an overwhelmingly biased preference towards white people. The discriminatory nature of the industry has only increased over the years.

While the film emphasizes much of the negative, it celebrates those who have succeeded in abandoning industrial farming. The alternatives are shown to have health and economic benefits—all linked back to regenerative agriculture.

The tone and style—and much of the documentary—shift from dark shadows to pastoral sunshine to peripatetic imagery. At times, Common Ground feels like clumsy public service announcements; at other points, it plays with the jarring cuts of a music video, with blaring, on-the-nose lyrics. The “behind the scenes” look at the stars — Laura Dern, Jason Momoa, Woody Harrelson, Ian Somerhalder, Donald Glover, Rosario Dawson, and many others recording their narratives is oddly and ineffectively “meta.” But Common Ground is well-paced and presents a clear path to transformation. 

Documentaries habitually select their focus as the greatest existential threat. Whether AI, plastics, water pollution, corporate manipulation, or conspicuous consumption, each sees its topic as the direst and the most important to be solved. Many point to the destruction of the environment, but each selects a different “demon” as the most dangerous. Common Ground is no different in this respect, and therefore, even in its specificity, it lands as a generic call-to-arms (or farms, as the case may be).

“The quality of what you eat determines the quality of your health. And a living soil is where it all begins.” While it might not convert the doubters, Common Ground is another reminder that through commitment and collaboration, environmental change is possible. 

The documentary is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

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Charles Hller (Rami Malek) takes revenge after his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) is murdered. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

Revenge is a favored plot devices of the thriller genre. Studios release dozens, if not hundreds, of films each year, drawing from this seemingly endless well. Cinema is populated with tales of the average (usually) man retaliating for the abduction or death of a loved one (spouse/parent/child). The hero, discovering new-found or dormant resources, overcomes evil, destroys their opponents, and allows the audience a vicarious sense of justice. 

Robert Littell worked for many years as a Newsweek journalist during the Cold War, serving as the magazine’s foreign correspondent from 1965 to 1970. Beginning with The Defection of A.J. Lewinter (1973), the award-winning Littell wrote over twenty spy novels, many concerning the CIA and the Soviet Union, the most recent A Plague on Both Your Houses: A Novel in the Shadow of the Russian Mafia (2024). 

Rami Malek in a scene from ‘The Amateur’. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

With Diana Maddox, Littell co-adapted The Amateur (1981) for the screen, starring John Savage and Christopher Plummer. Director James Hawes helms the current remake, with a screenplay by Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli. Taking the novel’s basic story but eschewing many of the more interesting details, they have fashioned a by-the-numbers thriller that, for all its drive, never builds momentum. 

Low-key (almost somnambulic) Charles Heller (Rami Malek) works as a CIA cryptographer. His wife, professional photographer Sarah Horowitz (Rachel Brosnahan), travels to London on business. She is taken hostage and murdered during an illegal arms deal gone wrong. 

Grief-stricken, Heller decides to kill the four terrorists. Leveraging information he uncovered about a drone strike cover-up, he blackmails Special Activities Center Director Alex Moore (Holt McCallany) for information. Furious but cornered, Moore buys time by sending Heller for training with Colonel Robert Henderson (Laurence Fishburne). Once in Europe, Heller methodically hunts down his wife’s killers. He teams up briefly with an anonymous source, Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe), but most of his work is done solo, with Heller harnessing his genius rather than his limited physical skills.

The film travels from Paris to Marseilles, Istanbul to Madrid, and finally Constanta (Romania) to the Baltic Sea, where the climax is a low-grade confrontation between Heller and the mastermind, Horst Schiller (Michael Stuhlbarg).

While The Amateur contains little original, the novel touched on a few insightful pieces, particularly connections to the Holocaust. With the story updated to the present, these aspects and one of the most interesting characters, a shadowy figure known as the Professor, have been eliminated. Even Heller’s fascination with the identity of the author of Shakespeare’s plays is absent, leaving Heller a one-note character.

If anything, the film highlights technological change, with a world run by computers and monitored in every corner by thousands of cameras. However, these devices have become central rather than tools for telling the story.

