Week Ending 11/3/23
Darkness falls
Well. I didn’t end up watching any Stuart Gordon. But I did catch a couple older horrors anyway in WAIT UNTIL DARK and THE FRIGHTENERS. And I decided to experiment a bit with not really writing anything about them except a few sentences on Letterboxd—kind of what this newsletter was supposed to be before I ended up just still writing full reviews (albeit half the length as I did before starting it).
Not too many intriguing November screener pitches in my inbox yet, so I might start up on my FYC viewing next week. A couple asks about International Oscar hopefuls. A few titles I never caught when they hit theaters. Maybe I’ll even venture out to see ANATOMY OF A FALL at North Park Theatre or PRISCILLA at Regal Elmwood.
It’s about time to make up for not using the MoviePass since August … although I should probably check to make sure they haven’t gone defunct again first.
What I Watched:
FINGERNAILS
(streaming on AppleTV+)
After getting laid off as a result of her school closing, Anna (Jessie Buckley) begins interviewing for a new job. Amongst her teaching applications is also one for the Love Institute run by a man named Duncan (Luke Wilson) as a service to help couples connect en route to a controversial new technology that scientifically confirms or denies your love for each other. Anna applies there mostly because she believes her “test-sanctioned” relationship with Ryan (Jeremy Allen White) has grown stale. She asked him to take classes with her to rekindle their spark, but he refused. So, by getting a job there, she can test and restrengthen their bond herself.
It’s an absurdly fascinating and thought-provoking premise the likes of which you’d expect from APPLES filmmaker Christos Nikou. More than just focus this clandestine experiment on Anna and Ryan, though, Nikou and his co-writers Sam Steiner and Stavros Raptis bring a third party into FINGERNAILS via Amir (Riz Ahmed). He’s Duncan’s star instructor and Anna’s new supervisor/partner showing her the ins and outs of the institute’s offerings. And Anna might just be falling in love with him. Unless it’s merely lustful longing born from her uncertainty with Ryan. But is there really a difference? Is love enough to keep two people together? Is it even enough to bind them in the first place?
These are the questions that I asked during the course of the film. Questions I hoped Nikou and company would answer. In some respects, they do by inevitably forcing their characters to confront the truth that biological imperatives aren’t conducive to emotional and psychological desires. Divorce isn’t solely a product of two people not loving each other anymore. Many times it’s about one person not being able to stay with the other despite that love. Married couples survive affairs all the time too. A person doesn’t just stray because they’ve lost their love. Sometimes it’s a result of lost attention. A cry for help. Love has infinite definitions.
FINGERNAILS does more to get us to think about those definitions than it does to actually define them or take a stance. It’s actually quite “all sides” in its presentation by centering the alt-universe where this technology exists—ostensibly microwaving two people’s fingernails and measuring the results as either 100% (both love one another), 50% (one is in love, the other is not and they can’t know which), or 0% (neither loves the other)—above the characters themselves. Nikou is using them to apply pressure to themselves as a result of this test looming above their heads. Do you break-up if you don’t get 100%? Do you stay together because you do despite not really liking who you’ve become with them?
There are too many interesting questions to call the whole a failure and too many holes and distractions to deem it a success. Regardless, I do think it’s worthwhile. Some of the dry humor is very effective and some romantic moments are too. And the overall melancholy insofar as someone’s heart needing to break in order for another’s to be full does resonate. In the end it’s really about waking up to the reality that you cannot let someone else’s feelings dictate your own whether man or machine. You must follow your gut and let honesty and vulnerability rule. Buckley, Ahmed, and White are the perfect trio to test those boundaries. The premise is unfortunately better suited to platform their results than the script.
