The 60th annual Chicago International Film Festival is now underway, with screenings, special events, tributes, and other festivities happening all over the city until Closing Night on October 27th.
Here are my first five exclusive reviews of CIFF movies; these films will be commercially released in the coming weeks and available for streaming.
This was the festival's big Opening Night film. The screening and celebration took place at The Music Box Theatre, complete with a Red Carpet, lots of press, celebrity arrivals, big presentations, and more. I just wish that the movie was better.
Adapted by Virgil Wilson and director Malcolm Washington from the Pulitzer Prize-winning play by August Wilson, the film version of this stunning work is deeply flawed and often clumsy in its execution.
The story takes place in 1936 Pittsburgh at the home of Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson). It tells the story of the Charles family, their history, and how they deal with the piano heirloom that symbolizes the family's tortured past.
The source material is stunning and beautifully written, but director Washington's handling of the play is shaky at best, and the adaption is bulky and filled with distracting and unnecessary additions.
This is Washington's feature directorial debut, but unlike his father Denzel (who serves as a producer here), who did a magnificent job directing a film adaptation of Wilson's "Fences" in 2016, Malcolm has made a disappointingly inconsistent movie that often just doesn't work.
The camera work is sloppy, the editing lacks rhythm, and Washington's direction of the actors is annoyingly inconsistent. Some performers make very theatrically loud stylistic choices ("playing to the back of the house," as they say), while others do much more subtle work, which is more appropriate for the film.
The combination of styles is jarring, to say the least. Still, a couple of performances stand out: Danielle Deadwyler and John David Washington have some beautiful moments, but it's Samuel L. Jackson who gives the most solid turn.
The film opens with a completely unnecessary and badly staged flashback that only exists to boost the budget and make the movie feel more epic. What happens in the flashback is detailed and discussed in dialogue several times throughout the play/film already, so there is no reason for it to be in the movie.
There are even more flashbacks and embellishments to follow, further distracting from the wonderful text and making the already choppy screenplay more literal and less mysterious.
The final 10 minutes of the film are, in fact, disastrous, with Washington taking the subtle metaphor and allegory of the play and replacing it with heavy-handed on-screen antics that strip away any mystery, replacing it with loud paranormal cliches that are painful to watch. - ⭐️⭐️
"The Piano Lesson" opens in theaters for a limited run on November 8th and will stream on Netflix starting on November 22nd. I really wish it were a better film, but it isn't.
The very talented Australian stop-motion animator Adam Elliot ("Harvie Krumpet" "Mary and Max") is back with his finest work yet.
This beautifully animated tale is about a sad woman named Grace who collects snails, guinea pigs, and books. She loves her twin brother and has a beautiful friendship with an old lady named Pinky.
Grace's charming and weird story is told in flashbacks, with tragedy, heartbreak, and, ultimately, overwhelming joy as the connecting elements.
Elliot's twisted and funny sensibilities make this a truly unique experience filled with gross-out moments, sex, profanity, death, and lovely sentiment. The combination somehow works, resulting in a film of astonishing technique and a gigantic heart.
In addition to the superb animation, the voice work is absolutely top-notch, with wonderful performances by Sarah Snook, Jacki Weaver, Eric Bana, and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
It all comes together for a roller coaster ride of emotions that had me laughing one minute and crying my eyes out the next. It's gloomy and desolate, bright and hopeful, hilarious and silly, sometimes all at once.
It's definitely NOT for kids or people without an open mind, but for those who take the adventure, it's one of the year's most satisfying and exquisite movies. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Opens in limited release on October 25th and has a wide release in November.
3) NICKEL BOYS
Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this film chronicles the strong friendship between two young African American men who navigate the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.
The events in the movie are based on things that happened at a historic reform school in Florida called the Dozier School for Boys, which was notorious for the abusive treatment of students.
Despite strong performances by Ethan Herrise and Brandon Wilson in the lead roles and a passionate message, I was surprisingly underwhelmed by the film.
I found the subjective point-of-view camera and storytelling style distracting, inconsistent, and, quite frankly, a bit pompous.
This gimmicky trope completely took away from my being emotionally invested in the characters and events of the film, which are clearly important and powerful. I was detached and didn't care, and it had everything to do with the confused way the film was made. - ⭐️⭐️
Opens in limited release in January.
This Canadian absurdist comedy-drama film, co-written and directed by Matthew Rankin, was selected as the Canadian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards.
Described as a "surreal comedy of disorientation" set "somewhere between Tehran and Winnipeg", the film blends the seemingly unrelated stories of Negin and Nazgol, who find money frozen in ice and try to claim it; Massoud, a tour guide in Winnipeg who is leading a confused and disoriented tour group; and Matthew (Rankin), who quits his unfulfilling job with the provincial government of Quebec and travels home to Winnipeg to visit his mother.
Describing this film accurately is utterly useless; it must be seen and believed. It hops between the surreal, realistic, tragic, comedic, and deadpan to the outrageous, sometimes during the same scene.
It's both head-scratching and perfectly feasible. It plays like a documentary and a fantasy. It's a truly schizophrenic film on every level. It's also pretty fucking great.
I haven't laughed harder at anything this year than during the first 10 minutes of this movie; it is just unbelievably HILARIOUS. Seriously, I was doubled over with laughter. It is the funniest opening sequence of a movie I have seen in years, and everything that follows is also solid. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
Opens in December.
5) THE END
Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer's first feature narrative is a strikingly original post-apocalyptic musical that really isn't post-apocalyptic and is definitely anti-musical. It kind of exists in its own insane universe that certainly doesn't conform to any easy genre.
So, 25 years after environmental collapse left the Earth uninhabitable, a wealthy family (who definitely contributed to the collapse) is confined to their palatial bunker, where they struggle to maintain hope and a sense of normalcy by clinging to the rituals of daily life.
The arrival of a stranger upends their happy routine. The son, a naïve twenty-something who has never seen the outside world, is fascinated by the newcomer, and suddenly, the delicate bonds of blind optimism that have held this wealthy clan together begin to fall apart.
A solid cast that includes Tilda Swinton, Michael Shannon, George MacKay, Moses Ingram, Bronagh Gallagher, Lennie James, and Tim McInnerny do a brave and excellent job juggling the weird tone shifts and navigating through the odd structure to create some genuine emotion in the madness.
The political allegory is not very subtle, and the acting style is overtly exaggerated in a fully realized underground world that is stunning in its design and look. The film has an otherworldly feel, not just in the production design and cinematography (it's one of the most beautifully shot films of the year) but also in the storytelling and performance style.
Then there are the singularly curious musical numbers featuring unwieldy songs by Joshua Schmidt (music) and Oppenheimer (lyrics) that seem explicitly written to confound any human, expecting little things like verses, choruses, or even melody.
It's all the more challenging because most of the cast can't really sing, which is compounded by the fact that they have been directed to emote in the oddest and least mellifluous way possible.
The results are bizarre, to say the least. Still, the musical numbers are undeniably compelling and fascinating, just like the rest of this crazy, original, and brazen work that I really dug. I expect that most of the movie-going public will hate this thing, and I totally understand why.
It's also two and a half hours long, so strap in, folks. - ⭐️⭐️⭐️1/2
This craziness opens in theaters on December 6th.
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