The Room Next Door: Confronting the ultimate enemy

The Room Next Door (2024) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for thematic content, sexual candor and occasional profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang

Greater love hath no friend...

 

Pedro Almodóvar traditionally makes films about women — often a pair of women — and they always talk a lot. It’s tempting to assume that he’d have been happier as a director of stage dramas, but that would overlook the beautifully composed cinematography that always highlights his productions — in this case, courtesy of Eduard Grau — and which almost becomes a character in itself.

 

During one of her better days, Martha (TIlda Swinton, left) and Ingrid (Julianne Moore)
visit a bookstore, where the former buys books she'll never have time to read.

This is writer/director Almodóvar’s first English-language film, and he’s equally adept with dialogue that feels and sounds just as authentic, at every moment.

Ingrid (Julianne Moore) and Martha (Tilda Swinton) were close friends during their early, post-college years, when they worked together at the same magazine. Ingrid subsequently became a successful author of autobiographical fiction, with legions of adoring fans; Martha became a war correspondent energized by the adrenaline-charged buzz of being in a danger zone.

 

They lost touch, as the years passed. The film begins as the Manhattan-based Ingrid chances to learn, from a mutual acquaintance during a bookstore signing, that Martha has been hospitalized.

 

Ingrid visits immediately, and is stunned by the news that Martha has end-stage cervical cancer.

 

What follows is essentially a two-hander, which occasionally expands via flashbacks and Ingrid’s chats with close friend Damian (John Turturro), who — back in the day — was a lover to both women (sequentially, not simultaneously). There’s a comfort and familiarity to the ongoing conversations between Moore and Swinton; they look, sound and move like longtime best friends.

 

We’ve all experienced this dynamic. Reuniting with some long-unseen friends feels awkward and uncomfortable; you can’t wait to depart (probably permanently). But it’s different with friends who somehow remain fiercely close, despite distance and separation; you fall right back into the pattern of finishing each other’s sentences, and perhaps even continuing a conversation cut short, as if no time had passed.

 

Reminiscences and catching-up comes first, although Martha’s condition obviously hovers throughout.

May December: Acutely disturbing

May December (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for sexual content, graphic nudity, profanity and drug use

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.8.23

This is a profoundly uncomfortable film.

 

It’s also an acting tour de force by stars Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman: no surprise, since director Todd Haynes has a long-established talent for eliciting delicately nuanced performances in what are essentially two-character dramas (2015’s Carol and 2002’s Far from Heaven leap to mind).

 

At first blush, Joe (Charles Melton) and Gracie (Julianne Moore) seem a happy couple,
mutually devoted to each other. But still — and quite unwholesome — waters run deep...

But while those earlier films also explored the dangerous paths of “forbidden” relationships, the broken taboo this time — in Samy Burch and Alex Mechanik’s increasingly unsettling script — will be a challenge for conservative viewers.

(Sadly, the story is inspired by actual 1996 events; look up Mary Kay Letourneau.)

 

The year is 2015. Celebrated actress Elizabeth Berry (Portman) has traveled to the oak- and Spanish moss-laden neighborhoods of Savannah, Ga., in order to study Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Moore), the woman she’ll play in her next movie.

 

Gracie’s claim to fame? Back in 1992, at the age of 36 — a wife and mother — she was caught having sex with 13-year-old Joe Yoo, in the storeroom of the pet store where he worked alongside her son Georgie. She was arrested and imprisoned, had a child while behind bars, then divorced her husband and married Joe upon release: all of which fueled long-running, scandalized headlines in mainstream and tabloid publications.

 

Now, 23 years later, Gracie and Joe (Charles Melton) have three children: college-age Honor (Piper Curda) and twins Mary (Elizabeth Yu) and Charlie (Gabriel Chung), the latter two about to graduate from high school. Elizabeth has been invited, with Gracie’s full support, to “shadow” her and her family for several days.

 

Gracie also has instructed everybody to cooperate, to every extent possible.

 

(The casualness of such encouragement is just as unsettling as the situation itself. Which also speaks volumes about Gracie’s character.)

