Digital Week – February 12

James Mangold’s by-the-numbers biopic of Bob Dylan, which follows him from his arrival in New York in 1961 to his legendary appearance at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival where he scandalized some with his electric set, shrewdly puts the actors front and center, which allows the audience to ignore that Mangold and Jay Cocks’ script hits familiar dramatic beats and biopic tropes. Monica Barbaro is a real find as Joan Baez, Edward Norton makes a splendid Pete Seeger, and Timothee Chalamet illuminates Dylan as a cocksure young genius who balances respect for his forebears with a yearning to break free of folk’s strictures; and his singing voice approaches Dylan’s own without the usual tongue-in-cheek mockery.

Based on a memoir by Marcelo Rubens Paiva, Walter Salles’ emotionally shattering drama follows Paiva’s mother, Eunice, wife of liberal politician Rubens who is taken by the military in 1971 and disappeared (and his remains never found): she must navigate an impossible situation of learning what happened to her husband and keep her family—they have five children—together during a fraught time in Brazil. Salles takes material that could have easily become sentimentalized and keeps it direct and honest; he is immeasurably aided by Fernanda Torres’ subtle portrait of Eunice, an understated performance for the ages. 

Rob Tregenza was one of the cinematographers on Bela Tarr’s “Werckmeister Harmonies,” among other visually striking films—his latest directorial effort, which follows Anna, a middle-aged Norwegian housekeeper who must spy on a priest’s activities in exchange for her release from prison by the occupying Nazis, is a snail’s-paced drama that’s less than the sum of its parts. Although Tregenza’s camera is always moving, it rarely takes the interior measure of these characters, leaving Ellen Dorrit Petersen’s portrayal of Anna adrift; then there’s the final third of the film, taken over by a literal making-of section that seems more desperate than organic.

Pioneering Black artist Faith Ringgold (who died last year at age 93) is the main focus of Catherine Gund’s ardent portrait of the history and legacy of one of her most valuable and important paintings, “For the Women’s House,” a huge canvas she painted for the women’s house of detention on Rikers Island. In addition to following the ups and downs of the painting’s journey—it was almost destroyed by an uncaring bureaucracy until finally being rescued—Gund has also made a fascinating meditation on art, activism and prison reform that also introduces Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, whose own life after incarceration provides the necessary connection to Ringgold’s mighty work of art.

One of Jean-Luc Godard’s least memorable films, this paper-thin 1961 entry stars Anna Karina as free-spirited heroine Angela, who wants a child with reluctant boyfriend Émile (Jean-Claude Brialy), so enter the tongue-in-cheekly named Alfred Lubitsch (Jean-Paul Belmondo), who may just give her what she wants. For 85 minutes, this trio circles in an enervating roundelay, and Godard’s attempts to lighten the mood—obvious nods to classic Hollywood musicals, Michel Legrand’s soupy score—end in weirdly glossy failure. Our three stars are far less charming than they’ve been in other movies (including Godard’s own), while Raoul Coutard’s glistening color photography is the film’s lone successful facade.

It starts with an ugly, CGI-drenched opening and ends more than two and a half hours later with the showstopper “Defying Gravity”—and that’s only the end of the first act of Steven Schwartz’s blockbuster Broadway musical. That means we have to sit through another two-plus hours next holiday season to finish this thing. Too bad it’s a mighty slog to get through, with mostly negligible songs and a story not as clever as it thinks—only Cynthia Erivo has the requisite vocal chops and acting prowess that makes Elphaba soar into the stratosphere. Ariana Grande also has a powerhouse voice, but her acting is laughably inadequate. Bowen Tang, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Yeoh are wincingly hammy under Jon M. Chu’s direction, which consists of making things bigger, louder and more garish without settling on a consistent tone or style. The 4K images look fine overall; extras include theatrical and sing-along versions of the movie, Chu’s, Erivo’s and Grande’s commentaries, deleted and extended scenes and a making-of featurette.

In Clint Eastwood’s latest straightforward drama, Nicholas Hoult plays Justin, a recovering alcoholic picked to serve on a jury in a murder case and who realizes he may have been involved with the events leading up to the victim’s death. As always, Eastwood’s direction is unadorned, but Jonathan Abrams’ heavily plotted script needs more swagger in the telling; despite fine acting by Hoult and Zoey Deutsch (Justin’s pregnant wife Ally), the subtext and twists remain superficial—and Toni Colette’s scenery chewing as the aggressive DA doesn’t help. The film looks quite good on Blu; there are no extras.