The Archies: A delightful surprise

The Archies (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated TV-14, and suitable for all ages

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.17.23

All right, class; raise your hand if you read Archie comic books as a kid.

 

Seriously? I didn’t expect to see so many hands from twenty- and thirty-somethings!

 

Betty (Khushi Kapoor) is madly in love with Archie (Agastya Nanda), but he's torn between
her and richest-girl-in-town Veronica. Which will he choose?

And I never could have expected, in my wildest imagination, that we’d get a Bollywood adaptation of that franchise, much less this late in the game.

Or that such a film would be so much fun.

 

Director Zoya Akhtar’s charmingly retro Indian musical will be adored by everybody who made television’s Glee a monster hit for so many years. Everything about Akhtar’s film is note perfect for its early 1960s setting: Suzanne Caplan Merwanji’s small-town production design; Poornamrita Singh’s colorful, old-school costumes — researched via the archives of Vogue, Esquire, Sears and other period magazines and catalogues — that precisely suit each character; and a roster of young talent that totally sells this throwback concept.

 

I had flashbacks to the playfully energetic atmosphere that characterized Depression-era musicals, when Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland said, “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!”

 

Akhtar does indeed put on a show.

 

The note-faithful replication of this comic book universe owes its authenticity to the script by Akhtar, Farhan Akhtar and Ayesha DeVitre, working in full cooperation with Archie Comics Publications. (Pre-credits artwork proves as much.)

 

The setting is the fictional Anglo-Indian hill station town of Riverdale (apparently located in a part of India that hasn’t been discovered until now). It’s a bucolic community laden with small, family-owned shops, where everybody knows each other.

 

Riverdale’s founding, explained during a brief prologue told via animated rod puppets, took place after Indian independence. The residents celebrated their new freedoms by planting trees in the names of their children; over the years this space — christened Green Park — became the much-loved center of town.

 

This information dump, during a prologue, comes fast and furious: almost too quickly to read all the subtitles while trying to absorb the artwork. But don’t panic; the subtitles are easier to follow once past this prologue, in great part because everybody slides back and forth between Hindi and English, sometimes within a single sentence. Well over half the movie is in English.

The Takedown: Take it back

The Takedown (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated TV-MA, for violence, gore, profanity and graphic nudity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.13.22

It’s comforting to know that French buddy cop dramedies can be every bit as silly and preposterous, as many of those made here in the States.

 

Having learned that a vicious killer works for a mysterious protection agency known as
Securitec, our unlikely heroes — from left, François (Laurent Lafitte), Alice (Izïa
Higelin) and Ousmane (Omar Sy) — debate their next move.

(That said, I’d hate to think director Louis Leterrier and writer Stéphane Kazandijian crafted this flashy nonsense with American audiences in mind.)

To the degree that it succeeds at all, The Takedown is a textbook case of star charisma over thin material. Omar Sy, recently seen in the far superior TV miniseries Lupin, lights up the screen here as Ousmane Diakité, a reckless, take-charge detective in Paris’ Police Criminal Division.

 

Even when spouting the most wincingly awful one-liners — Kazandijian feeds him plenty of those — Sy’s broad grin, mischievous gaze and loping, well-toned physique make him utterly irresistible.

 

The same cannot be said of Laurent Lafitte’s portrayal of François Monge, an insufferably narcissistic and condescending detective in the Judicial District. François is the epitome of an arrested adolescent: childish, petulant, arrogant, determined to have the last word, and convinced that he’s the smartest person in the room (to the aghast disbelief of everybody else in the room).

 

Ousmane and François once were partners in the Criminal Division; indeed, this film is a sequel to 2012’s equally clumsy On the Other Side of the Tracks. (One wonders about that lengthy gap; I suspect this new film is prompted mostly by Sy’s rapid rise to fame during the previous decade.)

 

Following a ludicrous perp collar that takes place during a cage boxing match, and establishes Ousmane’s tendency toward bull-headed brawling, he’s summoned to the scene of a rather grisly crime: the severed upper half of a male body, jammed between two cars of a passenger train. This discovery is made by François, who is at the station by chance.

