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Belle The English Belle, based on a true story, inspired by an 18th-century painting of two cousins—one black, one white—never lets you doubt its heroine’s felicitous fate. Dido (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is born with two strikes against her: She’s the mulatto daughter of a kindly English naval captain who swiftly returns to sea, never to be seen again; and she’s female, raised by aristocratic cousins in the famous Kenwood House (today a museum), meaning she can’t work for a living and must marry into society—but what white gentleman would have her? Writer Misan Sagay and director Amma Assante have thus fused two genres—the Austen-style marriage drama and the outsider’s quest for equality—and neatly placed them under one roof. The guardians for Dido and cousin Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) are Lady and Lord Mansfield (Emily Watson and Tom Wilkinson); the latter is England’s highest jurist who in 1783 would decide the Zong case, in which seafaring slavers dumped their human cargo to claim the insurance money. Belle never surprises you, but it satisfyingly combines corsets and social conscience, love match and legal progress. (PG) B.R.M. Varsity, others
Chef There is nothing wrong with food porn or the happy camaraderie of a restaurant kitchen. Nor can I fault writer/director/star Jon Favreau for making a midlife-crisis movie that lets slip his Hollywood complaints. The commercial pressures in directing formulaic blockbusters like Iron Man must surely be great, and film critics are surely all assholes. Chef is the simple though overlong story of a chef getting his culinary and family mojo back, and my only real criticism—apart from the constant Twitter plugs—is that absolutely nothing stands in the way of that progress for chef Carl (Favreau). Dustin Hoffman barely registers as a villain (as Carl’s gently greedy “play the hits” boss, who goads him into quitting); Robert Downey Jr., as the prior ex of Carl’s ex (Sofia Vergara), briefly shadows the scene—but no, he’s only there to help. If you like endless scenes of chopping vegetables, salsa montages, and juicy supporting players (John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale, Amy Sedaris, Scarlett Johansson), Chef is an entirely agreeable dish. Just expect no salt. (R) B.R.M. Sundance, Ark Lodge, others
Cold in July The genre of Cold in July is the modern-dress Western, drawn from a novel by Joe R. Lansdale. Richard (Michael C. Hall), a mild picture-framer in a Texas town, shoots a home intruder in the opening scene. It’s the 1980s, which we know because Dexter star Hall sports a hideous mullet. The dead man was a real bad guy, and Richard was protecting his wife (Vinessa Shaw) and child; in fact the shooting is so justified that the sheriff (screenwriter Nick Damici) is downright eager to bury the body and close the case. Alas, the dead man’s hard-case father (Sam Shepard) shows up in menacing form—his introduction, suddenly looming within the off-kilter frame of a car window, is one of director Jim Mickle’s visual coups. His previous films, Stake Land and We Are What We Are, delved into horror, but with wry detachment and flickering humor. Cold in July is an uneven but densely packed drama that contains some alarming shifts in tone—suddenly we’re careening from suspenseful noir to buddy-movie hijinkery to solemn vengeance against the purveyors of snuff movies. One of the bigger shifts comes with the arrival of a private detective (Don Johnson, whose good-ol’-boy routine temporarily dissipates the film’s tension). Based on his previous work, these radical turns seem intentional on Mickle’s part—momentarily confusing as they might be, they keep us alert and wondering what kind of movie we’re watching. Mickle might be just a couple of steps from making a masterpiece, and while Cold in July is certainly not that, “stylish and unpredictable” is not a bad foundation on which to build. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance Cinemas
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Edge of Tomorrow Earth has been invaded by space aliens, and Europe is already lost. Though no combat veteran, Major Bill Cage (Tom Cruise) is thrust into a kind of second D-Day landing on the beaches of France, where he is promptly killed in battle. Yes, 15 minutes into the movie Tom Cruise is dead—but this presents no special problem for Edge of Tomorrow. In fact it’s crucial to the plot. The sci-fi hook of this movie, adapted from a novel by Hiroshi Sakurazaka, is that during his demise Cage absorbed alien blood that makes him time-jump back to the day before the invasion. He keeps getting killed, but each time he wakes up he learns a little more about how to fight the aliens and how to keep a heroic fellow combatant (Emily Blunt) alive. The further Cage gets in his progress, the more possible outcomes we see. It must be said here that Cruise plays this exactly right: You can see his exhaustion and impatience with certain scenes even when it’s our first time viewing them. Oh, yeah—he’s been here before. There’s absurdity built into this lunatic set-up, and director Doug Liman—he did the first Bourne picture—understands the humor of a guy who repeatedly gets killed for the good of mankind. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, Bainbridge, others