- 6/10
THE PERSIAN VERSION
(now in theaters)
Living between two cultures at constant war with each other since birth, Leila (Layla Mohammadi) ultimately provides both conservative America and Iran something upon which they can agree … to hate: homosexuality. It’s why she’s estranged from her mother (Niousha Noor’s Shireen) and why neither is willing to even consider the process of reconciliation. If not for the news that her father’s (Bijan Daneshmand’s Ali Reza) name came up for a heart transplant, there may not have been an excuse to try. Or, more accurately, to be forced to acknowledge the other’s presence at all.
An autobiographical comedy writer/director Maryam Keshavarz crafted as an emotional balm for the political powder keg that is Arab-American and Muslim existence in a post-9/11 world, THE PERSIAN VERSION uses its idiosyncratic structure (multiple timelines, a second narrator taking over, fourth wall breaking, and Cyndi Lauper dance interludes only scratch the surface) to really put its focus on the mother-daughter relationship at its center. The whole living between New York and Shiraz thing is more anecdotal flavor than anything else. A lot of what’s on-screen is. Everything except Leila v. Shireen.
As such, things can get a bit narratively reductive despite just how much content Keshavarz packs in. Some of that’s intentional (Leila’s seven brothers being labeled stereotypes and then living up to the caricatures). Some of it isn’t (it’s nice to see a positive representation of sexual fluidity in a film, but it always seems to be a punch line here rather than an empowering portrayal). Ali Reza is there as a catalyst. So is Mamanjoon (Bella Warda and Sachli Gholamalizad depending on timeframe) and “Hedwig” (Tom Byrne). That’s not to say they aren’t also relevant. They simply find themselves disappearing when it’s convenient to let their actions drive Leila and Shireen forward instead.
That’s kind of the game, though. Leila and Shireen are the women cutting their own paths. Succeeding despite the male-driven world to which they were born. That they let men’s actions push them to be better, stronger, and more resolute is part of the message. The lesson, however, is that you can’t also let that anger and determination blind you from each other. It’s the same conservative norms Shireen battles against that put her at odds with her daughter’s sexuality. And it’s Leila’s rebellious nature that prevents her from seeing her mother hasn’t adopted those traits as much as exploited them for success.
The result is entertaining and not without its dramatic reveals. A long-kept secret is partially responsible for the hostility between these women, but, much like Leila realizing her mother didn’t single-handedly ruin her marriage to Elena like she wants to believe, it’s really just an excuse to ignore Shireen’s own guilt in the matter. Those revelations come quick. I would even say they’re rushed to the detriment of the whole despite that speed helping the emotional resonance of some sentimental heartstring tugs surrounding an abrupt fade to black. So, while a good time was had, I can’t shake the sense that there was potential for so much more.
- 6/10
WAIKIKI
(now in limited release)
Christopher Kahunahana’s WAIKIKI isn’t a straightforward narrative of a down-on-her-luck Hawaiian. To see the bookended images of Kea (Danielle Zalopany) smiling brightly as she dances hula for a room full of tourists is to think about a similar instance of Naomi Watts in David Lynch’s MULHOLLAND DR—the façade of pristine hope and possibility that clouds us from anticipating or accepting the cruelty that awaits. This depiction might be worse, however, since it isn’t Kea who moved to follow her dreams. No, she’s always lived in Hawai’i. It’s the world that’s stolen her home and, in the process, her ability to survive.
What exists in the middle of those dances is therefore a nightmare not of her choosing. It’s a portrayal of life on land that should be hers yet is anything but. Kea must work three jobs just to try her luck at securing an apartment to escape her abusive boyfriend (Jason Quinn’s Branden). She dances. She teaches. She sings at a bar and flirts with the patrons for tips. And all the while she lives in her van, brushing her teeth at the public beach showers before driving to her next gig with parking tickets piled under the windshield wiper. As skyscrapers ascend and tourists drop money she’ll never see, her existence becomes pushed to the fringes.
