Drama
After The Hunt (15)
Review: Director Luca Guadagnino extends the battle of the sexes from his hard-hitting tennis drama Challengers to this slow-burning psychological thriller written by Nora Garrett, which explores post-Me Too cancel culture at an Ivy League American university where a student levels damning accusations against a member of the teaching faculty. In one heated exchange between Julia Roberts’ professor and Ayo Edebiri’s accusing student, the educator cautions her protegee that not everything in life is supposed to make you feel comfortable, like a warm bath. Discomfort is a necessary part of self-development and understanding.
This is the key message of Guadagnino’s provocative and overlong sermon, which succeeds in making us feel uncomfortable about the flawed characters and their responses to reported abuse or a potential false allegation from a student whose PhD thesis shows evidence of plagiarism. The imbalance of power seesaws as screenwriter Garrett stacks one contrivance atop another and leaves important questions unanswered. Likeability eludes most characters and a powerful performance from Roberts confidently paints in shades of moral grey to add complexity of this incendiary conversation piece. Guadagnino rarely exercises brevity and After The Hunt is no exception, extending the learning well beyond two hours without appreciable additional reward for the investment.
Philosophy professor Alma Imhoff (Roberts) stands on the precipice of securing tenure at Yale University after years of dedicated service. She enjoys a privileged life with psychiatrist husband Frederik (Michael Stuhlbarg) and enjoys a close bond with her departmental colleague, Hank Gibson (Andrew Garfield), who openly flirts with Alma and pupils. Chaos erupts on campus when PhD student Maggie Price (Edebiri), who has a crush on Alma, claims Hank assaulted her after a boozy night at Alma’s home.
Caught between defending her good friend Hank, publicly supporting Maggie and protecting her reputation among the rest of the faculty to secure that long-promised tenure, Alma is potential collateral damage as the reliability of witnesses is called into question. The professor exercises tact and restraint as a media frenzy threatens to scorch Yale but her reluctance to openly share feelings, or her past, only adds fuel to the firestorm. “Misconstruing my need for privacy as having something to hide would be a mistake,” she politely warns her colleague, student counsellor and psychologist Dr Kim Sayers (Chloe Sevigny), who is the gatekeeper of privileged secrets that could destroy lives.
After The Hunt taps into timely concerns about transgressions of power and influence and intensifies animated debate around the automatic presumption of belief for every individual who claims to be the victim of sexual misconduct. While Garrett’s script is adept at posing gnarly questions, it’s less sure-footed with satisfying answers. Edebiri and Garfield offer strong support to Roberts, leading us down repeated dead ends of a moral maze with no neat and tidy solution.
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Horror
Black Phone 2 (15)
Review: Ghost stories are rarely as scary on a second reading. That’s certainly true of the snow-laden sequel to writer-director Scott Derrickson’s effective 2021 supernatural horror about a serial killer who prowls the streets of North Denver posing as a magician to lure unsuspecting children into the back of his van. Co-written by Derrickson and C Robert Cargill, Black Phone 2 engineers a simple back story at a children’s camp to flesh out the origins of The Grabber and deepen personal ties between the masked maniac and the young boy, who outwitted and killed him.
There are obvious echoes of Camp Crystal Lake from Friday The 13th in the setting of the second film and the storyline’s heavy reliance on dreamscape terrors begs unfavourable comparisons to A Nightmare On Elm Street. The Grabber, armed with an axe or ice hockey stick, is a poor substitute for Freddy Krueger with his hand-fashioned glove with razor-sharp blade fingers. Goodwill from the original can only carry Derrickson’s follow-up so far and he’s heavily reliant on strong performances from Mason Thames and Madeleine McGraw as returning teens in peril, who are blessed (or cursed) with the ability to connect with the dearly departed.
Four years have passed since Finney Shaw (Thames) was abducted by The Grabber (Ethan Hawke). The resourceful boy may have killed his tormentor but nightmarish memories remain: being held hostage in The Grabber’s dank, soundproofed basement and engineering a daring escape aided by vengeful ghosts of the masked predator’s victims. Now 17 years old, Finney smokes marijuana cigarettes to numb the pain and dull the occasionally trill of out-of-order telephones to signal an incoming call from the spirit world.