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The Grand Budapest Hotel By the time of its 1968 framing story, the Grand Budapest Hotel has been robbed of its gingerbread design by a Soviet (or some similarly aesthetically challenged) occupier—the first of many comments on the importance of style in Wes Anderson’s latest film. A writer (Jude Law) gets the hotel’s story from its mysterious owner, Zero Moustafa (F. Murray Abraham, a lovely presence). Zero takes us back between world wars, when he (played now by Tony Revolori) began as a bellhop at the elegant establishment located in the mythical European country of Zubrowka. Dominating this place is the worldly Monsieur Gustave, the fussy hotel manager (Ralph Fiennes, in absolutely glorious form). The death of one of M. Gustave’s elderly ladyfriends (Tilda Swinton) leads to a wildly convoluted tale of a missing painting, resentful heirs, a prison break, and murder. Also on hand are Anderson veterans Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Bill Murray, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson—all are in service to a project so steeped in Anderson’s velvet-trimmed bric-a-brac we might not notice how rare a movie like this is: a comedy that doesn’t depend on a star turn or a high concept, but is a throwback to the sophisticated (but slapstick-friendly) work of Ernst Lubitsch and other such classical directors. (R) ROBERT HORTON Seven Gables, others
The Grand Seduction For all its super-nice intentions, attractive players, and right-thinking messages, this thing might’ve come out of a can. It is, literally, from formula: an English-language remake of the French-Canadian film Seducing Dr. Lewis, seen at SIFF ’04 and written by Ken Scott. A dying Canadian harbor town will see its only shot at landing a new factory shrivel away unless a full-time doctor settles there. The local fishing industry’s broken, but the movie mostly blames government regulation, not overfishing. By hook and crook, they get a young M.D. (Taylor Kitsch) to take a month’s residency; now every townsperson must connive to convince the guy this is the only place to live. I’m sorry to say that the great Brendan Gleeson is the leader of the Tickle Point conspiracy, supported by Canadian legend Gordon Pinsent (Away From Her) in the Wilford Brimley crusty-curmudgeon role. Kitsch comes off rather well; he looks far more relaxed here than in the blockbuster haze of John Carter and Battleship, perhaps because he isn’t shamelessly twinkling at every turn. The French-language original was just as overbearing. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON TK Guild 45th
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Ida After the calamity of World War II, your family exterminated by the Nazis (or their minions), how important would it be to reclaim your Jewish identity? That’s the question for Anna, 18, who’s soon to take her vows as a Catholic nun in early-’60s Poland. Now early-’60s Poland is not a place you want to be. The Anglo-Polish director Pawel Pawlikowski (Last Resort, My Summer of Love) films his black-and-white drama in the boxy, old-fashioned Academy ratio, like some Soviet-era newsreel. Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska), she discovers, is a Jew—an orphan delivered to the church as an infant during the war, birth name Ida. Her heretofore unknown aunt Wanda (Agata Kulesza) insists they find their family homestead, and a desultory road trip ensues. The surly peasants won’t talk to them; Wanda smashes their car; and Anna’s too shy to flirt with a handsome, hitchhiking sax player (Dawid Ogrodnik) who invites them to a gig. The usual Holocaust tales celebrate endurance or escape. Ida suggests something simpler and deeper about survival and European history in general. Pawlikowski and his co-writer, English playwright Rebecca Lenkiewicz, poke at the pit graves and pieties of the Cold War era and find an unlikely sort of strength for their heroine: the courage to turn her back. (NR) BRIAN MILLER TK Sundance, SIFF Cinema Uptown