 

Their reunion is prickly. Ousmane, now a captain, outranks François, a lieutenant who has repeatedly failed the captain’s exam, and been denied his frequent requests for transfer. No doubt remembering that his former friend is more liability than colleague, Ousmane would prefer to politely wave farewell … particularly when they learn that the victim’s lower half has been found alongside the tracks in a small town in Southeastern France.

 

Ah, but François isn’t about to put up with that.

 

(How many dozens — scores! — of times, have we seen the subsequent sequence? “You’re not coming, and that’s final,” intones Person A to Person B, after which we smash-cut to the two of them traveling side by side, a resigned expression on Person A’s face. Leterrier and Kazandijian do nothing to make it fresh here.)

Compartment No. 6: Strangers on a train

Compartment No. 6 (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and vulgarity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

We meet Laura (Seidi Haarla) as she wanders among — but not part of — the people gathered at a party hosted by her somewhat older lover, Irina (Dinara Drukarova); they treat Laura with mildly mocking disdain, as if she’s the hired help attempting to rise above her station.

 

Laura (Seidi Haarla) and Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov) — separated by nationality, schooling,
refinement and just about every other possible human quality — seem unlikely to
get along, when forced to share a cramped train compartment.

In a few quick scenes, Finnish writer/director Juho Kuosmanen deftly sketches Laura, Irina and their clearly unequal dynamic; we sense that Irina keeps her around like a toy, for the amusement of her snobbish, condescending friends.

Even so, the two have planned a trip together. Laura, a Finnish student studying archaeology at Moscow University — Irina probably is one of her professors — is eager to see the Kanozero petroglyphs. This will involve a train ride to distant Murmansk: a 35-hour trip that’ll cover roughly 925 miles.

 

But Irina backs out at the last moment. (Possibly as a means of severing the relationship? Kuosmanen doesn’t bother with such details.) Obviously stung but still determined, Laura boards the train by herself.

 

She winds up sharing a two-person sleeper compartment with Ljoha (Yuriy Borisov), a loutish Russian who assumes that she’s a sex worker, and makes appropriately vulgar remarks to that effect. She’s more repulsed than frightened; he doesn’t exactly radiate menace, but he seems the worst sort of guy with whom to share such a confined space. Sadly, efforts to switch compartments prove fruitless.

 

When she returns to their compartment, Ljoha has passed out in an alcoholic stupor.

 

The time is unspecified, although it feels like the mid- to late 1990s, shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union (an event that fits this story’s evolving moral center). Laura listens to music on a Walkman, and takes photos — and narrates her impression of things — with a hand-held camcorder.

 

By daylight Ljoha is less threatening, if still vulgar; they trade superficial details, and he explains that he’s traveling to work at a massive mine near the Arctic Circle. He’s amused by her “scholarly ways”; she regards him with mild contempt, having decided that his limited education puts him beneath her (little realizing that she’s now treating him the way Irina’s friends treated her).

 

You’d expect such a film to be claustrophobic and confined, but that isn’t the case; Kuosmanen finds plenty of ways to “open up” the narrative. Other passengers briefly sit in their compartment as the trip proceeds; Laura and Ljoha encounter numerous other people during the train’s many station stops, some of them lengthy. These interactions further shape their evolving dynamic.

 

He seems able to make friends with anybody, which impresses her.  

 

She repeatedly calls Irina, with limited satisfaction.

 

I'm Your Man: Absorbing parable on the nature of humanity

I'm Your Man (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Hulu and other streaming services

By Derrick Bang

I love intelligent, quietly thoughtful sci-fi films: an increasingly rare commodity in this era of Star Wars, Star Trek and all manner of superhero movies.

 

Although ostensibly a genre devoted to science and speculative advancement, the best examples focus on how futuristic technology impacts the human condition.

 

Anna (Maren Eggert) isn't wild about introducing Tom (Dan Stevens) to her museum
research team ... but she prefers this to leaving him alone in her apartment.

2009’s Moon comes to mind, as does 2014’s Ex Machina.