Younger sister Gwen (McGraw) begins experiencing visions of boys who were murdered at Alpine Lake winter camp – the same snow-laden resort where her late mother (Anna Lore) worked as a counsellor in 1957. Accompanied by Gwen’s boyfriend Ernesto (Miguel Mora), the siblings head to the camp in search of answers and they uncover distressing connections to The Grabber. Their presence opens a doorway between the mortal and dream realms, which threatens everyone at Alpine Lake including camp supervisor Mando (Demian Bichir), his feisty niece Mustang (Arianna Rivas) and two God-fearing camp assistants Barbara (Maev Beaty) and Kenneth (Graham Abbey).
Black Phone 2 is a stylish but derivative and underwhelming sequel, which fails to build on the skin-crawling promise of the original. Set pieces including a showdown on a frozen lake are executed with flair and Derrickson easily distinguishes between murderous mayhem in the real world and a parallel dream state. The first film successfully dialled into universal fears and sent shivers down the spine but the second chapter fails to connect on the same discomfiting, primal level.
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Adventure
Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie (U)
Review: Enthusiastic audience participation – cheering, clapping, singing and, yes, caterwauling – are actively encouraged from the outset of director Ryan Crego’s candy-coloured adventure based on the popular TV series for pre-schoolers, which melds live action and animation to chart the exploits of the eponymous teen heroine and her pawsome pals, the Gabby Cats. Laila Lockhart Kraner reprises her title role with the kind of unbridled effervescence and joy that should be bottled as a tonic for workday blues.
Repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to speak directly to the audience (and invite attending parents and children to hold hands), she barrels through a simplistic storyline about cherishing childlike wonder and the power of imagination. In a masterful move, Kristen Wiig is cast as the purrfectly unhinged antagonist, who likes to unwind by performing yoga with her long-suffering pampered pet cat Marlena. This loopy set piece, which invites the actor to twist her body like a pretzel into various unorthodox poses – The Can Opener, The French Detective, The Keanu! – wedges a tongue so firmly in cheek it will surely be wasted on the target demographic.
Gabby (Lockhart Kraner) is thrilled to embark on a week-long visit to her beloved grandma Gigi (Gloria Estefan) in Cat Francisco. The pair travel across the pink gate suspension bridge and into the city via Arcatsas, Mewsiana and Mew Meowxico with the treasured dollhouse and the Gabby Cats safely secured to a separate trailer. CatRat (voiced by Donovan Patton) is impatient to get inside Gigi’s house and he foolishly loosens the dollhouse’s restraints, sending the miniature residence and its feline inhabitants careening downhill and into the clutches of glittery kitty litter maven, Vera (Kristen Wiig). Meowch!
Harnessing the power of huggable plush best friend Pandy Paws (Logan Bailey) and her cat ears headband (“Pinch on my left, pinch pinch on my right. Grab Pandy’s hand and hold on tight!”), Gabby shrinks into animated form and magically relocates inside the dollhouse. There, Gabby joins forces with Baby Box (Maggie Lowe), Cakey (Juliet Donenfeld), Carlita (Carla Tassara), Daniel James “DJ” Catnip (Eduardo Franco), Kitty Fairy (Tara Strong), MerCat (Secunda Wood) and Pillow Cat (Sainty Nelsen) to remind Vera about the power of playing with toys. Neglected plush cat Chumsley (Jason Mantzoukas) could be the key.
Gabby’s Dollhouse: The Movie exudes sugar-coated cheer down to the baking-obsessed Gabby Cat, who cries multi-coloured sprinkles of sadness and joy. Musical sequences reverberate to the beat of inoffensive bouncy pop songs such as Let’s Go For A Ride, Pinching In and Gabby’s Dollhouse World (“Come on put your paws up high/Shake your tail from left to right!”) I’m four decades too old for this relentlessly upbeat party but I enjoyed gatecrashing it for 98 minutes.
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Comedy
Good Fortune (15)
Review: Imagine if Keanu Reeves’ endearingly dim-witted hero from the Bill And Ted movies ascended to heaven and was granted licence to return to Earth as a low-ranking angel in charge of preventing driving accidents. That’s the creative kernel of writer, director and actor Aziz Ansari’s inconsistent yet sweetly charming comedy, which manifests the unholy union of Wim Wenders’ angelic meditation on life, Wings Of Desire, and the life-swap lark, Trading Places.
Reeves exudes childlike innocence as the angel who oversees Texting And Driving – a monotonous yet worthwhile assignment, which involves sitting unseen on the back seats of cars and placing his hand on a driver’s shoulder at the precise moment they need to look up from their phone and hit the brakes to avoid a collision. In one of the simplest and most delightful scenes from Good Fortune, Reeves’s celestial commiserates being cast out from heaven with his first fast food meal, emitting increasingly effusive woahs as he samples a beefburger, chocolate milkshake and “chicken nuggies”. His unselfconscious performance is the undeniable highlight of Anzari’s uneven picture, which has a hit-and-miss script that has the potential to be far funnier than what ends up on screen.
Low-ranking angel Gabriel (Reeves) hopes to earn promotion from Texting And Driving to more exciting divisions like Avalanches or Tsunamis, and maybe, one day, achieve the holy grail of shepherding Lost Souls back from the abyss. He becomes fixated on nice guy Arj (Ansari), who fulfils odd jobs for the Task Sergeant app to keep his head above water. Convinced Arj is a lost soul, Gabriel oversteps the remit agreed by his angel supervisor (Sandra Oh) and reveals himself to Arj. “You’re telling me I have a budget guardian angel?” snarks the mortal, once he learns of Gabriel’s modest earthbound remit.
After self-obsessed venture capitalist Jeff (Seth Rogen) hires Arj as a personal assistant and almost as quickly fires him, Gabriel intervenes and orchestrates a magical body swap so Arj and Jeff experience each other’s lives and hopefully nurture sympathy and understanding. Instead, Arj embraces his newfound unlimited spending power and Gabriel loses his wings. He is condemned to live among us, washing dishes and eating tacos until Arj repents. “I used to be a celestial being and now I’m a chain smoker,” laments Gabriel.
Good Fortune will require divine intervention to wholeheartedly charm audiences. Uproarious laughs are sporadic and Anzari bypasses deep character development and rich storytelling to engineer an unabashedly wholesome resolution akin to It’s A Wonderful Life. A romantic subplot between Arj and a hardware warehouse co-worker (Keke Palmer) is casually grafted onto the flimsy main narrative to illustrate how money can buy anything, except another person’s affections. Or in this case, a sharper script.
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Drama
Roofman (15)
Review: A career-best performance from Channing Tatum as a real-life escaped convict, who successfully evaded police for months by living inside a branch of Toys “R” Us in Charlotte, North Carolina, invigorates writer-director Derek Cianfrance’s offbeat crime caper. Co-written by Kirt Gunn, Roofman applies a feelgood gloss to the true story of former United States Army Reserve officer Jeffrey Manchester, who turned to crime and gained his nickname by drilling through roofs of branches of McDonald’s at night so he could wait inside until morning and surprise staff to steal the takings.
In one headline-grabbing incident, recreated on screen with humour, Jeffrey gave a restaurant manager his own jacket before leaving staff inside a walk-in freezer so he could make a swift getaway on foot. Archive footage and interviews over the end credits show victims of his crimes praising the kindness and affability of a man who deceived and stole from them. Tatum’s inherent charm and likeability play into this image of an enterprising robber, whose heart is in the right place even when he is holding up businesses at gunpoint. He also flexes his acting muscles in scenes of agonising regret, wringing out copious tears as Jeffrey realises how many people he has hurt with his actions.
In the late 1990s, Jeffrey (Tatum) struggles pay child support to his ex-wife Talana (Melonie Diaz) after proudly serving his country and his embarrassment peaks when he cannot afford a new bike as a birthday present for his daughter Becky (Alissa Marie Pearson). Army buddy Steve (LaKeith Stanfield) observes that “doing things the right way” is not Jeffrey’s style but he does possess remarkable observational skills. With this in mind, Jeffrey executes his daredevil plan to rob multiple branches of McDonald’s. He is eventually captured by police and becomes the first person to escape from Brown Creek Correctional Institution in North Carolina.
Jeffrey hides out at the branch of Toys “R” Us managed by Mitch (Peter Dinklage) for several months and secretly installs baby monitors to spy on staff from his safe haven behind the bicycle rack display. During forays outside the building, he sparks romance with store worker Leigh Wainscott (Kirsten Dunst) who has two daughters, and becomes an active member of her church led by pastor Ron Smith (Ben Mendelsohn) and his wife Eileen (Uzo Aduba) under the assumed name of John Zorn.
Roofman is an unabashedly sweet tale of ham-fisted crime and delayed punishment, anchored to a love story that we yearn to succeed but know is doomed from the outset. Cianfrance and Gunn’s script blesses Tatum with his meatiest and most emotionally complex role since Foxcatcher. He doesn’t hold back, baring all in a scene of nudity played for laughs that leaves little to the imagination. Tatum catalyses wonderful screen chemistry with Dunst and their tender interactions steal hearts.
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