Color Book: An exquisite character piece

Color Book (2024) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five); rated R, for occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.28.26

Writer/director David Fortune’s sensitively assembled little film completely erases the divide between viewer and screen; from the very first frame, it feels more like eavesdropping on two actual people.

 

Although this day begins with the excitement of attending an Atlanta Braves baseball
game, the journey for Mason (Jeremiah Alexander Davis, left) and Lucky (William
Catlett) will have unexpected hiccups.

This is a quiet story, constructed from a series of tender little moments that develop into an emotion-laden journey. Following a brief prologue, events take place during a single day. The characters are so well constructed, the performances so lovely, authentic and perfectly modulated, that we’re wholly immersed.

And, at times, genuinely worried.

 

The setting is present-day Atlanta, in a poorer part of the city. Lucky (William Catlett) and his adolescent son Mason (Jeremiah Alexander Daniels) are emotionally damaged, still grieving the unexpected loss of Lucky’s wife, and the boy’s mother, Tammy (Brandee Evans, in a few fleeting flashback sequences).

 

Mason has Down syndrome; we meet him early one morning, as he painstakingly strings beads. Lucky helps the boy into formal clothing; they make waffles. Lucky involves his son in the process; Mason pays careful attention, although he’s clearly more excited about the finished product. 

 

This film’s title reflects how Mason spends much of his time illustrating his thoughts via drawings in a coloring book, which gives the boy a secondary method of “speaking” to his father, and to us.

 

Lucky and Mason join friends in a nearby park, for a celebration of Tammy’s life: an initially somber but ultimately cheerful gathering, as everybody shares memories. Mason, fixated by the large cluster of balloons, is given one as this service concludes; he happily clings to it.

 

As everybody departs, Lucky’s friend Rico (rapper Kia Shine Coleman), connected with the Atlanta Braves, gives them tickets to the following evening’s game at Truist Park. Back at home, Lucky helps Mason into bed, reminding the boy to say his prayers before slipping under the covers.

 

Lucky’s bearing, speech and gaze bespeak more than anguish; he’s also exhausted, in body and spirit, from the constant care and attention that Mason requires. This formerly was a responsibility shared with Tammy, but her absence has placed this loving burden solely on Lucky’s shoulders.

 

No resentment is present. Catlett makes it clear that Lucky cherishes his son, attending to the boy with a tender patience resulting from long experience. Even so, this has taken a toll, exacerbated by the day’s activities.

 

And the following day begins on a worse note.

Jaunt: A captivating little journey

Jaunt (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five); not rated, and akin to PG-13 for sensuality, brief nudity and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other VOD options

By Derrick Bang

Folks with a fondness for California’s scenic coastline will get a kick out of this film.

 

Writer/director Alexi Papalexopoulos’ accomplished feature debut is a road trip in both the physical and spiritual sense: a Golden State journey with well-chosen stops both scenic and touristy.

 

While pausing their California coastal drive for some quiet time on a beach, Madeline
(Emanuela Boisbouvier) listens attentively while Paul (Blake Worrell) begins to
acknowledge the mess that he has made of his life.

Middle-aged, shambling Paul Wesson (Blake Worrell) is introduced at low ebb in his unkempt West Hollywood apartment, laden with dirty dishes, food containers and dead plants. He looks like he hasn’t gotten out much since the COVID epidemic, and — on this average morning — attends a therapy “session” online, rather than in person.

The kind face in the screen obviously has urged Paul, repeatedly, to get outside and jog the nearby Runyon Canyon hiking trail: a modest 2.8-mile ascent with lavish views from Inspiration Point and Clouds Rest. (Papalexopoulos’ film was shot entirely on location, with Luka Bazeli handling the often majestic cinematography.)

 

This time, finally — annoyed by his expanding paunch — Paul goes for it. He manages a half-hearted jog/walk to the first lookout point; he arrives panting, as though he might pass out any moment. At which point (we heave a disapproving sigh), he bums a cigarette from the only other person present: a twentysomething French woman, sitting on a bench and chatting on her phone.

 

To his surprise, she isn’t put off by his appearance. Her gaze is playful, her smile amused; she explains that, in France, it’s customary to exchange small talk for as long as shared cigarettes burn. 

 

She’s Madeline (Emanuela Boisbouvier), a free spirit who has come to California because, well, that’s what some Europeans yearn to do. Paul makes vague references to a former career as a photographer, and maker of low-budget movies. He surprises himself by impulsively inviting her to dinner; she accepts. He shares his address; they part ... and then he remembers what his apartment looks like.

 

Cue a droll montage of frantic cleaning.

 

Alas, his chosen restaurant unexpectedly is closed for the evening. Having learned that Paul knows how to cook, Madeline insists they simply return for a meal at his place. They eat, chat, dance, flirt and wind up in bed.

 

Sorry, Baby: An acting, scripting tour-de-force

Sorry, Baby (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual content and constant profanity

Available via: HBO MAX

By Derrick Bang

“Dying is easy, comedy is hard” — a quote most often attributed to character actor Edmund Gwenn, as he lay dying in bed — has been oft-repeated film and theatrical wisdom ever since.

 

At her lowest ebb, Agnes (Eva Victor) is treated with unexpected gentleness by Pete
(John Carroll Lynch), a deceptively gentle guy who believes that a good sandwich can
go a long way toward healing one's soul.

I’ll go it one better: Persuasively depicting the aftershock of deep trauma is even more difficult ... but Eva Victor truly nails it, starring in this intimate drama that she also wrote and directed. Her performance is quietly, deeply powerful.

Her film is divided into subtitled chapters. The first — “The Year with the Baby” — takes place in an unspecified time: could be present day, perhaps a bit earlier. Agnes (Victor) is a literature professor at Fairpoint, a liberal arts college in rural New England. She’s smart, sensitive and witty, and lives alone in a big house in a quiet, forested area; her only companion is a gray cat named Olga (likely after one of Chekhov’s Three Sisters).

 

The film actually opens with cinematographer Mia Cioffi Henry’s lengthy framing shot of this house, during early evening: a disorienting touch that’ll be repeated in a subsequent chapter, with a different house, and a far different implication. 

 

Henry also favors distant framing shots of Agnes, which emphasize her isolation.

 

But she’s delighted, on this particular day, by the arrival of long-time bestie Lydie (Naomi Ackie). Their bond is palpable, their rapport delightfully uninhibited and bluntly profane; they’re both truly themselves with each other. Victor and Ackie are marvelous together; the latter is a joyful, irrepressible free spirit.

 

(We all should be blessed a friendship this intense.)

 

But something is off. Even at her happiest moments — as when both lie down, warmly jacketed, in an open field — Agnes’ giddy smiles aren’t entirely matched by the flicker of wariness in her gaze. A bit later, she comes closest to true joy when Lydie announces her pregnancy; Agnes playfully chats with the baby, lips pressed close to her friend’s stomach.

 

The two also spend an evening visiting Natasha (Kelly McCormack), Logan (Jordan Mendoza) and Devin (Cody Reiss), all of them former Fairpoint graduate students. Agnes’ presence is reluctant, and no surprise; the grouchy Natasha clearly has a long-simmering antipathy toward her.

 

McCormack overplays this card, sullenly looking more like a character in a horror movie, than somebody who simply has a stick up her fundament.

 

Alas, all visits must conclude, when Lydie returns to her life and responsibilities. Agnes’ disappointment is palpable; it feels more like grief.

East of Wall: Interesting, but under-developed

East of Wall (2025) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, for relentless profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Writer/director Kate Beecroft’s feature debut, although heartfelt and at times achingly poignant, nonetheless is challenging on several levels.

 

Porshia (Porshia Zimiga, left) considers her future, during an uncharacteristically calm
moment, while housemates Leanna (Leanna Shumpert, center) and Brynn
(Brynn Darling) provide quiet company.

Austin Shelton’s alternately lush and gritty cinematography often shares space with a distracting barrage of cell phone images and TikTok videos. Granted, this heightens the sense of verisimilitude via faux “found footage” and invasively intimate closeups, which feel as if we’re eavesdropping on actual people. 

No surprise, since leads Tabatha and Porshia Zimiga essentially play themselves; Beecroft lived with them for three years, while assembling her film.

 

The result very strongly belongs in the company of similarly probing, naturalistic dramas such as Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven and Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland.

