The Area of Interest (12A, 105 min)
Verdict: scary and compelling
The complaint that “nothing is worth going to the movies for” is one I hear often, and one that is often difficult to dispute, but it doesn’t hold water this week as we welcome two contenders for next month’s best film award. Oscars.
I don’t think either will get the Oscar, which, as they say in sports circles, is Oppenheimer’s to lose. But both would be worthy winners, especially The Zone Of Interest, a particularly disturbing Holocaust drama.
Unique, because the mass extermination of the Jews, Hitler’s heinous “final solution”, is presented as a dark but mostly distant backdrop, while a seemingly wholesome story of family life unfolds in the foreground .
Set in 1943, the film focuses on the domestic lifestyle of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel), his materialistic wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller), and their five children. They live in considerable comfort just on the other side of the wall of the concentration camp he runs with glacial efficiency.
After a hard day of work overseeing massacres, Hoss returns home with the same rituals as all loving parents, tucking his children in at bedtime and reading them stories, while behind him the crematoria chimneys roar. It’s as frightening a drama as I’ve ever seen, but utterly compelling.
Sandra Hiller stars in The Zone of Interest as a materialistic wife and mother of five who lives in considerable comfort just on the other side of the Auschwitz wall.
Set in 1943, the film focuses on the domestic lifestyle of Auschwitz commander Rudolf Hoss (Christian Friedel), his materialistic wife Hedwig (Sandra Huller), and their five children.
Christian Friedel plays the commander of Auschwitz, Rudolf Hoss. Although it is a German-language film, very loosely based on the late Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same title, The Zone Of Interest is written and directed by an Englishman, Academy Award nominee Jonathan Glazer.
Although it is a German-language film, very loosely based on the late Martin Amis’ 2014 novel of the same title, The Zone Of Interest is written and directed by an Englishman, Academy Award nominee Jonathan Glazer. This is only his fourth feature film in 24 years. But added to the other three – Sexy Beast (2000), Birth (2004) and Under the Skin (2013) – it solidifies his status as one of our most singular filmmakers.
I can’t call this his most singular film, given that Under The Skin starred Scarlett Johansson as a man-eating alien in Glasgow. But this is the most disturbing.
And while Friedel and especially Huller (another Oscar nominee) both give extraordinary performances, the most disturbing character is somehow Hedwig’s matronly mother, Linna (Imogen Kogge), who arrives to stay full of pride facing the rich life her daughter created for. itself: the pretty house, the beautiful vegetable garden.
Hedwig tells him that “Rudi” calls her “the queen of Auschwitz”. Linna beams – “you really landed on your feet, child” – and idly wonders if the Jewish woman she was cleaning for might be on the other side of the Great Wall? She adds that what’s frustrating is that she faced overbidding for the woman’s curtains at a street auction. We can only guess at the intense suffering and despair implied by his occasional regrets.
There is, however, a blemish on the Hosses landscape. This is, of course, not the train arriving to deliver more European Jews to the gas chambers. It’s because Rudolf’s superiors want to transfer him. And Hedwig, more attached to their lifestyle than to him, hates the idea of leaving. He therefore leaves for Berlin to plead his case and appease his wife.
The paradox of this remarkable film is that its extraordinary lies in its representation of normality. It hauntingly embodies what philosopher Hannah Arendt meant when she wrote about “the banality of evil.”
American fiction (15, 117 minutes)
Verdict: Difficult to let go
In a very different way, American fiction is equally captivating and contains another powerful performance. Jeffrey Wright is also up for an Oscar.
He plays world-weary Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an African-American professor who can’t find anyone willing to publish his cerebral new book.
Meanwhile, much to his disgust, another black author, Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), enjoys enormous success with what he considers a cheap novel full of racial stereotypes and “ghetto talk.”
So he launches into a wild parody, intended to express everything he hates about white people’s perceptions of black people. But guess what? It becomes a huge success, and his agent, to maintain interest and money, persuades him to adopt a false identity, claiming that the book was written by Stagg R. Leigh, an escaped convict on the run.
Jeffrey Wright plays world-weary Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, an African-American professor who can’t find anyone willing to publish his cerebral new book.