Rami Malek in a scene from ‘The Amateur’. Photo courtesy of 20th Century Studios

Rami Malek rose to prominence with the USA Network’s Mr. Robot, for which he received an Emmy for Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His big-screen work included the Night at the Museum trilogy, Larry Crowne, The Master, and Need for Speed. But his breakout came with his Oscar-winning performance as Queen’s singer-songwriter, Freddie Mercury, in the biopic Bohemian Rhapsody. 

Malek is unquestionably an unusual and gifted actor, capable of complexity, variety, and style. But his performance as Heller is so subdued as not to register. Except for one beautiful moment when he opens Sarah’s suitcase, he seems to play Heller without a heartbeat. For Malek, The Amateur will be remembered as an in-between film, a bland undertaking contrasting with better and more textured work. 

Brosnahan is relegated to two short scenes, a handful of flashbacks, and a couple of “visions” that do little to show her range or talent. The always watchable Fishburne barely appears; there is a sense that he was shot for expediency, getting his scenes filmed in as few days as possible. 

Balfe is fine as Inquiline but saddled with sharing her history rather than revealing character through action (and the screenplay does her no favors, ignoring the more complicated background introduced in the book). McCallany does the best he can with a stock political villain. It is left to Jon Bernthal, as an operative known as “The Bear,” to provide an off-beat glimmer. 

Unfortunately, The Amateur offers no growth and certainly no catharsis. The resolution lacks a final of energy or surprising revelations. 

The final ten minutes wrap up the big picture, followed by a vaguely uncomfortable exchange meant to be humorous, ending with a simplistic final image unsubtly telegraphed earlier. 

For two hours, everything happens, and nothing happens. The constant movement possesses motivation but no sense of internal purpose. The film is both literally and figuratively bloodless. In the end, The Amateur provides a generic espionage drama with perpetual action but little intrigue.

Rated PG-13, the film is now playing in local theaters.

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Naomi Watts as Iris and Bing the Great Dane as Apollo in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Bleeker Street

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

“What will happen to the dog?” That question is the inciting force of The Friend, Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s meditative adaptation of Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel, winner of the National Book Award for Fiction.

Canine cinema is its own subgenre. From Old Yeller to As Good as It Gets, Marley & Me to The Art of Racing in the Rain, the four-legged companions have threaded through dozens, if not hundreds, of stories. The films (Cujo excepted) focus on the transformative power for and of the love of dogs. From tear-jerkers to family farces, man’s best friend has often provided a mirror of their companions’ hearts, minds, and souls. 

Naomi Watts as Iris and Bing the Great Dane as Apollo in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Bleeker Street

The Friend lives in the intersecting worlds of literature and academia. Writer-former professor Walter (Bill Murray) takes his own life, and his third wife, Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), asks his former graduate student, colleague, and friend, Iris (Naomi Watts), to adopt his dog, a Great Dane named Apollo (Bing). Reluctantly, Iris agrees to temporarily house the dog in her rent-controlled New York apartment, where Hektor (Felix Solis), the superintendent, reminds her that pets are forbidden in the building. The film follows the usual path of distance to acceptance to bonding. 

While the description might indicate a by-the-numbers tale, The Friend rises above the basic. Iris and the denizens of her narrow, mostly intellectual world dwell in inner emptiness. Even Walter’s death leaves them numb, struggling to find meaning or even feeling. (It is no coincidence that Walter’s hero was the existential and almost perpetual bleak writer Samuel Beckett.) 

Iris, a self-proclaimed cat person, lives without a cat. Though the claim could be because of the apartment rules, it is more likely about her disconnection from connection. She collaborates with Walter’s illegitimate daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon), editing a book of Walter’s correspondence. But the undertaking is sluggish, frustrating, and unsatisfying. The publisher, Jerry (Josh Pais), pressures them to finish as there is “more interest in a dead Walter.” 