Jersey Boys This 2005 Broadway smash is a still-touring musical that revealed a few genuinely colorful tales lurking in the backstory of the falsetto-driven vocal group Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. Clint Eastwood directs; and though more a jazz man, he appears to have responded to the late-’50s/early-’60s period and the ironies beneath this success story. Turns out the singers emerged from a milieu not far removed from the wiseguy world of GoodFellas. In the case of self-appointed group leader Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza from Boardwalk Empire), the mob connections are deep and troublesome, including the protection of a local godfather (Christopher Walken). The movie presents Frankie Valli (John Lloyd Young, a veteran of the stage show) as a much straighter arrow, but even he understands the value of having friends in the right places. It would seem natural to apply a little Scorsese-like juice to this story, but Eastwood goes the other way: The film exudes a droll humor about all this, as though there really isn’t too much to get excited about. Despite some third-act blandness, Jersey Boys is quite likable overall. Eastwood’s personality comes through in the film’s relaxed portrait of the virtues of hard work and the value of a handshake agreement. This may be the least neurotic musical biopic ever made. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, others
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Obvious Child Written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, this movie has already been pegged as the abortion rom-com, which is great for the posters and pull-quotes but isn’t strictly accurate. The movie doesn’t embrace abortion. It doesn’t endorse cheesy love matches between unlikely partners. What it does—winningly, amusingly, credibly—is convey how a young woman right now in Brooklyn might respond to news of an unplanned pregnancy. And this fateful information comes for Donna (SNL’s excellent Jenny Slate) after being dumped by her boyfriend, told that her bookstore day job is about to end, and rejected at her comedy club, where a drunken stand-up set of TMI implodes into self-pity and awkward audience silence. Obvious Child is foremost a comedy, and it treats accidental pregnancy—caused by an earnest, likable Vermont dork in Top Siders, played by Jake Lacy from The Office—as one of life’s organic pratfalls, like cancer, childbirth, or the death of one’s parents. But as we laugh and wince at her heroine’s behavior, Robespierre gets the tone exactly right in Obvious Child. The movie doesn’t “normalize” abortion or diminish the decision to get one. Rather, we see how it doesn’t have to be a life-altering catastrophe, and how from the ruins of a one-night stand a new adult might be formed. (R) BRIAN MILLER Guild 45th
Palo Alto Watching Gia Coppola’s humdrum high-school teen angst movie, I couldn’t help but wish she’d followed the route of her grandfather (Francis Ford Coppola) and chosen to cut her teeth on something less pretentious and meaningful—you know, like a down-’n’-dirty horror picture. Perhaps such a project would summon a little more oomph. Palo Alto is adapted from a book of short stories by the apparently inexhaustible James Franco, who also plays a supporting role in a handful of scenes as a sleepily lecherous soccer coach whose focus of attention is a confused 16-year-old named April (Emma Roberts). That’s not the center of the film, however; along with April’s issues, there are also promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin) and diffident Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val Kilmer—who cameos, daffily), a lad with poor decision-making abilities. This is California ennui born of an overabundance of privilege and living space, captured in a manner that seems weirdly pedestrian. If it weren’t for the excellence of Roberts (another scion: daughter of Eric, niece of Julia), Palo Alto would have an eerie lack of distinguishing features. (NR) ROBERT HORTON TK Harvard Exit
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The Rover Like a Road Warrior writ small, The Rover skitters across a slightly futuristic Australia, a car chase pitched against a great void. But this doesn’t feel like an adventure movie—more like a stripped-down Western about a single-minded quest. The single mind belongs to Eric (Guy Pearce), a blasted soul whose car is stolen while he’s getting a drink at a desolate spot in the outback. His wheels have been taken by three criminals fleeing a robbery; they’ve dumped their getaway vehicle outside. Eric has to have that car. There’s no law enforcement around to set things right; the dog-eat-dog world is the result of an unexplained economic collapse, which has made people even more suspicious and corrupt than usual. Complicating the hunt is a wounded robber, Rey (Robert Pattinson, of Twilight renown), left behind by his confederates. His trajectory crosses Eric’s path at an inopportune moment, and the two men are uneasily joined in the search. The Rover is written and directed by David Michod, whose 2010 Animal Kingdom heralded a tough new talent on the scene. Maybe because it’s so lean on the bone, The Rover is even better. Michod is playing a tricky game here: Lean too far on the abstract nature of the quest, and the movie turns into a parody of itself. Mostly he’s gotten the mix right, and The Rover cuts a strong, bloody groove. (R) ROBERT HORTON Sundance, TK others