Director Maria Schrader’s Ich bin dein Mensch — released here in the States as I’m Your Man — belongs in their company. This disarmingly beguiling little drama is one of 15 films short-listed for this year’s International Feature Film Oscar. And deservedly so.

 

The script — by Schrader and Jan Schomburg, based on a short story by Emma Braslavsky — is by turns ingenious, whimsical, poignant and remarkably insightful. All concerned have concocted a cheeky modern riff on the ancient Greek Pygmalion legend; the result is equal parts rom-com and shrewd philosophical musings on the nature of humanity.

 

The setting feels like modern-day Germany — in terms of clothing, cars and personal tech — but clearly is a bit in the future, given the story’s focus. We meet Alma Felser (Maren Eggert) as she nervously joins the crowd at what appears to be a posh speed-dating nightclub. She’s greeted by a “handler,” (Sandra Hüller), who in turn introduces her to Tom (Dan Stevens), apparently her companion for the evening.

 

It’s a shame to telegraph all the little ways in which this initial encounter goes oddly awry; not knowing the reason robs viewers of the delight to be experienced by Stevens’ impeccably nuanced and oddly balletic performance. Suffice to say that Tom tries much too hard to be gallant and charming, his fervent declarations of love and devotion far better suited to couples married for a decade or two, than a first “date” … if, indeed, that’s what this is.

 

But it isn’t. At least, not exactly.

 

Alma, in turn, clearly isn’t happy, doesn’t want to be here, behaves like a trapped rabbit. Eggert radiates wariness and discomfort, her guarded expression revealing a bit of condescension, if not outright contempt.

 

All becomes clear when Tom is revealed to be a meticulously crafted AI: human in appearance and — theoretically — behavior, down to the last detail. (Rest assured, matters eventually do get down to the last detail.) Alma is an archaeological research scientist at Berlin’s Pergamon Museum, specializing in deciphering ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform writing; she’s also one of 10 “experts” selected to evaluate the newest line of robots made by a never-specified corporation.

 

Her boss, Dekan (Falilou Seck), is part of an ethics committee that will determine the degree to which these … beings … are entitled to some (any?) of the protective rights that society grants its human members. Dekan has dangled a plum trip to Chicago — where Alma will be able to examine some key cuneiform tablets in person — as a means of securing her participation in this three-week trial.

 

To that end, and following Alma’s exhaustive earlier battery of tests and psychological evaluations, Tom has been designed as her “ideal man.” He’s to live with her for three weeks, after which she’ll render a final evaluation.

 

And, so, she brings him home. Very reluctantly.

A Hero: The elusive nature of truth

A Hero (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and much too harshly, for dramatic intensity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

This would have made a terrific courtroom drama, with its story emerging via lengthy flashbacks.

 

Iranian writer/director Asghar Farhadi’s newest film is a thoughtful, increasingly puzzling character study: a twisty saga fueled by strong, relatable performances.

 

Rahim (Amir Jadidi, right) and his son Saivash (Saleh Karimai) do their best to find the
grateful woman whose property was restored, to no avail.

Farhadi likes to mess with viewer expectations. His everyday dramas begin simply enough, and seem to proceed in linear fashion … but that’s a trap. As events proceed, we — and the characters involved in the story — gradually realize that assumptions are misleading; subsequent bits of information emerge that topple what seemed to be solid details.

As I mentioned, in my review of Farhadi’s excellent 2011 film, A Separation, his characters (and we viewers) base their opinions, feelings and loyalties on what they’ve been told, and what they believe they know.

 

A Separation took that year’s Oscar for Best International Film, and Farhadi also garnered a well-earned writing nomination. A Hero took the Grand Prix at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, and was nominated for the exalted Palme d’Or; it’s easy to see why the judges were transfixed by this equally twisty story.

 

The setting is modern-day Shiraz. Events begin as Rahim (Amir Jadidi), in prison due to a debt he’s unable to repay, obtains a two-day leave in order to visit his family: sister Mali (Maryam Shahdaei) and brother-in-law Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh). They’ve been caring for Rahim’s son — Saivash (Saleh Karimai), a painfully shy boy with a severe stutter — following an unpleasant divorce.