So, it makes sense she would channel her anger onto someone worse off. Wo (Peter Shinkoda) is a homeless vagrant she hits with her van while speeding away from Brendan. Unsure what to do, she picks him up and puts him in the back to deal with him later. She hopes to assuage guilt by helping, but he barely speaks or acknowledges what has happened—causing her to lash out in frustration until she discovers the bottom of her life falling out even further. Only then does she begin to see beyond the present. Only then do past abuses and tragedies flood back into her consciousness as though the land itself is attempting to heal her suffering by forcing her to confront her pain.
WAIKIKI is not going to be a film for everyone as its slow pace and unorthodox narrative structure (which is complicated further by an unreliable narrator rendering everything we see into a potential delusion) can prove challenging. It helps that Kahunahana regularly refocuses his overall message about colonialism and indigeneity with lessons in school, an extra pile of cash from work, and a confrontation in a diner laying out the hypocrisy and opportunistic short-sightedness of those who are one bad day away from poverty themselves. Some of what results can be confusing (Is Branden really abusive or is that part of Kea’s hallucinations?), but all of it is dramatically potent.
And it’s mostly due to a wonderful performance from Zalopany. Her character is put through the wringer emotionally. She’s struggling for everything she has and it doesn’t seem as though anything goes her way. Kea yearns for innocence and safety—two things that were ripped away from her at a very young age to leave her broken beyond repair. The only way she can even begin to attempt survival is to split in two so as not to give up on herself. Only through this fracturing of identity can she find sympathy and the strength to continue on. Yet, even so, success is forever outside her control. The country in which she lives has stolen that too.
- 7/10
Cinematic F-Bombs:
This week saw AUTUMN IN NEW YORK (2000), FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX (2004), ROLLERBALL (2002), VALKYRIE (2008), and WICKER PARK (2004) added to the archive. It’s a good week when you can add both Bill Nighy and Chris Klein to the database. cinematicfbombs.com
New Releases This Week:
(Review links where applicable)
Opening Buffalo-area theaters 11/3/23 -
ANATOMY OF A FALL at North Park Theatre
DIVINITY at Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker
“DIVINITY will not be something you can soon forget. It's not action-packed, but it's never boring. Not if you open yourself to its themes of awakening.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
KEEDAA COLA at Regal Elmwood & Transit
LONESOME SOLDIER at Regal Transit & Quaker
THE MARSH KING'S DAUGHTER at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Market Arcade; Regal Transit, Galleria & Quaker
THE PERSIAN VERSION at Regal Elmwood & Transit
Thoughts are above.
PRISCILLA at Regal Elmwood, Galleria & Quaker
SARABHA - CRY FOR FREEDOM at Dipson Capitol
SARDARA AND SONS at Regal Elmwood
WHAT HAPPENS LATER at Dipson Flix & Capitol; AMC Maple Ridge; Regal Elmwood, Transit & Quaker
Streaming from 11/3/23 -
FINGERNAILS – AppleTV+ on 11/3
Thoughts are above.
NYAD – Netflix on 11/3
QUIZ LADY – Hulu on 11/3
SLY – Netflix on 11/3
STAND UP & SHOUT: SONGS FROM A PHILLY HIGH SCHOOL – Max on 11/7
CYBERBUNKER: THE CRIMINAL UNDERWORLD – Netflix on 11/8
YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND – Netflix on 11/8
TEMPLE OF FILM: 100 YEARS OF THE EGYPTIAN THEATRE – Netflix on 11/8
BTS: YET TO COME – Prime on 11/9
Now on VOD/Digital HD -
A HAUNTING IN VENICE (10/31)
PAW PATROL: THE MIGHTY MOVIE (10/31)
RADICAL WOLFE (10/31)
HANDS THAT BIND (11/3)
HELEN’S DEAD (11/3)
THE KILL ROOM (11/3)
OUTLAW JOHNNY BLACK (11/3)
REBEL (11/3)
“With long-takes and stunningly choreographed music video-esque interludes, the filmmakers are using every cinematic trick in the book to overwhelm us [emotionally] into investing in the Wasakis' plight.” – Full thoughts at HHYS.
From the press kit archive:
