Category Archives: Now Showing

Now Showing

WAKE UP DEAD MAN: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY

Producers: Ram Bergman and Rian Johnson   Director: Rian Johnson   Screenplay: Rian Johnson   Cast: Daniel Craig, Josh O’Connor, Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Daryl McCormack, Thomas Haden Church, Jeffery Wright, Annie Hamilton, Bridget Everett, James Faulkner and Noah Segan    Distributor: Netflix

Grade: B+

After a bit of a sophomore slump with the second of his Knives Out series “Glass Onion” (2022), which was amusing but rather overblown, Riann Johnson bounces back with this quasi-“locked room” murder mystery set at a small Catholic parish in upper New York.  The fact that it’s a borrowed sort of plot is admitted by its references to classic examples of the genre, especially John Dickson Carr’s 1935 masterpiece “The Hollow Man,” though at one point one can glimpse the titles of others, like Agatha Christie’s “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” (1925).

Though Daniel Craig returns as that deep-drawl Southern sleuth Benoit Blanc, he shares the screen once again with a starry ensemble.  The person who falls under suspicion is young Father Jud Duplenticy (Josh O’Connor), a former boxer who impulsively socked a deacon for reasons never fully explained.  Understanding Bishop Langstrom (Jeffery Wright) punishes him leniently by sending him to serve as assistant to Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin) at Our Lady of Perpetual Fortitude in tiny Chimney Rock.

But this is no case of “Going My Way.”  Wicks is utterly hostile to having Duplenticy forced upon him despite the fact that his congregation has dwindled to a mere handful of regulars, a circumstance explained by Wicks’s habit of driving away any newcomers by issuing thundering, precisely calibrated, condemnations designed to insult them from the pulpit.  In this way the Monsignor has whittled his flock down to a few true believers in his uncompromisingly traditionalist views.

There’s alcoholic doctor Nat Sharp (Jeremy Renner), still agonizing over the fact that his wife left him, along with their kids; cool as a cucumber attorney Vera Draven (Kerry Washington); her stepbrother Cy Draven (Daryl McCormack), a failed politician now trying to use the web to promote his hard-right views by posting Wicks’s diatribes; Lee Ross (Andrew Scott), a once-bestselling novelist whose popularity nosedived after his writing turned into Wicks-promotion; young cellist Simone Vivane (Cailee Spaeny), whose promising career was sidetracked by an illness that’s left her in a wheelchair and who now hopes that Wicks’s spiritual power can restore her to health; and longtime parish groundskeeper Samson Holt (Thomas Haden Church), who lives in the garage beside the tomb of Father Prentice Wicks (James Faulker), Jefferson’s grandfather, who amassed a fortune—and sired daughter Grace (Annie Hamilton)–before becoming a priest and actually built the church.    

Finally. there’s Martha Delacroix (Glenn Close), Wicks’s fanatically devoted housekeeper, who basically keeps the parish running—maintaining the books, sprucing up the vestments and playing the organ at services.  She’s been around since Prentice’s time and knows where the skeletons are buried, even remembering how Grace ransacked the church after her father’s death; she’s also extremely close to Holt, who will do anything she asks.

(Some Catholics may be miffed about the suggestion that a parish could be this sort of family-owned-and-operated enterprise, or the idea that a bishop couldn’t remove and replace a problematic pastor at will.  My advice is to calm down; this is fiction, not reality, and fiction of the same sort that allowed Christie to depict Anglican parishes as she did—or the likes of Eliot and Trollope, for that matter.  It’s fun, not fact.)

In any event, the plot proper begins when the Monsignor meets an untimely end during the Holy Week services leading up to Easter.  He’s stabbed in the back while saying mass, after retreating to a small closet off the sanctuary for a brief rest.  Father Jud is the first to reach him and is found by the others clutching the knife that’s the murder weapon.  Though he claims to be innocent, it’s no wonder that Sheriff Scott (Mila Kunis) considers him the chief suspect.  And he’s torn himself, still wracked with guilt over having once killed an opponent in the boxing ring—the event that led him to the priesthood.

But who should appear but Blanc, intent on unraveling the truth.  (One might chalk it up to divine intervention, if it weren’t for his being an unbeliever.  But Johnson allows him to be bathed in a shaft of heavenly light coming through a stained-window and mount the pulpit to deliver his case summation, and to show a gesture of grace to a perpetrator even at a cost to his reputation.)  He and Duplenticy slowly wend their way to the truth through a series of events as convoluted as those in any Christie plot—stunning revelations, long-buried secrets, another murder, even a resurrection just in time for Easter.  If you want plausibility, you’d better look elsewhere.

But while admittedly incredible, the circuitous journey to the solution proves an engaging journey.  Craig once again brings his rationalistic Southern demeanor to Blanc, and O’Connor makes a sympathetic suspect. All the supporting players fill their caricature-like parts admirably, but Brolin and Close stand out, the one for his malevolent rage (his “confessions” to Duplenticy are masterpieces of sarcastic malice) and the other for her skill in capturing elderly Martha’s single-minded intensity.  But one shouldn’t overlook Wright’s tongue-in-cheek turn, or the contribution of Bridget Everett as a secretary at a construction firm who provides a crucial piece of information.

And the film has been lovingly made.  Rick Heinrich’s production design has a lovely artificiality which cinematographer Steve Yedin bathes in luminous light and creepy shadow as appropriate.  Editor Bob Ducsay lets things unfold without rushing, giving the clues time to sink in, while Nathan Johnson contributes a cheeky score.                 

“Wake Up Dead Man” has points to make about contemporary political culture and its deleterious connection with organized religion, but they’re not allowed to overwhelm the basic plot.  Like the classic “impossible crime” novels it emulates, it’s a likably wacky mystery that leaves you smiling in the wake of its cartoonishly murderous mayhem.

Now Showing

JAY KELLY

Producers: David Heyman, Amy Pascal and Noah Baumbach   Director: Noah Baumbach   Screenplay: Noah Baumbach and Emily Mortimer   Cast: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Riley Keough, Grace Edwards, Stacy Keach, Jim Broadbent, Patrick Wilson, Eve Hewson, Greta Gerwig , Alba Rohrwacher, Giovanni Zeqireya, Josh Hamilton, Lenny Henry, Emily Mortimer, Nicôle Lecky, Thaddea Graham, Isla Fisher, Louis Partridge, Charlie Rowe, Jamie Demetriou, Patsy Ferran, Lars Eidinger, Théo Augier, Kyle Soller and Giovanni Esposito   Distributor: Netflix

Grade: C+

The shadow of “8½” looms large over Noah Baumbach’s tale of an actor looking back at his life and regretting choices he’s made, but “Jay Kelly” has little of the resonance and imagination of Fellini’s masterpiece.  It’s basically a sentimental Hollywood-based dramedy with George Clooney’s natural magnetism holding it together as a Hollywood icon and Adam Sandler adding some hangdog poignance as his ever-loyal manager Ron Sukenick, who has regrets too; and by the time it’s over, it comes across as even less insightful a tribute to Fellini than Woody Allen’s “Stardust Memories.”

The movie begins with a long tracking shot meandering through the crew of a studio set—an effect nicely managed by cinematographer Linus Sandgren—before the camera comes to rest on the picture’s star Kelly (Clooney), supposedly shot in the stomach and resting against a wall.  After a dog enters the scene prematurely, the director calls for another take, Clooney delivers Jay’s lines, and requests yet a third take—“Can we do it again?”—before being assured that it was perfect.

Walking off the set, Jay’s informed by Ron that his mentor Peter Schneider (Jim Broadbent), who’d given him his first break, has died.  Jay ruefully remembers his last meeting with Peter, when he declined to let his name be used to help get a film with which Schneider hoped to revive his career greenlit.  He and Ron then attend Peter’s funeral, where the dead man’s son gives Kelly one of his father’s kerchiefs, which Jay carelessly passes on to Ron.

While there an old acquaintance approaches Jay—Tim (Billy Crudup), a pediatrician who was his roommate when both were studying under an acting coach (Lenny Henry).  After the service they decide to meet for coffee at one of their old haunts, and Tim recalls what’s become a defining moment in Jay’s biography, which we see in another flashback—how young Jay (Charlie Rowe) volunteered to accompany Tim (Louis Partridge) to an audition for a part in Schneider’s movie, and asked to read the part himself after Tim had been dismissed, winning the role that jumpstarted his career while Tim remained in obscurity.  Tim admits that he’s still angry over how Jay stole his chance at fame (so he thinks), and the two men scuffle, with Jay winding up with a black eye and Tim, we learn, with a broken nose over which he might well sue.

Thus begins Jay’s look back at his life, particularly how he neglected his daughters Jessica (Riley Keough) and Daisy (Grace Edwards) in pursuit of Hollywood success. He goes to visit the estranged Jessica, who forces him to listen to her New Agey analyst, aged surfer-turned-guru Carter (a funny cameo by Josh Hamilton), read an accusatory letter she’s written; and when Jay learns that Daisy is about to go off on a trip to Europe with friends and her boyfriend (Théo Augier) rather than spend time with him before leaving for college, he impulsively cancels the next movie Ron’s arranged for him and decides instead to attend a tribute in his honor at a film festival in Tuscany—though his actual purpose, of course, is to “bump into” Daisy on her trip.  Unfortunately, he’d previously declined the invitation, and Ron had persuaded the festival instead to honor another of his clients, Ben Alcock (Patrick Wilson).  He now scrambles to have them add Kelly to the ceremony.

So Jay is off to Europe, requiring his entourage—Ron, his publicist Liz (Laura Dern), his makeup person Candy (Emily Mortimer, who also co-wrote the script), his bodyguard Silvano (Giovanni Zeqireya) and other hangers-on—to suddenly leave their families behind and accompany him, as Ron’s wife Lois (Greta Gerwig) pointedly notes.  Jay’s received with adulation by other passengers on the train he’s learned Daisy is taking from France to Italy, though she’s much less welcoming, telling him she’s decided to put off college.   He does, however, earn some good publicity to counteract Tim’s threatened lawsuit when he chases down a thief (Lars Eidinger) who’s stolen an elderly lady’s purse, even though he’s embarrassed to be hailed as some kind of real-life hero after he learns the man was off his meds.  Moreover, Liz and Candy abandon the trip, leaving Ron as Jay’s sole support.

Baumbach mixes the mild laughter and tears he’s cultivated up to this point at the festival as well, presenting the Italian hosts, including frazzled VIP coordinator (Alba Rohrwacher) and festival organizer Antonio (Giovanni Esposito) as comic figures while presenting Alcock as both a contrast to Jay (he brings along his devoted wife played by Isla Fisher and their numerous kids) and an ambitious twerp (he fires Ron for failing to give him enough attention).  The combination is most pronounced, though, in the person of Jay’s father (Stacy Keach), a retired Joh Deere employee Ron’s persuaded to attend who charms the locals with his salty manner but overlooks no opportunity to belittle his son’s accomplishments and brusquely leaves before the closing ceremony.                  

Baumbach ends the film with another nod to “8½”—a filmed tribute to Kelly in the form of a montage of clips from Clooney’s own films, during which he scans the audience to see acquaintances both alive and dead—Schneider and Tim among them—though only Ron has remained with him, loyal to the last.  They don’t all dance around in a circle to the strains of Nino Rota’s carnival music, but they might as well.

Clooney’s charisma carries the movie; he makes Jay likable even as he frets over his domestic failures and wonders whether Tim was right.  But Sandler is an important ingredient, his nice-guy persona suggesting that Ron’s loyalty is more than a mere business arrangement, and that there’s more to his client than just a slick exterior.  There’s a great deal of star power in the supporting cast, but among them only Crudup and Keach register strongly, one at the start of the film and the other toward the close. 

That’s hardly the fault of actors like Dern or Broadbent, but of the script, which never delves very deeply into any of the characters, even Jay and Ron.  The result is an agreeable but lightweight picture that promises more insight than it delivers, easy to watch but leaving very little impact. 

It is, however, nicely appointed.  Mark Tildesley’s production design has elegance in the California sequences upfront, and the European locations that follow are lovely, and nicely shot by Sandgren.  Nicholas Britell provides a sprightly score, and while the editing by Valerio Bonelli and Rachel Durance is hardly energetic, the pace rarely becomes sluggish.

“Jay Kelly” is a better showcase for Clooney’s inherent charm than his recent films have been—indeed, it’s probably the best fit since “The Descendants.”  But while it’s easy enough to swallow, it doesn’t prove very nutritious.