 

On his way home, Rahim finds a purse with a broken strap; it contains 17 gold coins. Initially believing it a means of settling at least part of his debt to Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh), Rahim has second thoughts and — instead — puts up fliers, in an effort to reunite the purse with its actual owner. A young woman responds, accurately describes the purse and its varied contents, and is tearfully grateful when she gets it back intact.

 

Word of this good deed gets out; the usury prison officials — who’ve long regarded Rahim a model inmate, and also smell an opportunity for positive publicity — arrange for a television interview. The story of Rahim’s noble act, when so many others would have kept the coins for their own purposes, makes him a popular social media hero.

 

The soft-spoken Jadidi — rarely without his humble, deferential smile — blossoms like a spring flower, during the subsequent tsunami of respect: a man ignored for so long, often treated with contempt, suddenly lionized. He can’t begin to comprehend this new feeling.

Parallel Mothers: Deeply moving character drama

Parallel Mothers (2021) • View trailer

4.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, and perhaps too harshly, for sexuality

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Pedro Almodóvar’s films always are characterized by two things: strong, if sometimes psychologically damaged female characters, with men little more than sidebar distractions; and a socio-political subtext that deeply influences the relationship dynamics.

 

Ana (Milena Smitt, center) and Janis (Penélope Cruz), having met by chance in the
hospital delivery ward, are about to give birth on the same day.

Parallel Mothers is one of Almodóvar’s most deeply moving films, and it’s fueled by a powerhouse performance from his frequent amanuensis, Penélope Cruz: arguably her finest, most subtly shaded work yet. (This is their seventh collaboration, which began with 1997’s Live Flesh.) 

Although superficially described as a chance encounter — which leads to a deep friendship — between two women who give birth on the same day, at the same hospital, that barely scratches the surface of what eventually becomes a fascinating, at times painful emotional roller coaster.

 

Both pregnancies are unintended, both women becoming single parents.

 

Janis (Cruz), a middle-aged fashion photographer, is jubilant; she has experienced the joy of establishing a successful career, and now is prepared for the challenges of motherhood. She’s ready. 

 

The withdrawn, mousy Ana (Milena Smit), still adolescent, is repentant, traumatized and absolutely terrified. She gets no support from her self-absorbed mother, Teresa (Aitana Sánchez-Gijón), who focuses solely on her own acting career. In contrast, Janis is visited by her best friend and agent, Elena (Rossy de Palma), a cheerful, effervescent force of nature who swoops into the hospital room like an ambulatory rainbow.

 

Janis notes the disparity. Later, after the visitors have left, she tries to compensate with kindness and encouraging words, while she and Ana slowly pace the hospital corridors, awaiting delivery like exhausted sleepwalkers.

 

The babies arrive; the two women part. But not for long.

 

Janis’ initial au pair proves hopeless, particularly when the new mother decides to revive her photography career. A chance encounter with Ana — now a bit more relaxed and self-assured — proves inspirational; Janis knows that she’d make an excellent au pair, and the younger woman gratefully accepts the offer.

 

But she does so, under a cloud.

 

That makes them an excellent match, because Janis has long struggled with her own ghosts.

Skater Girl: Rolls with style

Skater Girl (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang

Coming-of-age sagas aren’t always about surviving adolescence or the angst-laden teen years; sometimes the focus concerns finding one’s bliss.

 

Although initially frightened by this new "toy," Prerna (Rachel
Saanchita Gupta) soon becomes infatuated with her skateboard,
thanks to help from her little brother Ankush (Shafin Patel).

Director/co-writer Manjari Makijany’s Skater Girl is a sweet, heartfelt study of the uncomfortable clashes between expectation and desire, between tradition and disruption.

Teenage Prerna (Rachel Saanchita Gupta, in a deeply touching acting debut) lives a grinding, joyless life in a remote village in Rajasthan, India. Her expression, her very bearing, is resigned and withdrawn. Smiles are infrequent; she’s old enough to realize that her future holds little — if anything — beyond an arranged marriage and then remaining within this same poverty-laden community.

