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rookie-critic · 2 years ago

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Rookie-Critic's Film Review Weekend Wrap-Up - Week of 3/26-4/2/2023

This was a bit of a short week. I'm really winding down from my big run of pre-Oscars binge-watching, and have been enjoying the last couple weeks of casual theater outings and video games. This was an interesting and eclectic trio of indie films, though.

Rodeo (2022, dir. Lola Quivoron)

This was a character study that showed a lot of promise. A deeply flawed protagonist that you still wanted to succeed. A very interesting niche subculture as the main subject matter of the film in the form of a group of underground motorbike and ATV riders, and a gripping handheld-camera shooting style all showed so much promise for this French drama from last year. However, I was massively disappointed in the film's ending, which seemed to throw away all of it's potential for something wildly and unnecessarily abstract. It felt like we were coming up on a climax that was going to be a great payoff for all of the film's plot threads, only for the film to fizzle out within a matter of five minutes instead. Roll credits, go home, nothing to see here. It's not as egregious as something like Smile, which not only threw away it's character development, but actively shattered a very pro-healing-from-trauma message in the process. This is relatively harmless in comparison, and the rest of the film was quite good up to that point, so I'll just say that I didn't hate it.

Score: 6/10

Currently available for pre-order on Blu-ray & DVD through Music Box Films.

The Lost King (2022, dir. Stephen Frears)

This was a harmlessly good time. Sally Hawkins, as always, is an absolute delight and commands the screen with her every movement. She is convincing and demands that you empathize with her character Philippa Langley. I am aware that this film has a fair bit of controversy wrapped around it in how it handles fact vs. fiction in this true story. The film paints a very villainous picture of the University of Leicester, and there are claims that this portrayal is wildly hyperbolic and inaccurate. Granted, everyone I've seen complaining about the portrayal is either a graduate or an employee of the University of Leicester, but on the flip side Philippa Langley is an executive producer on this film. I'm choosing to believe the way the film portrays things as accurate. It is a little on the nose, and I'm sure they weren't as cartoonishly evil as the film conveys, but I can see academia treating a woman suffering from ME as horrendously as they do in this film, and I can't see a director as seasoned as Stephen Frears (whose directed movies like Philomena and High Fidelity) making a film that's blatantly propaganda. I enjoyed The Lost King, it maybe wasn't the best, but people interested in the history of it will surely find a lot to like here.

Score: 7/10

Currently Only in theaters.

A Good Person (2023, dir. Zach Braff)

This a very mediocre film that is saved by two spectacular performances. I've never seen either of Zach Braff's other films (I consider Garden State to be a pretty big blind spot in my viewing history), but man, just based off of this, I'm not super impressed in his ability as a writer/director. The dialogue in the film is packed with filler and faux-drama, and the whole thing just seemed so unforgivably on the nose that I just couldn't get behind the characters for most of the film. The movie is obsessively concerned with you sympathizing with both of its central characters that at two separate spots in the film they each say the actual line "I'm a good person." It's would be eye-roll inducing if Morgan Freeman and Florence Pugh weren't acting their asses off, and they do act their asses off. It might honestly be the best performance I've seen out of Pugh, and I'm so bummed that she delivers it in a film that is so undeserving of it. I'm being incredibly harsh on this, so I will point out that I didn't hate it, and if the script wasn't sabotaging the film so often, it would be great, even. Braff touches on a lot of important, timely topics here, and occasionally gets you to care about what he's saying. I'll even admit to falling for some of the emotional manipulation and tearing up a couple times. Would I watch it again? Absolutely not, but I'm positive there's an audience for this out there. Maybe you're one of them.

Score: 6/10

Currently only in theaters.

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