 

Unfortunately, Beecroft’s script doesn’t sufficiently flesh out the large cluster of supporting characters. We too often wonder where our attention should be directed, and why.

 

Matters also aren’t helped by the fact that Tabatha, although ethical and trying to “do the right thing” as best she can, is such a strikingly unpalatable individual: heavily tattooed and pierced, with her blond hair half-sheared in a warrior’s buzz cut. She’s also short-tempered, impatient and relentlessly profane.

 

Ah, but Tabatha has a special talent. She’s a gifted horse-whisperer, and has kept food on the table by training animals either captured in the wild, or rescued from kill pens. She’s also able to sense and diagnose what’s wrong with an ailing animal.

 

Tabatha and her teenage daughter Porshia live on a 3,000-acre, broken-down ranch adjacent to South Dakota’s Badlands, east of the flyspeck community of Wall (population 699, as of the 2020 census). They share their home with an ever-changing gaggle of teenagers who’ve run away; been abandoned by parents impoverished, incarcerated or dead; or simply left to fend for themselves.

 

It becomes clear that the women in this hard-scrabble community are particularly challenged: often the abused punching bags of husbands, boyfriends and fathers who — frustrated by their inability to find work — lash out at the nearest target.

My Old Ass: Poignant and deeply personal

My Old Ass (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for drug use, sexual candor and frequent profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.24

Canadian writer/director Megan Park’s new film is one of the summer’s sweetest surprises: a deeply moving, intimately emotional, and tartly humorous coming-of-age saga ... but not in the way you’d expect.

 

Although Elliott (Maisy Stella, left) doesn't initially believe that a mysterious newcomer
(Aubrey Plaza) is her older self, doubts are erased quickly ... which opens the door to
all manner of questions.

Park’s nuanced skill with interpersonal relationships is impressive. Every one of the nine key characters is well sculpted, and persuasive played by a roster of mostly unknown talent. Her unerring ear for dialogue is equally superb; no wrong notes are hit during the many relaxed chats, confessions and ruminations. The goofy, flirty and often profane banter, between the teenage protagonist and her friends, feels just as natural.

The crucial message — so simple, yet profound — is that life is full of change. We need to cherish every moment, because one never knows if it might be the last time in that place, or with those people, or enjoying a particular activity.

 

We’ve all thought it: If I knew then, what I know now, I’d have paid more attention.

 

All this said, Park presents this moral in a most unusual manner.

 

The time is present day, the setting Canada’s gorgeous Muskoka Lakes region, near the southern tip of Ontario, 140 miles above Toronto. The place practically screams youthful innocence; cinematographer Kristen Correll’s gorgeous tableaus could be framed and hung in prestigious museums.

 

Free-spirited Elliott (Maisy Stella), two weeks away from heading off to university, is making the most of each day with besties Ruthie (Maddie Ziegler) and Ro (Kerrice Brooks). They’re introduced in a small outboard boat, as Elliott motors them to a remote island, where she intends to celebrate her 18th birthday by tripping on mushrooms with them, and spending the night at their improvised campsite.

 

By doing so, she has blown off dinner with her family: her father Tom (Alain Goulem), mother Kathy (Maria Dizzia) and younger brothers Max (Seth Isaac Johnson) and Spencer (Carter Trozzolo). The family tableau is quietly awkward; they even baked a cake, which Spencer took pains to decorate.

 

(Elliott later insists that she informed her mother of these plans, and Kathy graciously acknowledges that may have been the case ... but it’s far more likely that the girl gave no thought to how her family might wish to celebrate her birthday with her.)

 

Ghostlight: Spiritually uplifting

Ghostlight (2024) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.15.24

Shakespeare never gets old.

 

(That said, I’ll get back to The Bard in a moment.)

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) desperately needs to find a way to bond with his out-of-control
daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), but remains oblivious to the fact that
she isn't their little family's biggest problem.

Chicago-based co-directors Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson have created a superbly nuanced depiction of a family’s struggle to overcome grief: as delicately shaped and intimate a film as I’ve seen in a long time.

O’Sullivan also wrote the wholly persuasive script, which never hits a wrong note. The performances are equally sublime, with all major roles played by veterans of the Windy City’s theater circuit, which O’Sullivan knows quite well.