 

The one bright spark is her mischievous little brother, Ankush (Shafin Patel), whose effervescence is impossible to ignore. He can draw a rare grin from Prerna, because he isn’t old enough to understand the notion of limitations. Indeed, he’s puzzled by the fact that he shouldn’t mix with the upper-class students at his school.

 

The dynamic shifts with the arrival of Jessica (Amy Maghera), a London-bred advertising exec who wants to learn more about her late father’s childhood. All the children find her a fascinating novelty; their parents regard her with wary suspicion. Jessica is charmed (as are we) by the resourcefulness with which these children fabricate playthings from scrap material, particularly in the case of Ankush’s rudimentary skateboard.

 

Jessica, trying hard to tread carefully, is relieved by the unexpected arrival of Erick (Jonathan Readwin), an unabashed free spirit who literally cruises into the village on a skateboard. A real skateboard.

 

The children — particularly Ankush — are goggle-eyed.

 

Even Prerna is curious.

 

Jessica, sensing a means to curry favor, arranges for several cartons of skateboards and parts to be delivered to the village. Although the kids are overjoyed, their infatuation with this new sport becomes all-encompassing, to the detriment of everything else. This does not endear Jessica and Erick to the older villagers: particularly the local schoolmaster, whose classroom suddenly is mostly empty.

 

Some sort of (ahem) balance becomes necessary.

 

At the same time, Prerna’s growing interest worries and annoys her father, Ramkesh (Ambarish Saxena), who bitingly asks, “Why are you playing with things meant for boys?”

Space Sweepers: A hoot 'n' a holler

Space Sweepers (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-MA, for profanity and sci-fi violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.12.21

This South Korean sci-fi epic — the country’s first “space blockbuster,” and an import for Netflix — is absolutely dog-nuts.

 

It’s also a lot of fun.

 

Tae-ho (Song Joong-Ki, left), Jang (Kim Tae-ri, right) and the robot Bubs find something
extremely unusual in their latest haul of space salvage.

Scripters Yoon Seung-min, Yoo-kang Seo-ae and Jo Sung-hee “borrow” from a variety of predecessors — Silent Running, Blade Runner and Elysium immediately come to mind — and overlay those familiar elements with a cheeky original premise. Director Sung-hee Jo’s handling is somewhat chaotic, which befits the rather “messy” future inhabited by a quartet of misfit heroes.

 

The year is 2092. Earth has become an environmental nightmare, with fading sunlight and increasingly acidic soil contributing to the spread of deserts, and the destruction of forests. Thanks to a technological “miracle” orchestrated by the UTS Corp., the wealthy and “connected” enjoy luxurious living in a massive, verdant and enclosed habitat orbiting Earth, reachable via a geosynchronous “space elevator” (long one of my favorite sci-fi concepts, and one that actually might be practical on lower-gravity worlds such as Mars and our Moon).

 

The rest of humanity is stuck on the planet’s poisonous surface.

 

Ah, but all is not lost. UTS head James Sullivan (Richard Armitage) — doctor, physicist, aerospace engineer, historian and the world’s richest and oldest man (at a spry 152) — has ambitious plans to terraform Mars, transforming it into the forested paradise that Earth used to be. 

 

Meanwhile…

 

Thanks to more than a century of orbital development, the region above Earth has become its own nightmare, as satellites fail and other floating debris turns hazardous. This has created a new business model for rag-tag independents, who earn a meager living as orbital garbage collectors: “catching” and then salvaging space junk.

 

It’s a ruthlessly competitive, wholly unregulated industry, and the champs staff a nuts-and-bolts spaceship dubbed Victory. Its four-person crew comprises genius pilot Tae-ho (Song Joong-Ki); the somewhat mysterious, ex-space pirate Capt. Jang (Kim Tae-ri); resourceful and heavily tattooed engineer Tiger Park (Jim Sun-kyu); and a reprogrammed military robot named Bubs (Yoo Hai-jin).

 

The latter is impressively adept with a cable-fed harpoon, which — being a robot — it can hurl while standing atop the Victory’s exterior.

The White Tiger: An impressive roar

The White Tiger (2021) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for violence, sexual candor and considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.19.21 

There’s a trainload of rage in this thoroughly engaging film.

