The latest film releases are Dune: Part 2, Spaceman, Shayda, and Problemista. Weighing in are Alison Willmore, film critic for NY Magazine and Vulture, and Tim Grierson, Senior U.S. Critic for Screen International and the author of This Is How You Make a Movie.
Dune: Part 2
This science fiction epic completes the story from the wildly popular Dune: Part 1 that came out three years ago. It’s directed by Denis Villeneuve and stars Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya, and Austin Butler.
Grierson: “This movie is bigger than even Part One, if you can imagine such a thing. And there are even more actors in this one. The most prominent of those is Austin Butler, who plays this really fearsome, violent, merciless warrior. It's a fantastic performance. He's a fantastic villain in the movie.
The only thing that makes me like this one a little bit less than the first one is that the first one was so original and so visionary, that when you go back to that world, the novelty is a little bit tempered. … But that being said, if you liked the first movie, if you liked its very solemn, serious, ‘the whole universe is at stake’ tone, I think that you'll dig Part Two.”
Willmore: “It's sprawling, it's an enormous movie. … It could take hours if you really wanted to go into who all these people are, and what their motivations are, and all of these centuries-old plans have been put into play.
… It's a movie that really appreciates its stars. … Timothée Chalamet, who has been Hollywood's appointed prince, is a great fit for this character who's a reluctant hero, someone who's not sure he wants to take up the role that he keeps being pushed towards. Zendaya is terrific in this movie, she was barely in the first film, but she is in this one [as] the soul of the movie. She is someone who falls in love with Chalamet’s character, despite being very skeptical of him, and everything he's promising, and everything he represents. And she just really inserts this warmth into the movie in the midst of all of these incredibly strange, otherworldly events and prophecies and giant spaceships hovering in midair.
… It is an incredible spectacle. … I just really enjoyed returning to it and seeing its vastness. … There's a scene where Chalamet rides a sandworm for the first time and … it looks like if you were trying to hook yourself on the side of a fast-moving train or maybe an airplane, it's done in a really exciting way.”
Spaceman
In this sci-fi drama, Adam Sandler plays a depressed Czech astronaut in outer space, and he’s talking with an anthropomorphic spider voiced by Paul Dano. Johan Renck (HBO’s Chernobyl) is the director.
Willmore: “I would put this movie in that subcategory of movies that could be described as …. men will literally travel hundreds of light years across the galaxy rather than talking about their feelings. … I would not say this was a very successful film, though I think there was a certain charm to it. Adam Sandler gives very good sad sack. There is something sweet about the initially very creepy-looking giant space spider … and the ways in which they interact, and in which Adam Sandler's character slowly learns to open up about his relationship and his being closed off. But I will say it's just a very small movie that never really engaged me, though I appreciate how quirky the general premise is.”
Grierson: “This is not an action movie. It's about a guy who is depressed, who is spending a year in space, and he is all by himself, at least he thinks he is. … I watched it thinking: How much longer do I have to grade on a curve of Adam Sandler doing these types of performances? Because if this was another actor, how would I feel about the movie? And I think too much of my watching of Spaceman was going, ‘Oh, it's fun to see Adam Sandler try this.’ But I don't think he's really that great.”
Shayda
This Australian production follows an Iranian immigrant woman and her 6-year-old daughter Mona as they seek refuge in a shelter in 1995. It’s the directorial debut from Australian Iranian Noora Niasari, and it’s based on her family’s life experience.
Grierson: “Zahra Amir Ebrahimi plays the mother. And it's a really great performance in terms of a woman who is trying to create a safe space and a safe world for her daughter … Her husband won't let her go and basically says … ‘if you get a divorce from me, you're never gonna see your daughter again because I’ll take her back to Iran with me.’ … It's more of a drama, but there are thriller-esque elements in it. It's a great central performance. I also think the young girl who plays Moana is also quite good in this movie. I think this is really, really moving.”
Willmore: “You are always afraid for these characters and just the tentative safety they managed to carve out in this women's shelter. … It is a movie that plays out so many things in the smallest details. In particular, the way the daughter doesn't entirely understand what's going on and … sometimes gets frustrated and wants to know why she can't go home. It's just really gorgeously done. And I think it really puts you in the experience of what it is like to be so vulnerable … especially the legal situation you have to navigate in order to prove that you deserve protection … especially as an immigrant in another country.”
Problemista
Julio Torres plays Alejandro, an aspiring toy designer in New York City, and Tilda Swinton is Elizabeth, a zany artist who takes Alejandro under her wing. While the film seems to be fun and loose, it also dives into the American immigration system.
Willmore: “One hesitation I have in this movie is that I think that it sells you on Julio’s character, why he admires her even as she is openly a monster. There's different parts where she's dressed up as a hydra, that is like her nickname. But I think that the movie assumes that you come around to his point of view towards the end, and I never did. I think there's some pathos to this Swinton character, but I also still thought she was just terrible.”
Grierson: “It's a little too whimsical for my taste. … I found the humor a little hit or miss. … I like Tilda Swinton in this type of role. There's a lot of her, though, in this role. I don't know if it entirely works.
... I actually was more drawn in by the more emotional stuff that happens in the movie: Alejandro going through this process, his mom still lives back home in El Salvador, and the connection that he has with his mom, and him wanting to have a life in America, but being concerned that he isn't going to be able to get his visa, he's going to have to go back home. He's been a dreamer his whole life. He wants to design toys. That's his aspiration. And that story about immigrants’ frustration and … how maddening the hoops you have to jump through as an immigrant to stay in the U.S., I found that stuff really affecting. And so the emotional stuff worked better than the comedy stuff.”