Iris’s mixed views about Walter (a serial philanderer) seep into every moment of Watts’ strikingly understated performance. Her Iris dwells in a sort of twilight void; the conflict and eventual acceptance of Apollo awakens her spirit, giving her life and giving that life meaning. Watts creates a powerfully subtle, multi-dimensional Iris. Watts is not so much slow as methodical, breathing the struggle of daily life. She is nothing less than riveting.

Naomi Watts as Iris and Bill Murray as Walter in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Bleeker Street

Watts is surrounded by equally restrained and effective performances. The always reliable Dumezweni grounds Barbara; Pidgeon makes the daughter simultaneously free-spirited and haunted; Constance Wu brings the right touch of narcissism to Tuesday, the insufferable second wife. Solis and Ann Dowd, as neighbor and friend, Marjorie, offer some of the brighter, warmer colors. 

Murray appears in a brief prologue, a few short flashbacks, and a fascinating speculative scene in which Iris attempts to work out her relationship with the dead man through the process of writing. Murray finds sweetness and restraint adding to Walter’s contradictory behaviors.

The only one who seems to truly mourn Walter is Apollo. From the drive from the kennel with Apollo gazing sadly out the taxi window to his coopting of Iris’s bed where he lays woefully inert, Bing brings a heart-breaking “humanity” to the Great Dane. (World-famous Bill Berloni is the supervisory animal trainer.)

The Friend can be summed up simply: Dogs are good. Dogs heal. Dogs provide hope. Dogs change lives. It still comes down to “What will happen to the dog?” But, with McGehee and Siegel’s mutely elegant screenplay and fluid, sensitive direction, Watts’ cathartic Iris, and a first-rate supporting cast, The Friend transcends expectations and delivers a memorable, occasionally painful, but ultimately hopeful film.  

Rated R, the film is now playing in local theaters.

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Nicole Kidman as Nancy Vandergroot in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Amazon Prime

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

“Sometimes I wonder. Is it even real?” This notion heralds an interesting premise, but the idea fails to manifest in Amazon Prime’s limp psychological thriller Holland. 

Holland, Michigan, is a midwestern idyll—a Dutch Stepford, complete with tulips and windmills. Rooted in Americana values, one expects the town to be composed of theme park facades. 

Nicole Kidman as Nancy Vandergroot in a scene from the film.
Photo courtesy of Amazon Prime

Life Management (Home Economics) teacher Nancy Vandergroot (Nicole Kidman) lives a seemingly picture-perfect existence with her devoted optometrist husband, Fred (Matthew Macfadyen), and a well-behaved thirteen-year-old son, Harry (Jude Hill). Her world is a softly padded suburban prison, with a church deacon husband who is a community pillar. When asked if she did something different with the dinner recipe, she replies: “Brown mustard instead of yellow. I felt like doing something crazy.” 

Nancy’s hunt for a missing earring reveals a stash of Polaroid film and a suspicious parking ticket. The discoveries suggest Fred is having an affair. Admitting that she likes to “play detective,” Nancy enlists the attentive shop teacher, Dave Delgado (Gael Garcia Bernal), to help uncover Fred’s double life. 

Nicole Kidman and Gael Garcia Bernal in a scene from ‘Holland.’ Photo from Amazon Prime

“He goes to a lot of conferences for an optometrist,” she shares. The pair embark on a search for answers. “Sometimes in life, you know, you’ve got to follow the clues wherever they take you.” About one hundred minutes in, the story turns dark. A climactic confrontation leads to a complication and a less-than-satisfactory second climax/conclusion. 

With the right treatment, the predictable setup can make for an engaging story. Alfred Hitchcock often elevated modest plots with unusual twists, interesting points of view, and an ability to elicit fully realized characters. Hitchcock knew film was less the telling of the story but how the story is told. Unfortunately, Andrew Sodroski’s cluttered screenplay and Mimi Cave’s jumbled direction fail to commit to a tone or style. 

Mixing horror tropes (including nightmare visions), caper standards (almost being caught while searching for evidence), and off-beat humor (a kiss interrupted by a car hitting another car), the genres are not blended but rather randomly stacked. 