 

During their initial outing, Ashok (Rajkummar Rao) and his wife, Pinky Madam
(Priyanka Chopra), are surprised to discover that their new driver, Balram (Adarsh Gourav)
hasn't the faintest idea how to get where they're going.

Director/scripter Ramin Bahrani’s adaptation of Aravind Adiga’s award-winning 2008 novel has been described as a cross between Slumdog Millionaire and Parasite, and that’s reasonably accurate. But this film has the added benefit of a caustic sense of humor — darker than dark — and its protagonist’s sharply observed understanding of the way in which globalization has exacerbated the cruel divide between India’s upper and lower castes.

 

Our “hero,” Balram (Adarsh Gourav), is introduced in a position of prominence. He has become that which he always hoped to attain: an entrepreneur. This isn’t an easy achievement in his country, as he explains; an Indian entrepreneur must be “…straight and crooked, mocking and believing, sly and sincere, all at the same time.”

 

Balram narrates his saga by way of a letter written to Chinese Premier Web Jiabao, on the eve of his visit to India in 2010. “American is so yesterday,” Balram begins. “China and India are tomorrow.” (If American viewers respond to that introduction with unease, I’ve no doubt that was Bahrani’s intention.)

 

Balram (played, as an adolescent, by Harshit Mahawar) grows up in the poor village of Laxmangarh. He’s a bright, curious and perceptive child: that rarest of jungle creatures, a “white tiger,” symbol of freedom and individuality. But his intelligence opens no doors in a feudal hamlet under the thrall of a big city coal baron dubbed “The Stork” (Mahesh Manjrekar) and his thuggish elder son, “The Mongoose” (Vijay Maurya). They extract one-third of the already meager rupees the villagers earn.

 

Balram watches his father literally work himself to death, while the family elder — Granny Kusum (Kamlesh Gill) — berates the man, for not laboring harder.

 

This mind set — the adult Balram explains, in voiceover — is due to the most insidious of India’s “inventions”: the rooster coop, where caged birds silently watch their fellows being slaughtered, while calmly waiting their turn. This characterizes India’s “dark” under class: not merely trapped in a perpetual cycle of poverty and servitude, but trained over centuries to accept that it should be that way.

 

As the adult Balram further observes, “Election promises had taught me how important it is, not to be a poor man in a ‘free’ democracy.”

Rose Island: By any name, it's a hoot!

Rose Island (2020) • View trailer

3.5 stars. Rated TV-14, for considerable profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.8.21

Truth really is stranger than fiction.

 

In 1967 — annoyed by the ponderous Italian bureaucracy involved with any sort of construction — innovative Bolognese engineer Giorgio Rosa sank nine pylons into the ocean off the coastal city of Rimini, at the country’s northeastern tip. The pylons soon supported a 400-square-meter “island” platform that, over time, hosted a restaurant, bar, nightclub, souvenir shop and post office: all free of rules and regulations, and open to tourists who soon arrived in enthusiastic numbers.

 

With their "independent island state" having become a popular tourist attraction,
Giorgio (Elio Germano) and Neumann (Tom Wlaschiha) wonder what to do next.

On June 24, 1968 — having shrewdly placed his little enclave just beyond Italy’s territorial waters — Rosa declared it an independent state dubbed Insulo de la Rozoj, and named himself president. He declared an official language (Esperanto), created a flag, issued stamps and set up a council of ministers. Piles of mail began to arrive, from people desiring citizenship on this artificial island.

 

We’ll never know whether Rosa genuinely desired to tweak the Italian government, or wanted to conduct an ingenious sociology experiment, or regarded this as the perfect way to mingle with counter-culture Riviera hedonists, or simply had a wicked sense of humor.

 

Rosa died in 2017, having agreed that these events could be depicted in a film to be released after his passing. It didn’t take long: L’incredibile storia dell’Isola delle Rose (Rose Island) has just arrived as a Netflix exclusive.

 

It’s quite delightful: very much akin to droll, low-key British charmers … but in Italian.