The Signal This modest yet clever sleeper from William Eubank, previously the director of 2011’s Love, is a thrifty, handmade affair—The Blair Witch Project gone to Area 51. Three brainy MIT students are driving west to Cal Tech when they decide to investigate some sort of Internet hacker/troll named Nomad. Bad idea. Their leader, Nic (Aussie TV actor Brenton Thwaites of Home and Away), wakes up in an underground government bunker—a rotary-dial relic of the Cold War, it seems, suggesting both Lost and The Twilight Zone. Nic immediately begins to question his quarantine or captivity or whatever it is that brings him under the solemn scrutiny of Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), leader of “the transition team,” who never removes his ominous clean suit. It takes about 30 minutes to reach this underground facility and about another 30 to regain the surface, where further surprises await. (I preferred the suspenseful first hour, before the big story jolts.) Eubank sets up a puzzle for us to solve, even as Nic is trying to decipher a different mystery. He questions Dr. Damon’s scientific methods while we begin to doubt Nic’s sanity. If he and his two pals are the unwitting lab rats to Dr. Damon, we are Eubank’s. (PG-13) BRIAN MILLER TK Sundance
22 Jump Street Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum are back, again looking too old for their class-in this case, college freshmen. Again filled with self-referential humor, 22JS is aptly timed for college grads wafting through nostalgia. As the film points out on multiple occasions, it’s the same plot as two years ago: Undercover cops Schmidt (Hill) and Jenko (Tatum) are again assigned to infiltrate the dealers and find the supplier. What’s changed from 21JS? This movie does feature more explosions, flashier police department headquarters, and more obvious physical and racial comedy. Hill and Tatum’s onscreen chemistry still works, and it still relies on the wavering hetero/homo overtones to the Schmidt-Jenko relationship. These two often ask whether or not “it should be done a second time,” then decide the second time is never as good. 22JS is not as good as 21JS, and the movie’s self-awareness suggests that the filmmakers knew this. (The team of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, of The Lego Movie, directs; Hill oversaw the writers’ room.) This sequel just about having fun, backsliding into old habits, and disparaging the value of liberal arts degrees. (Jobless grads may share the feeling.) Movie franchises by nature stay in a state of arrested development; we wouldn’t expect anything less of Schmidt and Jenko. (R) DIANA M. LE Varsity, Bainbridge, others
Words and Pictures This is a pretty hip high school. Not only do they employ a once-promising, now boozy, crushingly charismatic author as an English teacher, they’ve just hired an acclaimed painter—also loaded with charisma—whose career has been derailed by rheumatoid arthritis. Because of a trumped-up antipathy between these reluctant academics, this private school is about to witness a battle between, as the title puts it, Words and Pictures. Clive Owen and Juliette Binoche play wordsmith and picture-maker, respectively. The casting is a source of both appeal and disappointment in this one-note movie; the roles are large, but the material thin. Owen’s character, Jack Marcus, is about to get tossed from the faculty for his hungover manners and his declining commitment. Dina Delsanto (Binoche) is soured by her illness and suffering from creative block. That’s about it for those two, and the idea of the schoolkids choosing sides in the words-versus-pictures debate is also sketchily handled. That the film moves at all is due to veteran Aussie director Fred Schepisi’s ability to get a flow going. Schepisi is able to make the movie look good, and the interiors are always interesting. But all this effort is in the service of ideas that just feel so, so tired. (PG-13) ROBERT HORTON Harvard Exit
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