Much of the dialogue feels like it is being delivered in quotation marks and italics as if everything is simultaneously important but not what it seems. “We have to stay through Tulip Time.” Is this meant to be humorous? Foreboding? Quirky? Ultimately, the statement feels awkward, as does most of the film.

Matthew Macfadyen and Jude Hill in a scene from ‘Holland.’ Photo from Amazon Prime

The most effective piece is the model train hobby shared by father and son in the orderly garage: “You get to make a story about someone you’ve never met before and direct their whole lives … you get to control everything.” The toy railway’s real purpose is much deeper and the film’s most chilling element. 

Kidman is a gifted actor. With Nancy, she channels some of the more benign shades of To Die For’s Suzanne Stone. Nancy is naïve, frayed, and sometimes a little loopy. Kidman manages to carve some dimension in the homemaker’s struggle, finding balance and understanding in the gathering darkness of Nancy’s crumbling reality. The fact that her internal imbalance is not fleshed out (or resolved) lies squarely with Sodroski and Cave. 

Macfadyen (so strong as Mr. Darcy in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice) makes Fred charming, easy, and plausible, veering away from the ominous. Bernal is slightly over-earnest as a man of great conscience who is clearly in love with Nancy. Some racial issues imposed on the narrative ultimately go nowhere, but Bernal uses those to give his character a sense of other in an almost solely white community. Hill makes Harry believable—both likable and subtle. 

Holland attempts to cover self-knowledge, infidelity, guilt, racism, psychological abuse, societal expectations, and a host of other concepts. By trying to say and do so many things, the film fails to unify as one. In the end, Holland is a simplistic suspenser mired in assorted clichés.

Rated R, the film is now streaming on Amazon Prime.

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A scene from 'Snow White.' Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Rachel Zegler as Snow White in a scene from the film.Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Andrew Burnap as Jonathan and Rachel Zegler as Snow White in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Gal Gadot as the evil stepmother in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
'Snow White' is now playing in local theaters. Photo courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

Disney’s Snow White arrives in theaters on a wave of bad publicity. The casting of a non-traditional Snow White and that actor’s criticism of the original animated version, the approach to the seven diminutive cohorts, and the friction between its two stars have caused the House of Mouse to take a cautious approach to the live-action release.

The 1937 feature was part of Disney’s Golden Age of Animation. While a progressive sensibility can find fault with its outdated views, it remains unmatched for pure art and craft. Over the years, dozens of Snow Whites have graced the big and small screens. Beginning with the 1902 silent, adaptations include Mirror, Mirror; Snow White and the Huntsman; Snow White: A Tale of Terror; and Snow White and the Three Stooges.

Putting this aside, Disney’s Snow White is a by-the-numbers remake with some modern additions. The plot connects the usual dots. Snow White’s mother dies, and her father, the king, remarries a beautiful but vain woman. The sorceress queen’s magic mirror informs her she is no longer “the fairest of them all”—that honor now bestowed on her stepdaughter, Snow White.

Enraged, the queen orders her huntsman to take the princess into the forest, kill her, and bring back the girl’s heart. The huntsman takes pity on the girl and lets her escape. Snow White seeks refuge in the cottage of seven dwarfs. When the queen discovers the girl is still alive, she turns herself into a crone, giving her a poisoned apple. Snow White eats the apple and “falls dead.” True love’s kiss—in the form of a prince—wakes her from her death-like slumber, and they live happily ever after.

The new Snow White follows the essentials with a few variations. Snow White is named for the snowstorm during which she was born. The king disappeared, but no proof of death added to Snow White’s quest. The young woman displays a strong independent streak and speaks up for the mistreated citizens. The biggest departure is the absence of a prince. In his place is the generic “guy,” Jonathan, and his seven out-of-work actors. Snow White and the low-rent Robin Hood “meet cute” when she catches him stealing potatoes from the royal kitchen. While she lets him go, he is arrested and tied to the palace’s front gate. She sets him free. Later, they meet in the forest and reconnect. 

None of the changes are terribly original. While nodding towards political correctness, they could have enhanced this Snow White had they been well-handled. However, they are not, and they do not. The leaden film’s muted and desaturated colors create a joyless landscape. The production is oddly cheap, with costumes evoking dollar-store cosplay. (The exception is the queen’s wardrobe.) The new songs—by Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Jack Feldman—barely register. From the lifeless and oddly brief opening number, “Good Things Grow,” and Snow White’s generic I Want song, “Waiting on a Wish,” to the queen’s bizarrely wrong-headed “All is Fair,” not one is memorable. The incongruous “Princess Problems” might be a Meet Me in St. Louis cast-off.

Rachel Zegler (wonderful in West Side Story) is a fine, charming Snow White, understanding the decisive, strong character. She moves with elegant determination and sings with heart and purpose. She just deserved a better script and a modicum of direction. 

Gal Gadot is the most wooden villain on record (including the talking trees in The Wizard of Oz). Her stiff line readings compete with the worst community theatre divas. She looks great; unfortunately, she speaks as though she learned her lines phonetically. 

Andrew Burnap is saddled with Jonathan, a hero so dull that he seems like he is going to fall asleep mid-sentence. (The vibe is a fast-food counter worker on his third consecutive shift.) A distinct lack of chemistry separates Zegler and Burnap; whether this is an absence of spark between the actors or the failure of the screenplay is hard to judge. 

The always reliable Patrick Page voices the Magic Mirror and ably channels the 1937 film. Ansu Kabia’s huntsman barely receives two dimensions. One suspects with the right opportunity, he could have made more of the role. The entire cast appears under-rehearsed as if the cameras rolled days before they found any comfort with the material. Snow White is indifferent Renaissance Faire meets second-rate theme park.

And then there are the dwarfs. (Oh, those dwarfs.) Regardless of the public relations problems, this choice was not the solution. The seven CGI-ed figures attempt to capture the charm of their animated counterparts. They do not—not even a little. Living in a Thomas Kinkade-inspired cottage, their images are simultaneously generic and disturbingly hideous. (The equally CGI-ed forest creatures are a little better, in their kinda weird-kinda cute way.)

Disney misfired, trying to please everyone by twisting itself into a knot of contemporary sensitivity. With lackluster design, an underwritten but overthought screenplay, and an insignificant score, this Disney canon entry will be remembered for its muddled controversies rather than its less-than-bland enchantment. In the end, Snow White is not so much about staying woke but staying awake. 

Rated PG, the film is now playing in local theaters.

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Robert Pattinson as Mickey 18 and Mickey 17 in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

“Have a nice death. See you tomorrow.” This single line captures the plot, theme, and tone of Mickey 17, writer-director Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to his award-winning film Parasite.

Edward Ashton’s novel Mickey7 was among NPR’s Best Sci-Fi Books of 2022 and was nominated for Best Science Fiction Book by Goodreads. Now, Bong Joon Ho brings  the novel to the big screen in an epic adaptation titled Mickey 17. The  first-rate cast features Robert Pattinson, Naomi Ackie, Steven Yeun, Toni Collette, and Mark Ruffalo.

Robert Pattinson in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

In the year 2054, sad sack Mickey Barnes (Pattinson) and his friend, the opportunist Timo (Yeun), are pursued by a vicious loan shark. The pair decide to escape Earth, signing up for a four-and-a-half-year voyage to Niflheim, a planet colonizing under the rule of the failed multi-millionaire politician Kenneth Marshall (Ruffalo). The unskilled Timo finagles a position as a shuttle pilot. Conversely, the doubt-plagued Mickey signs on as an “Expendable.” 

Using a cloning technique banned on Earth, Mickey is subjected to experiments and fatal assignments to make the new planet habitable. After he dies, he is literally reprinted, including uploading his memories and personality traits. (The visual printing is one of the film’s most memorable visuals.) Along the way, Mickey develops a relationship with Nasha Barridge (Ackie), a strong-willed, free-spirited security agent.

The complications come when Timo erroneously reports Mickey 17’s death, unaware that the planet’s indigenous lifeforms, Creepers, rescued Mickey 17. Unknowingly, the scientists generate Mickey 18, the brashest and most aggressive Mickey. This mistake generates the forbidden “Multiples” situation. The dual Mickeys introduce an element of farce into this hybrid of dark comedy, science fiction, horror, and satire.

Robert Pattinson departs from his usual leading man persona for Mickey 17. The fatally passive titular clone is the definition of the little man lost in society, almost blithely accepting his fate. He is a man who signed away his life without reading the contract. Mickey 18 is closer to Pattinson’s usual undertakings, the curled, lipped, sexually charged bad boy. Pattinson adeptly creates two visually identical but wholly contrasting characters.

Robert Pattinson as Mickey 18 and Mickey 17 in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

At the center of the film is the buffoonish but appallingly dangerous leader, the egomaniacal and photo-op-obsessed Marshall. Easily manipulated by his underlings and his diabolical wife (Collette), Ruffalo embodies the danger and idiocy of an oligarchical politician with too much power and money and very little brain power. The performance is a hilarious horror, as the fascist clown spews white supremacist hate speech aimed specifically at Niflheim’s resident Creepers. Collette matches Ruffalo, all blazing eyes and sharpened talons, whispering in his ear like a demented Lady MacB.

The entire cast is effective, alternating the comedic with the callous. Ackie exudes a rough charm as the daring and audacious Barridge. Yeun brings an off-handed charm to the morally bankrupt Timo. Even Patsy Ferran, as scientist Dorothy, creates dimension in one of the few caring team members. 

Cinematographer Darius Khondji and production designer Fiona Crombie perfectly complement each other, capturing the overdeveloped Earth, the dark, cramped spaceship and colony quarters, and the bleak tundra of Niflheim. Bong and his frequent collaborator, Jang Hee-chul, designed the Creepers, which are simultaneously adorable and repellent. 

Bong makes clear commentary with Marshall’s pejorative orations on a white master race, the eradication of the native Creepers, and acceptable scientific experimentation on people who are “expendable.” The presence of Marshall’s followers in their red baseball caps is a pointed statement; depending on one’s leanings, this is either the film’s strength or flaw. Mickey 17’s lack of subtlety often pushes the film from social satire into spoof. 

Like with Parasite, Bong proves he is a master of bold cinematic strokes and unusual and exceptional focus. However, unlike its Academy Award-winning predecessor, Mickey 17 has excess in both grotesquerie and running time. If Bong did not surpass his masterpiece, Mickey 17 offers a bleak, often brutally funny, and ultimately engaging film.

Rated R, the film is now playing in local theaters.

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Willem Dafoe and Lily-Rose Depp in a scene from the film. Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula remains the definitive vampire novel. Written through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles, the book is a landmark that transcended horror to be accepted as literature.

F.W. Murnau’s silent film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror (1922) was the story’s premiere screen incarnation. Attempting to avoid copyright infringement (or pay royalties), the names and location were changed: Dracula was renamed Orlok. However, Stoker’s widow successfully sued, and a court ordered all prints destroyed. However, several copies survived, and the film became a classic with a lasting influence over cinematic history. The image of Max Schreck’s rat-like visage is century-old iconagraphic image.

Lily-Rose Depp in a scene from the film.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features

In 1979, Werner Herzog’s remake, Nosferatu the Vampyre, restored the original character names, with Klaus Kinski as Dracula. Many scenes were filmed twice, once in German and once in English. The meditative take was well-received by critics and audiences. Shadow of the Vampire (2000) fictionalized the making of the original film, with the premise that actor Schreck (Willem Dafoe) was an actual vampire.

Vampirism is a celluloid favorite and the most popular in the creature feature world. There are over two hundred Dracula movies. Dracula has ranged from the elegance of Bela Lugosi’s indelible, tailcoated count to John Carradine’s melancholy interpretation. In nine outings, Christopher Lee emphasized the character’s raw animal nature. A higher level of charm and sensuality came with Louis Jordan, Frank Langella, and Gary Oldman.

Writer-director Robert Eggers, whose previous films include The Witch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman, now offers his vision. He follows most of Stoker’s initial plot (changing the names) but relies on the monstrously hideous Count Orlok of the 20s. The word “vampire” is never uttered. The title roughly translates from the Romanian as “the offensive one” or “the insufferable one.” 

Orlok is a demonic embodiment of all that is evil and foul. He represents the pestilence of city and soul. Eschewing the traditional romantic elements, Eggers’ Orlok not only dwells in the darkest corners but is the shadow itself. Under layers of prosthetics, Bill Skarsgård’s Orlok is a diabolic combination of vermin and reptile sent from the lowest circle of hell. He exists to consume all life: he is death itself. “I am appetite,” he states. “Nothing more.”

The world of Nosferatu is one of disease. Orlok brings a plague of rats, decimating the city. But he is also a destroyer of souls, seeding denial and doubt. Even the heroic Prof. Albin Eberhart Von Franz lives in disgrace for his belief in the occult. Based on Dracula’s Van Helsing, Willem Dafoe lends an eerie twinkle to the brilliant eccentric (if only Dafoe did not seem so uncomfortable in the costumes). Orlok’s minion, Herr Knock (Simon McBurney), is as vile a Renfield ever depicted, chewing the words (and living animals) with a cackle and a quip. Nosferatu is a universe of sweat, blood, and unending pain.

Lily-Rose Depp in a scene from the film.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features

Several elements make Nosferatu worthwhile. Eggers’ literate script honors Stoker’s novel and Henrik Galeen’s 1922 screenplay. While sometimes overly declarative (a common trap in the horror genre), the dialogue is rich and varied, letting the characters speak in individual voices. He finds moments of grim humor and edgy wordplay. He strongly succeeds in addressing issues of Victorian repression and the accusations of female hysteria. He captures the ominous with what is absent: the driverless carriage with the door slowly swinging open, demanding the Jonathan Harker stand-in, Thomas Hutter (Nicholas Hoult), to journey to the count’s castle. Slow pans and sharp cuts bring an equal shock. Eggers pulls no punches: the sight of two small coffins, taller than they are long, resonates with unfathomable loss.

Jarin Blaschke’s moody, cold cinematography complements the constant atmosphere of dread. Craig Lathrop’s production design evokes the cold vastness of the Carpathian Mountains and the congested and later infested Wisburg. Costume designers Linda Muir and David Schwed capture the rustic Transylvania Romani, the doomed sailors, and the lush formality of the wealthy. (While set in Germany, the overall effect feels like Stoker’s Victorian London.)

At the film’s heart is not Robert Eggers’ Orlok but Lily-Rose Depp’s exceptional portrayal of the tormented Ellen, called by dark forces, destiny, and a pull towards death going back to her childhood. In turns terrified and possessed, she easily alternates between fear and ferocity, torn between two realms. “Does evil come from within us or from beyond?” she questions. She owns the disturbing physicality and balances the character’s knowing eroticism with a well of innocence. 

A scene late in the film between Ellen and her husband, Thomas, is raw, unflinching, and brutal. Depp’s performance is layered and nuanced, elevating the usual “Scream Queen” trope. Ultimately, she manifests the film’s darkness and moral core.

Nosferatu does not reinvent the vampire movie but offers strong visuals, a shifted perspective, and a central performance that transcends previous Dracula films.

Rated R, the film is now playing in local theaters.

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Bryan Johnson in a scene from 'Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.' Photo courtesy of Netflix

Reviewed by Jeffrey Sanzel

Netflix is streaming Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, focusing on Bryan Johnson, the entrepreneur who is “determine[d] to live forever—or die trying.” Johnson, now forty-seven, believes death’s inevitability should not be accepted and embarked on an extreme anti-aging protocol.

Johnson founded and was CEO of Braintree, a company specializing in web payments for e-commerce. In 2012, Braintree acquired Venom for over $26 million. One year later, PayPal (then part of eBay) bought the company for $800 million; estimates put Johnson’s profit at $300 million. In October 2021, Johnson announced Project Blueprint, his anti-aging endeavor. Don’t Die focuses on this mission, turning his life into a longevity experiment. 