 

Director Sydney Sibilia — who co-wrote the script with Francesca Manieri — has taken liberties with historical fact; it’s best to acknowledge that his film is suggested by actual events. Key details are accurate, but Sibilia has made much more of Rosa’s capricious bid for statehood, and its impact on the Italian government, in order to get more of a cinematic story by tweaking a series of fabricated officials running all the way up to the Vatican.

 

The result feels strongly influenced, in tone and structure, by 2009’s Pirate Radio, with its similarly affectionate nod to renegade spirit.

 

This also is very much a 1960s saga; one can’t imagine it occurring at any other point in time. The film’s soundtrack therefore is laden with the era’s pop tunes, in a variety of languages: from Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction,” The Kinks’ cover of “Louie Louie” and Shocking Blues’s “Send Me a Postcard,” to Dik Dik’s robust Italian cover of “California Dreaming.”

 

We meet Giorgio Rosa (Elio Germano) during a brief flash-forward, as he attempts to gain an audience with the Council of Europe, headquartered in Strasbourg, France. His case piques the curiosity of diplomat Jean Baptiste Toma (François Cluzet).

 

The always terrific Cluzet, well remembered from 2006’s Tell No One and 2011’s The Intouchables, is an intriguing choice for such a fleeting role; that said, he definitely makes the most of his brief screen time.

 

Toma grants Giorgio the opportunity to explain his presence; we then bounce back a year, to watch these events unfold.

 

The Life Ahead: Brimming with heart

The Life Ahead (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity

By Derrick Bang

James Cagney came out of a 20-year retirement, for his final great role in 1981’s Ragtime.

 

Audrey Hepburn returned from semi-retirement after 1967’s Wait Until Dark, for 1976’s Robin and Marian and a few more choice roles.

 

Although knowing full well how he spends his daytime hours, Madame Rosa (Sophia
Loren) soon sees something worth saving in the tough young street kid (Ibrahima
Gueye) who has been thrust into her life.

Cary Grant stayed retired after 1966’s Walk, Don’t Run (more’s the pity).

 

And now Sophia Loren, 86 years young, has returned to cinema after a decade-long absence. The lure: The Life Ahead, debuting on Netflix. It’s a fresh adaptation of Romain Gary’s 1975 novel, The Life Before Us, which won the Foreign Language Academy Award when filmed in 1977 as Madame Rosa.

 

The additional lure: This new version is directed by her son, Edoardo Ponti.

 

They do each other proud.

 

The setting is seaside Naples, more or less in the present day. Even so, Ponti and cinematographer Angus Hudson maintain an atmosphere of vagueness; absent the presence of cell phones, this could be 10, 20 years ago. The nature of the story is similarly timeless; the script — by Ugo Chiti, Fabio Natale and Ponti — quietly emphasizes the universality of relationships, trust and kindness.

 

The elderly Madame Rosa (Loren) is a former prostitute who, with the assistance of a local doctor (Renato Carpentieri, as Dr. Coen), has made a second career of caring for the abandoned — or orphaned — children of sex workers. Such placements are intended to be temporary: only until each child can be sent to a safer, more permanent environment.

 

Her current charges are Iosif (Iosif Diego Pirvu), an adolescent she’s teaching to read and speak Hebrew; and the toddler daughter of Lola (Abril Zamora), a trans prostitute who’s a close friend. This little network of allies also includes Hamil (Babk Karimi), a shopkeeper who respects Madame Rosa for her selfless work.

 

She has performed this valuable service for years and years: long enough that some of her former “wards” have become the police officers who tacitly leave her alone, when rousting other “undesirables” from the neighborhood.

 

She’s mugged one day by Momo (Ibrahima Gueye), a brazen 12-year-old street kid who — in one of those coincidences favored by stories of this sort — happens to be Dr. Coen’s latest “project.” He coaxes truth from the boy, and thus is able to return Madame Rosa’s stolen property. And then — salt in the wound! — he asks her to take temporary charge of Momo: a proposal that dismays both of them.

 

Give it time, Dr. Coen pleads; there’s some good in the boy. She isn’t sure about that. (Neither are we.)