 

At the risk of succumbing to cliché, this film will make you laugh and cry in equal measure.

 

Dan (Keith Kupferer) is a city construction worker, currently part of a crew tearing up a Waukegan street in front of a dilapidated storefront theater. The noise is deafening, to the point that Dan gets a tongue-lashing from spunky Rita (Dolly De Leon), who’s connected with whatever is going on inside the theater.

 

His bewildered lack of reaction is typical of the man we watched rise earlier that day, heading off to work as Oklahoma’s “Oh, What a Beautiful Morning” plays in the background: as upbeat as Dan’s demeanor is downbeat. He seems to carry the weight of the world on his massive shoulders; his expression is blank, his manner resigned, his emotions so repressed that we cannot imagine him smiling.

 

His work shift is interrupted when he and his wife, Sharon (Tara Mallen), are called to the school where their teenage daughter, Daisy (Katherine Mallen Kupferer), once again has misbehaved: this time to the ragged edge of expulsion. In several swift scenes, with emotionally jagged strokes, Mallen Kupferer depicts a girl in full-blown emotional meltdown: disrespectful, profane, erratic and given to savage outbursts.

 

We quickly learn, via O’Sullivan’s deft touch with sparse dialogue, that Dan and Sharon are at wit’s end; they’ve spent time on patience, counseling and other efforts to “fix” Daisy, while paying insufficient attention to their own fraying marriage.

 

But as it turns out, Daisy isn’t actually the problem.

 

Little Wing: Fails to fly

Little Wing (2024) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for suggestive material, thoughts of suicide, and fleeting profanity

Available via: Paramount+

By Derrick Bang

The term “contrived” can’t begin to cover the whoppers we’re expected to tolerate, in this film’s eye-rollingly ludicrous storyline.

 

Nor could we ever, ever forgive the protagonist’s selfish, bitchy behavior and heinous first-act crime ... even though we’re intended to, during the tear-jerking finale.

 

Jaan (Brian Cox) pauses at the threshold of the house that Kaitlyn (Brooklynn Prince)
shares with her mother and brother, and ponders what to do about the fact that this
girl has wronged him in the worst possible manner.

The only thing that saves this mess from total turkeydom is the fine, persuasive acting by co-stars Brian Cox and Kelly Reilly. This film doesn’t deserve them.

John Gatins’ script supposedly is inspired by Susan Orlean’s January 2006 New Yorker nonfiction article of the same title, but that’s grossly insulting to her; the two have nothing in common, aside from their shared focus on pigeon racing. Gatins deserves sole blame for the mess he has wrought.

 

The setting is present-day Portland, Oregon (where much of this film clearly was filmed). Brooklynn Prince stars as 13-year-old Kaitlyn McKay, depressed following the divorce of her parents, Maddie (Kelly Reilly) and Sean (Jonathan Togo). Both Kaitlyn and her brother Matt (Simon Khan) have remained with their mother.

 

Kaitlyn, angry at almost everything, is in serious danger of flunking eighth grade. She has only one friend, Adam (Che Tafari), loyal to the core. (She doesn’t deserve him.)

 

The final straw: Maddie, unable to afford the mortgage, has put their house up for sale. Kaitlyn loves her home, viewing it as the only tie to happier times, and can’t bear the thought of having to leave.

 

One evening, in an oddly random act of kindness, family friends gift Kaitlyn with a pair of homing pigeons. (We cannot imagine why.) She couldn’t care less, but Adam is inspired to learn more about the birds. Turns out there’s big money in racing, and one of the all-time champions — a white-tufted pigeon dubbed The Granger — is owned by veteran racer Jaan Vari (Cox), who lives in Portland; the bird is valued at $125,000. 

 

Kaitlyn decides to steal it (!), sell it, and use the money to save her home.

 

Okay, fine; teenagers think and do dumb things. But even on that scale, this concept is awfully far Out There.

 

But wait. It gets worse.

 

Kaitlyn badgers Adam into helping with the heist. They figure out where Jaan lives, and — late one night — climb to the roof loft that holds his scores of birds, The Granger among them. It’s wholly unguarded: no protective barrier, no alarm system. (Seriously? A $125,000 superstar, unattended and ready to be plucked by anybody who wanders by? Puh-leaze.)