 

At first blush, Elizabeth finds the environment warm and inviting. Many folks — notably Mary — are dazzled by the mere presence of a celebrity in their midst. Joe is amiable and accommodating: a doting parent and husband.

 

But cracks surface; what seems warm actually is quietly stifling. Gracie soon reveals her true colors as a control freak (which Moore plays with chilling persuasiveness). When Elizabeth joins Mary and her mother when the girl selects a new dress to wear beneath her graduation gown, what should be a celebratory moment turns wincingly embarrassing, thanks to Gracie’s manipulative, left-handed “compliment.” (Yu’s expression, at this moment, is shattering.)

 

Sharper: A cut above

Sharper (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity and sensuality

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning Feb. 17) Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.10.23 

This one has style to burn.

 

Director Benjamin Caron definitely knows his way around atmosphere, and Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka’s deliciously crafty script is as sleek as the elegant outfits that costume designer Melissa Toth has draped onto the primary characters.

 

After a charming first encounter, Tom (Justice Smith) and Sandra (Briana Middleton)
become inseparable. But what's really going on?

I hate saying anything about the plot, because the fun comes from the discovery — as events proceed — that very little is what it seems. This is a grifter saga, very much in the vein of The Sting, American Hustle and The Brothers Bloom (the latter an overlooked early entry from Rian Johnson, who brought us Knives Out; do look for it).

And yet Sharper — great double-entendre title, that — doesn’t feel like a grifter movie … at least not initially.

 

Gatewood and Tanaka’s narrative is divided into distinct acts, the first of which unfolds like a meet-cute love story (and Caron stages it that way).

 

Manhattan Bookstore owner Tom (Justice Smith) can’t help being intrigued by customer Sandra (Briana Middleton), when she browses and then requests a specific title. Their conversation is mildly flirty until it gets awkward, when her credit card is declined. Tom makes a magnanimous gesture; she gets embarrassed, and that might have been that.

 

But she turns out to be honest, which touches him. Several weeks pass, during which they become an item. Middleton’s Sandra sparkles with warmth and kindness; Smith is equally fine as the aw-shucks, somewhat naïve Tom.

 

Then things take … and intriguing turn.

 

We next meet Max (Sebastian Stan). He’s suave, smooth and sophisticated: a thoroughly accomplished con artist. He undertakes a long-term project, with a very specific goal in mind. He’s alternately patient and merciless, rewarding small successes and applying punishment when necessary.

 

Stan is the epitome of cool: often dressed in black, radiating a degree of mystery heightened by a slightly mocking gaze and insincere smile.

 

The narrative cuts to a new chapter. Madeline (Julianne Moore) has become cozy with über-billionaire Richard Hobbes (John Lithgow). Here, at last, Gatewood and Tanaka reveal some of their hole cards; Madeline’s relationship feels artificial. Moore’s bearing is calculated, her smile — when Richard isn’t looking — quite predatory. Whatever else is going on, Madeline’s affection for him isn’t genuine.

Dear Evan Hansen: A letter to remember

Dear Evan Hansen (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.24.21

Well, this is an emotional hurricane.

 

The Broadway production of Dear Evan Hansen won six of its nine Tony Award nominations, including Best Musical, in many cases edging out Come From Away (which was Broadway robbery, in my humble opinion, but that’s a separate conversation).

 

Although circumstances have brought him closer to the girl he has long adored from
afar, Evan (Ben Platt) knows that his blossoming relationship with Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever)
is built upon a lie.

Evan’s messages of inclusion, self-acceptance and mended fences obviously resonated strongly with theatergoers, and I’m sure the same will be true of filmgoers. It’s refreshing to see a story about the importance of acknowledging one’s mistakes … sincerely, and in public. (A lot of politicians could learn from this example.)

That said, the story also veers dangerously close to the ragged edge of unpardonable behavior … and whether matters slide off that cliff, will depend on the individual viewer.

 

Playwright Steven Levenson, one of the Tony winners, has transformed his own book into this screenplay; Broadway star Ben Platt, also a Tony winner, reprises his lead role here. Ergo, there’s no question of fidelity … although I note the addition of two new songs by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (again, Tony winners), one of which — along with some, ah, adjustments by Levenson — definitely softens the harshness of the finale.