Erika Alexander plays Coraline alongside Mr. Wright. American fiction beautifully skewers the superficiality of the publishing industry, but it’s also a keenly observed racial satire.
Tracie Ellis Ross (left) plays Lisa Ellison alongside Leslie Uggams who plays Agnes Ellison. Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, American Fiction strongly reminded me of both The Producers (1967) and Tootsie (1982).
Adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure, American Fiction strongly reminded me of both The Producers (1967) and Tootsie (1982), which is never a bad thing. But while there are some hilarious moments, it’s a darker film than either one.
It beautifully skewers the superficiality of the publishing industry, but it’s also a keenly observed racial satire.
My only complaint is that it too often veers toward an exploration of Monk’s complex family dynamics, which doesn’t interest me as much.
But Cord Jefferson, a television writer who worked on the hit drama series Succession and who here makes his big-screen debut as a writer-director, has made a terrific film.
Both films are now in theaters.
Argylle (12A, 139 minutes)
Verdict: Crazy but fun
Matthew Vaughn’s delightfully bonkers new spy comedy is rivaled only by its wild and outrageous ad campaign, which a few weeks ago featured the bizarre sight of a group of Chelsea “fans” ostentatiously brushing their faces. teeth during the west London derby match against Fulham. Obviously, Chelsea owner Todd Boehly has some financial involvement in the film.
The men were also photographed holding a copy of the novel Argylle, allegedly written by a young American woman called Elly Conway. There are rumors online that Elly is actually Taylor Swift, as well as other (more convincing) theories that the book was created by AI. Whatever the truth, the movie is funny.
It stars Bryce Dallas Howard as Mrs. Conway, a staid, simple but extremely successful writer of spy fiction devoted to her cat, whose life suddenly takes an unexpected turn when her eerily realistic plots attract interest real spies.
Dua Lipa dances with Henry Cavill who plays the main character Argylle. Clocking in at just under two and a half hours, it starts to feel a bit like an endurance test after a while.
Sam Rockwell (right) with Bryce Dallas Howard. Ms. Dallas Howard stars as Elly Conway, a staid, simple but hugely successful writer of spy fiction devoted to her cat, whose life suddenly takes an unexpected turn when her eerily realistic plots attract the interest of real spies.
The film goes through some truly absurd contortions to establish whether the characters played by Sam Rockwell, Bryan Cranston and Samuel L. Jackson are good guys or bad guys, and who Elly’s fictional hero, the eponymous square-jawed Argylle (Henry Cavill ), could be based.
Clocking in at just under two and a half hours, it starts to feel like an endurance test after a while. But just in time, the entire show is peppered with some truly exhilarating and hilarious action sequences.
Plus, the entire cast — including Dua Lipa, Ariana DeBose, Catherine O’Hara, and John Cena — seems to be having a ton of fun throughout. Which always helps.
ALSO SHOWING…
Migration (U, 83 min, ****) is a delightful animated comedy about a family of mallards who head south for the winter from New England and are guided to Jamaica by a nostalgic scarlet macaw to whom Keegan -gave a fruity Caribbean accent. Michael Key.
Kumail Nanjiani plays the mallard father, Mack in Migration. He is a risk-averse man, persuaded to spread his wings only by his more adventurous wife, Pam.
The mallard father, Mack (Kumail Nanjiani), is a risk-averse man, persuaded to spread his wings only by his more adventurous wife Pam (Elizabeth Banks) and their children Dax and Gwen. Their anxiety seems justified when an evil New York chef tries to turn them all into ducks à l’orange, then chases them to Florida where, reminiscent of the recent Chicken Run sequel, they discover that a luxury vacation home for ducks pamper them. only for the slaughterhouse.
The excellent voice cast also includes Danny DeVito, with Awkwafina as the leader of a New York pigeon gang, and David Mitchell as a New Age Pekingese. It’s all extremely cheerful and colorful, with some great flights of fancy and clever one-liners to keep the adult chaperones happy (I loved Awkwafina’s “sorry for breaking your bills”).
My own chaperones were 11-year-old Aharon and his nine-year-old sister Adi, and they both loved it, declaring it well and truly worthy of four stars. I agree. He’s a charmer.