 

So she steals it. Jaan wakes during the subsequent commotion, and she flees, abandoning Adam to an uncertain fate. He shows up for school the next day with a broken wrist, due to the jump he was forced to make from the bottom ladder of a fire escape. In one of this stupid story’s rare acknowledgments of reasonable human behavior, Adam subsequently shuns Kaitlyn. (Good for him.)

 

Sadly, not for long.

 

Frybread Face and Me: Profoundly spiritual

Frybread Face and Me (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Not rated; suitable for all ages

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.1.23

Discovering marvelous little gems such as this one, is the best part of my job.

 

Writer/director Billy Luther’s semi-autobiographical film is less a coming-of-age drama, and more a coming-of-identity revelation.

 

Although Benny (Keir Tallman) has nothing in common with his cousin Dawn (Charley
Hogan), they become inseperable during a summer that allows the boy to better
appreciate his cultural heritage.

The year is 1990. Eleven-year-old Benny (Keir Tallman, in a sensitive big-screen debut), raised in San Diego, barely is aware of his Diné (Navaho) roots; the only visible evidence is his luxuriously long hair. His mother, Ann (Morningstar Angeline), has instead encouraged his devotion to Fleetwood Mac and particularly Stevie Nicks; during their most carefree moments, they dress up like Nicks and dance uninhibitedly.

Benny also plays with action figures — he bridles when somebody refers to them as “dolls” — but his make-believe scenarios focus on kissing and their imagined sexual relations.

 

Perhaps due to pressure from his disapproving father, Benny is shipped off to Arizona, and the family “rez” where his Grandmother Lorraine (Sarah H. Natani, every inch a gentle, loving soul) has lived her entire life. She doesn’t speak a word of English — she refuses to learn, as it’s the “oppressor’s” language — and Benny speaks no Diné. They therefore talk past each other, although Lorraine is generous with her affection.

 

Benny has better luck with his kind, free-spirited Aunt Lucy (Kahara Hodges), a counter-culture throwback who makes and sells jewelry. His curt, quick-tempered Uncle Marvin (Martin Sensmeier), is more judgmental, believing the boy a disgrace to his Diné ancestry. Marvin fully expects him to help maintain the ramshackle pen where their sheep are kept each night, despite Benny’s total lack of experience with such things.

 

Small wonder Benny thinks solely of returning to San Diego, in order to see the Fleetwood Mac concert he’d earlier been promised. His isolation is total; even if he knew how to fit in, he’s disinclined to try.

 

The dynamic shifts with the unexpected arrival of his older cousin, Dawn (Charley Hogan), also dumped for the summer by her no-good mother (Owee Rae). Lorraine takes this in stride; we suspect Dawn frequently gets abandoned in this manner. She’s an aggressively odd duck: defiantly unkempt and somewhat overweight, which long ago prompted the unkind nickname — “Frybread Face” — by which most people call her (because that staple is “round and greasy”).

 

She’s never seen without her prized possession: a makeshift doll with a Cabbage Patch baby’s head and furry animal body, dubbed “Jeff Bridges” because the only movie she’s seen — repeatedly — is 1984’s Starman (on the rare occasions her grandmother’s generator is working).

 

Shortcomings: Well titled

Shortcomings (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief nudity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

If this film’s depiction of millennial relationships reflects reality, I fear for the future of the human race.

 

They’ll never stop navel gazing long enough to procreate.

 

Ben (Justin H. Min) and best friend Alice (Sherry Cola) try to remain unobtrusive while
spying on a mutual acquaintance.

On the other hand, if director Randall Park’s modest little indie is intended to be a comedy, it’s more irritating than amusing.

Adrian Tomine’s script, adapted from his 2007 graphic novel of the same title, focuses on Ben (Justin H. Min), a Berkeley-based, thirtysomething Asian-American plagued by life and career uncertainty. He hopes to become a filmmaker, but that isn’t going anywhere; he earns spending money by managing the Berkeley Arts Cinema, an indie movie theater with more staff than patrons.

 

In a word, Ben is a jerk: self-absorbed, condescending and stridently arrogant.