 

But it’s still painfully brutal.

 

Evan is a traditional musical, with distinct songs that enhance (or interrupt) a conventional storyline. That makes it a bit retro in this post-Les Misérables and Hamilton era, with most musicals relying more heavily on rap and operetta stagings. This softer, gentler approach is absolutely right for Evan, given its focus on vulnerability and fragility.

 

Director Stephen Chbosky echoes this choice. Most of the songs are poignant ballads, and you’ll find no opulent production numbers here; the introductory montage is as fancy as matters get.

 

High school senior Evan Hansen (Platt) has long suffered from social anxiety; he feels isolated, forever on the outside looking in (“Waving Through a Window”). One arm is in a cast — the reason for this injury, tellingly, remains undisclosed — and nobody is willing to sign it: not even his sole friend, Jared (Nik Dodani, channeling his near-identical role in Netflix’s Atypical).

 

Evan writes motivational letters to himself, as a means of bucking up his optimism about what might be good about each day. Such hopes do not include an unfortunate encounter with the volatile Connor Murphy (Colton Ryan) — also a loner, but angry and aggressive — who shoves Evan in the school hallway. Connor’s younger sister Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever) apologizes for this, which makes it worse, because Evan has long crushed on her.

 

Spirit Untamed: Hobbled horse

Spirit Untamed (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mild peril

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.4.21

Although little girls probably will embrace this film, debuting today at movie theaters, the rest of the viewing demographic will be unimpressed.

 

When her beloved horse is snatched by a heartless wrangler, Lucky (far left) enlists the
help of best friends Pru (center) and Abigail, as they pursue the nasty desperado.

Unlike the first film in this franchise — 2002’s Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron, which is a lush, hand-drawn production with genuine heart — this new entry is soulless, coldly calculated product. The simplistic script — by Aury Wallington, Kristin Hahn and Katherine Nolfi — does little beyond re-booting the origin story from Wallington’s 2017-19 TV series offshoot, Spirit Riding Free.

 Scant effort is made to individualize most of the primary characters, who aren’t much more than stereotypical tics and hiccups. Goodness, the villain of the piece — voiced by Walton Goggins — isn’t even granted a name.

 

Co-directors Elaine Bogan and Ennio Torresan bring nothing to the party.

 

Even the CGI animation is flat and uninspired. The entire production has the bland, lazy, slapdash and cloyingly sweet atmosphere of something that was rushed to market, with minimal concern for quality. It’s an overlong TV episode with delusions of grandeur: not quite My Little Pony territory, but darn close.

 

Young Lucky Prescott (Isabela Merced) never knew her mother, Milagro Navarro, a famous horse-riding stunt performer from Miradero, a small town (this from the press notes) “on the edge of the wide-open frontier.” Ergo, figure mid-19th century American West. Although Lucky has grown up on the more “civilized” East Coast, she has her mother’s rebellious streak and love of danger.

 

This greatly concerns her Aunt Cora (Julianne Moore), who decides to move them back to Miradero, where Lucky’s father, Jim (Jake Gyllenhaal), may have better luck controlling the girl.

 

Although initially out of place in this raucous railroad town, Lucky soon becomes best buds with Abigail Stone (McKenna Grace) and Pru Granger (Marsai Martin). Each is bonded to a horse — Boomerang and Chica Linda, respectively — which proves useful when Lucky becomes infatuated with a newly captured wild Mustang she dubs Spirit.

 

This Mustang also catches the eye of a heartless horse wrangler (Goggins), who hopes to capture both Spirit and the extensive herd that he led in the wild. The girls, in turn, are determined to stop him.

 

That’s it for plot. 

The Woman in the Window: Draw the curtains

The Woman in the Window (2021) • View trailer

2.5 stars. Rated R, for violence and profanity

By Derrick Bang

This one should have been a slam-dunk, because the premise is irresistible.

 

And classic.

 

(Alfred Hitchcock certainly thought so, back in the day.)

 

Jane (Julianne Moore, right) proudly shows Anna (Amy Adams) a photo of her son,
which she keeps in a locket.

Consider the elements: Author A.J. Finn’s best-selling 2018 thriller, adapted for the screen by Tony- and Pulitzer-winning playwright Tracy Letts; a top-flight cast headed by Amy Adams, Gary Oldman, Julianne Moore and Jennifer Jason Leigh; and director Joe Wright, whose striking visual sense has propelled terrific films such as Pride & Prejudice, Atonement and Darkest Hour.

 

Trouble is, we’ll likely never see the film this team created.

 

The Woman in the Window became an orphan when its studio parent, Fox 2000, was absorbed by Disney in March 2019. (In a demonstration of childish behavior akin to Nature at her cruelest, takeover studios rarely embrace projects birthed by the vanquished “parent.”) Bowing to unfavorable test screenings, Disney demanded re-shoots and new material scripted by an uncredited Tony Gilroy.

 

What now has hit the screen is awkward, to say the least. And I can’t imagine this version is superior to what Wright and Letts delivered the first time.

 

New York City-based child psychologist Anna Fox (Adams), crippled by a severe case of agoraphobia, has been unable to leave her Manhattan brownstone for nearly a year. She’s trying to work this out via frequent sessions with her visiting psychiatrist, Dr. Landy (Letts, in a solid cameo).

 

He has put her through an ongoing cocktail of prescription drugs; the most recent, Elevan, comes with a strict warning not to mix it with alcohol. Which doesn’t stop Anna from drinking a lot of wine.

 

She’s estranged from her husband Ed (Anthony Mackie) and their daughter Olivia (Mariah Bozeman), although they chat daily on the phone. Anna also has the company of a tenant: aspiring musician David Winter (Wyatt Russell), who lives in the basement, runs errands for her, and handles odd jobs throughout the house.

 

Anna passes the time by watching classic film noirs — a brief clip from Hitchcock’s Spellbound is a bit on the nose — and observing the comings and goings in the buildings across the street, from the safety of her front windows. She therefore notices when a new family, the Russells, moves in directly opposite her brownstown. She’s charmed when 15-year-old Ethan (Fred Hechinger) pays a visit, to give Anna a “hello” gift from his mother.

 

Anna immediately senses that Ethan is oddly uncomfortable, perhaps distracted, for some reason he’s much too shy to share. They nonetheless part as friends.

The Glorias: A glorious life, inventively told

The Glorias (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Rated R, for profanity

By Derrick Bang

We’ve long been intrigued by the notion of our Older Self being able to step back in time, and personally reassure our Younger Self that everything will turn out just fine.

 

Gloria Steinem (Julianne Moore, left) and Bella Abzug (Bette Midler) chortle over some
of the reactions to a recent issue of Ms. Magazine.

(Or, alternatively, of Younger Self confronting Older Self with a narrow gaze, and demanding to know what the heck went wrong.)

 

Director/co-scripter Julie Taymor cleverly exploits this beguiling premise in The Glorias, her adaptation — alongside co-writer Sarah Ruhl — of Gloria Steinem’s 2015 memoir, My Life on the Road.

 

Love her or loathe her, one must acknowledge that Steinem carved out an impressively ambitious career, despite humble and disorientingly peripatetic origins. Taymor — an eclectic filmmaker known for her boldly unique approaches to varied projects such as Frida, Across the Universe and her gender-switching version of Shakespeare’s The Tempest — employs different actresses to depict four primary “pivot points” in Steinem’s life.

 

As her defiantly non-linear narrative bounces back and forth in time, these four selves occasionally meet and discuss what has transpired, or will transpire. Such encounters are filmed in dreamlike, soft-focus monochrome, always while traveling, and usually on a Greyhound bus whose windows look out upon a different time and place: an easy metaphor for the notion that life is a journey, with each stop far more important than the eventual destination.

 

Youngest Gloria (doe-eyed Ryan Kiera Armstrong) is enchanted by her irrepressible, irresponsible but flamboyantly theatrical father, Leo (Timothy Hutton), a huckster and charlatan forever keeping his family one step ahead of the previous town’s creditors. Despite the profoundly negative affect this has on his wife, Ruth (Enid Graham), Leo nonetheless inspires Gloria to recognize that travel is the best possible education.

 

Hutton is excellent: totally persuasive as a silver-tongued con artist who nonetheless knows, in his heart, that he’s destined to disappoint all the people he loves.

