Palm Royale
SimilarAnna Karenina, Återkomsten, Blackeyes, Jewels, KONOSUBA – An Explosion on This Wonderful World!, Monarch of the Glen, Oh, Doctor Beeching!,
Planet of the Apes The Wimbledon Poisoner, Troubles, Unterleuten: The Torn Village, Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,
StudioApple Studios,
There’s something undeniably inspired about casting Kristin Wiig as Maxine Simmons in Palm Royale. A social climber attempting to ingratiate herself into late 60s Palm Beach high society, Simmons shares with Wiig a certain constant desire to change herself. The actor's years at Saturday Night Live and subsequent film roles have established her as a chameleonic performer. She has enough versatility to play everyone from the painfully grounded to live-action cartoon characters. In this case, Wiig pours that talent into a woman trying desperately to be a different version of herself.
As a kind of middle-aged conservative version of Tom Ripley, Wiig does indeed excel. The actor invests a mix of brute force cunning and barely hidden desperation in Simmons. That makes the would-be social maven compelling and repulsive in equal measure. Her machinations are too intriguing to ignore, but her very presence can be almost unendurable, especially for viewers with an overactive sense of vicarious embarrassment.
Kristen Wiig and Allison Janney try to hash it out. (AppleTV+)
The show also adds an interesting layer to her performance of wealth and class. Simmons’ claims often sound outlandish, the scrambling lies of someone trying to stay one step ahead of being exposed. However, Palm Royale slowly confirms a great many of them. Unlike Ripley or Saltburn’s Oliver Quick, she’s not a total fabrication. She has the credentials for the inner circle, but can’t stomach the time it takes. Continue Reading →
Lou
SimilarYou Only Live Twice (1967),
Watch afterBullet Train (2022),
StudioBad Robot,
Since Lou greets you with the logo of J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot, a question surfaces: Is this a Cloverfield project? Or, like 10 Cloverfield Lane, it isn’t one until it is? Continue Reading →
The Ice Storm
Though the problems of bored wealthy white people don’t amount to a hill of beans in the grand scheme of things, a startling amount of TV and film is still devoted to them. Where at one time they were supposed to be relatable and earn sympathy from the viewer, now there seems to be some sadism in their depiction, where the audience is meant to enjoy it. It always seems to come down to the same thing: what do these people have to be so unhappy about? How much of their problems are their own doing, and could be simply resolved instead of just whining about them? Being “trapped” for these characters isn’t the same as it is for everyone else. Continue Reading →
To Leslie
Andrea Riseborough and Marc Maron shine in a study of a one-time lottery winner years after her life has gone bust.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2022 South by Southwest Festival)
To Leslie tells a story of painful loss and possible redemption as familiar as the ones recounted in the country songs born out of its West Texas setting. In the case of Michael Morris’s feature debut, familiarity does not breed contempt. What To Leslie lacks in originality, it more than makes up for in terms of its craft and very impressive central performances from Andrea Riseborough and Marc Maron. Continue Reading →
Strangers with Candy
Philip Seymour Hoffman could’ve been a comedian, or at the very least, a character actor known solely for comedic roles. In Twister and later Along Came Polly, he played loud supporting parts so effectively that they enriched their movies as a whole. He didn’t just know how to be hilarious, he committed to his work in comedies with the same rigor that illuminated recursive nightmares and won him an Oscar. That said, not every comedy Hoffman showed up in brought the house down. Strangers With Candy is almost entirely incomprehensible, which wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if it wasn’t so constantly offensive. Continue Reading →
The Way Way Back
The much-memed movie star finds his footing again in a familiar but satisfying redemption story.
Unfairly relegated to memedom thanks to his disastrous press appearances (“Darkness, my old friend…”) and midlife crisis moments like getting a dragon tattoo that Ed Hardy would call too gaudy, Ben Affleck has nonetheless experienced a fascinating and emotional onscreen transformation over the last decade of his career.
Still undoubtedly a movie star in the classic sense, Affleck’s cocksure marquee attitude has now melted into a malleable melancholy. And while the rest of Affleck’s performances this decade have orbited around Gone Girl’s masterful lead role, his last few performances have been girded with a deadened soul, whether it be the jaded mercenary of Triple Frontier or the brick wall façade of his Batman performance - which always felt like it could smolder into rubble at any moment.
Gavin O’Connor’s throwback addiction film, The Way Back, then feels like an apotheosis of the actor’s new persona. Reuniting with Affleck after The Accountant (yes, the autistic assassin one), The Way Back is a familiar but satisfying take on the redemption story strengthened by the palpable pain of its onscreen protagonist. Continue Reading →