 

He lives with longtime girlfriend Miko (Ally Maki) in a nice apartment funded by her parents; she works for a local Asian American film festival. They squabble a lot, in part because of his roving eye and obsession with blonde women (“white girls,” as Miko complains). Her annoyance is reasonable, but their arguments — about that, and a variety of nit-picky nothings — always devolve into second-guessing, defensive self-justification and needlessly philosophical asides.

 

Frankly, they’re both tiresome.

 

Ben fills much of his down time by watching Criterion Collection DVDs and hanging out with best friend Alice (Sherry Cola), a queer grad student who loves hooking up but seems unable to make a relationship last. Even so, she’s quite happy with her own self: at ease in a way that Ben couldn’t even imagine.

 

Alice also gets the film’s best lines, which Cola delivers with aplomb. My favorite: “Just because I’m a hypocrite, doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

 

Although clearly unhappy and dissatisfied, Ben seems incapable of change. It’s forced upon him abruptly, when Miko accepts an internship in New York. She practically vanishes overnight, while magnanimously allowing him to continue living in their apartment. (One wonders what her parents think of that.)

 

Suddenly “free,” Ben now is in a position to explore what he thinks he wants … starting with Autumn (Tavi Gevinson), the blonde recently hired to work at his movie theater. She’s a performance artist, although that latter word must be taken with a grain of salt; her notion of “art” is eye-rollingly outré.

 

Later to come: the bisexual Sasha (Debby Ryan), currently between relationships.

The Starling Girl: Doesn't quite fly

The Starling Girl (2023) • View trailer

Three stars (out of five). Rated R, and too harshly, for mild sexuality

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Although the setting is unconventional, writer/director Laurel Parmet’s quiet character study focuses on a familiar theme: the coming-of-age saga of a young woman caught between community and parental expectations, and her desire for individuality and self-expression.

 

Jem (Eliza Scanlen, foreground center) is happiest while dancing, even if it's merely a
chaste "worship performance" during her community church service.

But although Eliza Scanlen delivers a richly nuanced starring performance — she’s well remembered as Beth March, in 2019’s Little Women — Parmet’s film too frequently feels as flat, lifeless and colorless as the enclave in which this story is set.

Seventeen-year-old Jem Starling (Scanlen), the eldest child of parents Paul and Heidi (Jimmi Simpson and Wrenn Schmidt), has grown up in an insular fundamentalist Christian community in rural Kentucky. Under the strict guidance of Pastor Taylor (Kyle Secor), everybody practices extreme patriarchal values: Men’s words are the words of God, and women must submit to them.

 

The story begins with a church service highlighted by a “worship dance” performed by Jem and several other teenage girls. They’re barefoot, dressed in the purity of white; arm movements are minimal and reserved, always reaching toward heaven.

 

Pastor Taylor is pleased. Moments later, though, Jem is humiliated and embarrassed when one of the other mothers chides her for wearing “the wrong kind of bra” … because, apparently, people can tell that she is wearing a bra.

 

(Constant Companion and I exchanged a puzzled look. Seriously?)

 

It quickly becomes clear that dance is Jem’s sole outlet: the one thing that allows her to express herself, however delicately. But this sets up a struggle within her soul, as she worries whether pride, and a desire to stand out, are at odds with her worship of God.

 

The dynamic shifts with the return of Pastor Taylor’s elder son, Owen (Lewis Pullman), and his wife Misty (Jessamine Burgum), who’ve been doing missionary work in Puerto Rico. Owen takes over as the community’s youth pastor; he’s charismatic, a bit rebellious and dangerously flirty.

 

Jem, meanwhile, has assumed a leadership role in the dance troupe: a position that makes several of the other girls quite catty, with sidelong comments that imply Jem has become too full of herself. That, too, is not the proper way to worship God.

 

Surprisingly, Owen insists that God wants Jem to enjoy and love dancing; this encouragement prompts Jem to embrace her performance instincts, and teach the troupe more expressive choreography.

 

Then, disturbingly, Owen’s attention becomes too up close and personal: a dangerous dynamic that catches Jem at the worst possible moment, while she’s already struggling with her developing sexuality.

 

I Used to Be Famous: Hits the right notes

I Used to Be Famous (2022) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, for occasional profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Peaking early can be a terrible curse.