 

Twelve-year-old Gloria (Lulu Wilson), solemn beyond her years, is faced with the challenge of caring for her mentally fragile mother, after Leo abandons his family. With Ruth sliding ever deeper into chronic despair, Gloria soon understands how important it is for a woman to be able to make her own way in the world, without being beholden to a husband. We see the resolve in Wilson’s gaze.

 

There’s also a telling conversation, when Gloria discovers that her mother had once been a writer and reporter … forced to work behind a male byline. And we realize, from our contemporary remove, that Gloria would grow up to live her mother’s unlived life. (And how often, I wonder, does a child honor a parent in such an unspoken fashion?)

 

Gloria Bell: A toneless ring

Gloria Bell (2019) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for nudity, sexuality, profanity and drug use
By Derrick Bang

Director Alfred Hitchcock famously observed that “drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”

This film is nothing but life’s dull bits.

When Arnold (John Turturro) and Gloria (Julianne Moore) check into a fancy Las Vegas
hotel/casino, she expects they're about to enjoy a romantic weekend. She really should
know better, by this point in her own movie...

As therefore should be expected, it’s slow, tedious, monotonous and unrelentingly boring.

Director/co-scripter Sebastián Lelio’s approach is no-frills cinéma vérité: We essentially eavesdrop on a fiftysomething woman going about a longstanding routine involving work, family, down time and all the other minutia of a (more or less) average life. Singing to the car radio, while driving to and from work. Efficiently doing her job. Enduring an upstairs neighbor from hell. And so forth.

It feels very much like real life. Indeed, totally feels like real life. Which is rather silly, because most folks go to the movies to escape real life. Why spend money to endure 102 insufferable minutes of stuff that confronts us on a daily basis?

Nor does it help much, that our character — Gloria Bell — is portrayed by an actress as incandescent as Julianne Moore. The subtleties of her performance are sublime; numerous little moments convey a stunning wealth of emotions. Even so, it’s hard to do more than admire her talent and craft: “Wow, that’s a terrific bit of acting from Julianne Moore.”

We still don’t give a damn about Gloria Bell.

Particularly since this slice of her life — an American remake of Lelio’s 2013 Chilean film, Gloria — manipulates her in a manner that seems wholly inconsistent with how she’s introduced.

Gloria, 12 years divorced, lives alone in an apartment beneath the unit occupied by the landlady’s clearly unstable adult son, who shrieks incoherently at all hours of the day and night. (Nothing ever gets done about him.) Gloria occasionally returns home to find that a cat — always the same cat, of unknown origin — has somehow sneaked inside again. (We never learn how.)

She works as an insurance claims adjuster; her phone manner is calm, soothing and helpful. We imagine she gets terrific customer service ratings. She has a co-worker (Barbara Sukowa, as Melinda) who frets about their company’s meager retirement plan, and worries that she’ll have to work until she’s 80. Late in the film, Gloria helps Melinda exit the office. (Has she been fired? Departed of her own volition? We never know.)

Wonderstruck: Very well titled

Wonderstruck (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for no particularly reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.10.17

This one is pure magic.

Wholly enchanting.

Elaine (Michelle Williams) marvels, each evening, that her son Ben (Oakes Fegley) has
crammed even more stuff into the amateur natural history museum disguised as his
bedroom.

Director Todd Haynes orchestrates this slice of fantasy with the exquisite touch of a master conductor who understands the importance of each note played by every instrument. The music analogy is apt, because this film’s many delights include Carter Burwell’s amazing score: a continuous symphony of drama and delight that tells the story just as skillfully as the talented cast.

Haynes uses everything: images, sounds, music, color, puppetry, sketches and much, much more. All are blended with grace, whimsy and a true sense of wonder (with apologies for riffing on the title).

Such a talent for imagination — along with a delicate touch — are essential for anybody embracing the challenge of bringing a Brian Selznick book to the big screen. Martin Scorsese succeeded masterfully, with his 2011 adaptation of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (the film title shorted to Hugo). Now Haynes has duplicated this feat.

