Screen Log 17: You Were Never Really Here; Lean on Pete; Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom; Mistress America; While We're Young

"Mistress America."

In "We Need to Talk About Kevin," director Lynne Ramsay gave us Ezra Miller's breakout performance, as well as an Oscar-snubbed tour-de-force from Tilda Swinton. In YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE, Ramsay treats us to a barrage of Joaquin Phoenix wielding a hammer as if he were Thor on a murderous rampage. The story is billed as a "thriller," but what it really is is a slow-burn manhunt more obsessed with stylistic takes than with telling a focused narrative. Phoenix here doesn't surprise, either; in fact, it's just him doing his usual mumbling and grumbling and retreating into his inner shell, that it surprised even him when he won the Cannes Best Actor trophy. There are bravura sequences here--Phoenix killing people floor by floor as seen through surveillance cameras, for instance. But overall the film comes off as one writer-director's vision taken down the far-from-perfect road.

The title of Andrew Haigh's latest film LEAN ON PETE refers to a decrepit race horse that figures prominently in the story. No secret that I'm a fan of Haigh; I think his "Weekend" is the defining LGBTQ film of the decade, and his "45 Years" was no slouch either. "Lean on Pete" will see you entering a story expecting to see blossoming attachment between a boy and his horse (something I thought would remind me of Steven Spielberg's un-magical adaptation of "War Horse"), only to turn your expectations a full 180. It's about a boy and his horse, sure, but that relationship isn't even the main point. It's about a poor American teenager grappling with familial loss, as well as the glaring class divide, and trying to navigate his way through impending adulthood. But it's also about the astounding amount of kindness he encounters along the way. There are so many opportunities for plain badness in the film, but Haigh sidesteps every one of them to give us a story that slowly but surely leaves an imprint in the mind and in the heart. You end up really caring for the protagonist (Charlie Plummer in a genuine breakthrough performance), wishing him all the goodness in the world. He just wants to run, for goodness' sake! Coming of age has never been this gritty and desperate.

Film critic Philbert Dy said JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM is a stupid movie, but I didn't expect it to be that stupid. At least its predecessor had elements of camp; this one is just plain dark. And the nerve of that clone-child to unleash those wild beasts upon the world!

I'm on a Greta Gerwig/Noah Baumbach marathon. I rewatched "Lady Bird," and I'm really convinced it is a perfect movie. Then I rewatched MISTRESS AMERICA, one of the great screenplays of 2015. I do think it sags a bit in certain places, but the best parts of this film are the ones that really amp up the crazy. Like those scenes with the collection of random characters in that already-random trip to suburbia to attack Mamie Claire, only to run into her sort-of-doped-up pediatrician neighbor and her pregnant mothers' literary club. I mean, what's up with pregnant, no-bad-words, covert-chess-genius lawyer Karen, for example! Sometimes watching Baumbach can feel like an über-extended situational comedy, a slice-of-crazy-life that's not allowed to have an ending until the viewer's no longer searching for one.

2014's WHILE WE'RE YOUNG is a rare misfire for Baumbach. Compared to the rest of his oeuvre that I've seen, this one's just heavy-handed, clumsy with its message, though funny in some places and amusing in many. It's like watching Baumbach on sedatives literally putting aphorisms on paper with the Ben Stiller character's name on the left margin.