 

Back in the early uh-ohs, Vince lived large as the front man of an über-famous teenage boy band, Stereo Dream.

 

Vince (Ed Skrein, left) handles the melody on his portable keyboard, while Stevie
(Leo Long) joyfully maintains a steady beat on a "drum set" made of found objects.

Alas, he lacked the talent to survive the transition to adulthood.

Flash-forward to today, which finds Vince (Ed Skrein) scrambling for a living in the streets of Peckham, dragging his music kit behind him on a modified ironing board (a suitably pathetic visual touch). And to rub salt in the wound, former band mate Austin (Eoin Macken) did have the artistic chops for a wildly successful solo career: a constant reminder of the life Vince desperately wishes he could have.

 

Then, one day, Vince’s busking efforts are interrupted — nay, complemented — by a shy young man beating his drumsticks in time to the music. Vince soon learns that this is Stevie (Leo Long), a mildly autistic lad carefully monitored by his protective mother, Amber (Eleanor Matsuura).

 

Vince immediately (rashly?) believes that Stevie might be the “secret sauce” that could turn them into a successful two-man act. Amber, mindful of her son’s inability to handle being the center of attention, has her doubts.

 

Matters aren’t helped by the fact that the disheveled Vince has the diplomatic subtlety of a bull in a china shop.

 

Director/co-writer Eddie Sternberg’s sweet little film, expanded from his 17-minute 2015 short subject of the same title, offers no surprises; the story, co-written with Zak Klein, is fairly predictable (albeit with a poignant third-act twist).

 

That said, the tone and approach are as earnest as all three lead actors; it’s also nice to see a story that depicts autism with respect and compassion. Credit for this, in great part, goes to Long: neurodivergent in real life, and both an accomplished drummer and quietly persuasive actor.

 

The drama emerges from the credibly endearing manner in which both Vince and Stevie struggle to become better versions of themselves.

Don't Make Me Go: Revelatory road trip

Don't Make Me Go (2022) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for graphic nudity, profanity, teen drinking and vulgar sexual candor

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

It’s every parent’s dilemma: How candid should one be with children, as they progress through the teenage years?

 

And does — should — that paradigm shift, if the stakes unexpectedly turn dire?

 

It's bad enough that Max (John Cho) bears the weight of two heavy secrets; attempting
to remain calm while his daughter Wally (Mia Isaac) is behind the wheel, is almost
more than he can stand.

Writer Vera Herbert has long demonstrated a superbly nuanced sense of relationship dynamics: most notably as a prime mover on the TV series This Is Us, which garnered well-deserved Emmy nominations for Outstanding Drama Series during four of its six seasons. Her scripts speak from the heart, and this new film is particularly personal — and likely cathartic — because it was inspired by the bond with her father, who died unexpectedly when she was 18.

Coupled with Hannah Marks’ equally sensitive direction, the result is a warm, touching father/daughter drama that is by turns funny, frustrating, maddening, poignant and heartwarming.

 

And often messy, just like real life.

 

Max Park (John Cho) long ago gave up his dream of a career in music, when his wife abandoned him shortly after the birth of their daughter, Wally. He settled for a drone-like office job, in order to have the financial security necessary to create the life he thought was appropriate for a child.

 

But at 16, Wally (Mia Isaac) is no longer a child, and Max is finding it more difficult to handle the impetuous recklessness and unfiltered emotional outbursts of these teenage years. He worries that they’re drifting apart, and this makes him nervous and uneasy … which, because she’s so well tuned to her father’s moods, increases her anxiety.

 

Max also has been suffering from increasingly severe headaches. Visits to a doctor produce a shattering result: a malignant tumor at the base of his brain. Although surgical intervention could save his life, his chances of surviving the procedure are extremely low. Without the surgery, he can expect to live for about a year.

 

Max therefore opts to forgo the operation, and instead spend the year preparing Wally for his eventual absence.

 

He doesn’t tell her any of this. He confides only in his on-again/off-again girlfriend, Annie, whose subsequent reaction — once she has a chance to process the news — is agonizingly uncomfortable (and very well played, by Kaya Scodelario).

 

Not everybody has the emotional bandwidth to watch somebody slowly die.