The much-lauded director Chris Smith (Jim & Andy: The Great Beyond, Fyre, 100 Foot Wave, etc.) created a documentary alternating between Johnson’s daily regimen and his more extreme activities. Each morning, Johnson exercises for an hour, takes a massive number of medications and supplements, eats several pounds of vegetables (he is vegan), and undertakes a range of therapies (light therapy, a hair growth cap, and others). He has a medical-grade clinical operation in his home worth $2.5 million.

Every vital sign is measured and tracked. At the time of the filming, he was in the optimal 99th percentile for both muscle and fat. He claims to have reversed his biological age by 5.1 years in two years. His speed of aging is .69, which means that he ages eight months every twelve months.  

In addition to the more commonplace, Johnson ventured into the world of plasma exchange with his son, Talmadge (as well as giving his own to his father), organ transplant medication suppressing the immune system, and gene replacement therapy (performed on the island of Roatán, off the coast of Honduras).

Much of the film displays his relationship with his son, Talmadge, who came to live with him for his senior year of high school. The divorced Johnson became estranged from his ex-wife and three children when he left the Mormon church. Talmadge, struggling with his own beliefs, chose to join Johnson, who quickly brought him into his world of exercise, diet, and some of the more extreme endeavors. The uncomfortable scenes between them feel forced. Whether they share genuine affection is hard to parse with the mostly unexpressive Johnson. 

While shopping with Talmadge for towels in a Chicago Target, Johnson breaks down at the thought of his son entering the University of Chicago. Is he crying for his son or the cameras? Even Johnson’s statement, “I wish I had Talmadge’s legs. He’s the perfect specimen,” resonates less complimentary and more disturbing.

Johnson claims relationships are important but admits he is not good at them. (Don’t Die briefly mentions the ugly lawsuit surrounding his breakup with Taryn Southern following her breast cancer diagnosis.)

Don’t Die’s tone varies, alternating between pedestrian day-in-the-life and darker moments that suggest an episode of Black Mirror. In its most extreme, the film offers shades of Jurassic Park and, in one particularly uncomfortable sequence about surgical experiments with mice, The Human Centipede.

For over half the film, Johnson is shirtless in his kitchen, swallowing pills or eating the same meal (2,000 calories a day of the same food). He works closely with Kate Tolo, his Chief Marketing Officer, who seems a combination of companion and majordomo. While his initial online presence was not huge, an article by Ashlee Vance (who co-produced Don’t Die) turned Johnson into a viral sensation, generating both positive interest and hate. In this shift, Johnson rose as an almost cult figure. 

People bought many products Johnson consumes with direct links from his website to Amazon. Eventually, he produced and promoted Brian Johnson’s Blueprint Extra Virgin Olive Oil, resulting in accusations of Johnson as a grifter. The undertaking led to “Don’t Die” events, including hikes and dances. Held around the world, Johnson has gathered many followers. 

The talking heads range from medical professionals (doctors, scientists, etc.), some of whom support the work, and others who see it as a waste of money and resources. These contrast with social media pundits, the majority of whom are pointedly negative. Vance’s strong presence alternates between marveling at Johnson’s audacity and questioning his actions. Johnson’s parents are prominently featured but add little insight into who he really is.

At just under an hour and a half, the film seems overlong and repetitive. The unending stream of medium shots and generic footage of weightlifting, pill-taking, and laboratory visits would be more engaging if only Johnson possessed a modicum of charisma. But something is lacking at his core. Even his comments about the greater good can be reduced to a bizarre trickle-down theory. 

Perhaps his entire gestalt is summed up with his bold but problematic statement: “Our minds, which we think are our primary tool of problem-solving, are actually the source of self-destructive behaviors. I would argue the mind is dead.” 

At best, Don’t Die documents one man’s quest for immortality. At worst, it is a portrait of the power of excessive narcissism fueled by vast wealth. Or, as one scientist states: “It’s not science. It’s just attention.”

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