Selznick adapted his own book this time, and we shouldn’t be surprised by his skillful scripting debut. His “bookmaking” novels, replete with illustrations, are de facto screenplays to begin with: presented with a master raconteur’s gift for filling the readers’ minds with their own private movies.

I hesitate to explain anything, because Haynes and Selznick coyly tease and toy with us viewers: establishing little mysteries that surround the two primary characters, while mischievously using the cinematic form to dangle clues via sidebars, dreams, flashbacks and all manner of narrative trickery.

Our protagonists are Rose (Millicent Simmonds) and Ben (Oakes Fegley), rebellious young adolescents somewhat askew from social norms. Both are lonely; both have transformed their bedrooms into veritable museums of stuff, all carefully notated, indexed and catalogued. Both are curators — an important term, for what follows — of their possessions, and of their discontent.

Rose endures a privileged life with a disciplinarian father (James Urbaniak) who shows her the warmth he might bestow upon a house plant. She finds solace by filling her bedroom with impressively detailed cityscapes constructed from paper and glue, and by scrapbooking the career of actress Lillian Mayhew (Julianne Moore).

Ben, having just lost his mother to a traffic accident, chafes at having to live with his aunt, sharing a room with his snotty cousin. Flashbacks reveal the bond that Ben shared with his free-spirited mother, Elaine (Michelle Williams), and the patience with which she puts up with his bedroom having grown into what feels like a branch of the nearest natural history museum.

But she stayed mute on one subject that dominates Ben’s thoughts: the identity of his father, who remains a nameless, faceless unknown. She knew, but always put Ben off, promising to reveal all “when the time was right.” Now, of course, the “right” time never will come.

Ben lives in the rural Minnesota community of Gunflint Lake; it’s the summer of 1977.

Rose lives in Hoboken, New Jersey; it’s early autumn in 1927.

Suburbicon: It's a con, all right

Suburbicon (2017) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for violence, profanity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Bad movies prompt all manner of conversational snorts and giggles, while heading home and often well into the following day.

Gardner (Matt Damon) and his sister-in-law, Margaret (Julianne Moore), react in stunned
silence to the newest ludicrous indignity inflicted upon their family.

Really bad movies leave us in stunned silence, unable to process the why and how such a travesty could have survived the lengthy vetting process that must be endured by all major studio productions.

This is a really bad movie.

The Coen brothers have hit both extremes during a long and productive career, and of late they’ve been getting sloppier; A Serious Man, Hail, Caesar! and their misguided 2012 remake of Gambit are a far cry from Fargo and No Country for Old Men.

Suburbicon may be their worst stinker yet.

As a satire — and I admit, that’s speculation — this film’s message is too garbled, sloppy and tasteless. But it’s far too weird, random and exaggerated to be taken seriously, with almost every character an overblown burlesque. They may as well be wearing clown suits.

Co-scripters George Clooney (who also directs) and Grant Heslov appear to have been inspired by the post-WWII, postcard-perfect Levittown suburban communities: the sort of cheerful towns characterized in TV shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. What’s often lost to history is the fact that Federal House Administration lenders restricted housing rental and sales agreements, in all Levittown developments, to (and I quote) “the Caucasian race.”

That issue came to boil in August 1957, when William and Daisy Myers moved their family into a section of Pennsylvania’s Levittown community, becoming the first African-Americans in the all-white enclave. The nasty results were captured by filmmakers Lee Bobker and Lester Becker in a documentary titled Crisis in Levittown, Pa., which remains jaw-dropping, cringe-worthy viewing (and is readily available online).

So: Part of Cooney’s film, set in the late 1950s in a Norman Rockwellian, Levittown-esque community, depicts — with impressive authenticity to actual events — what occurs during the first few weeks after an African-American family moves into a home that shares a back fence with the house belonging to Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon), his wife Rose (Julianne Moore) and their adolescent son Nicky (Noah Jupe).

The problem is that this concept has been married — by shotgun — to a shelved Coen brothers script called Suburbicon, populated by the usual Coen misanthropes and overwhelmed “regular folks” with poor judgment, and a proclivity for ill-advised decisions.

It’s not a good fit.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle — More cheerfully deranged spyjinks

Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for strong violence, frequent profanity, drug content and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang

This is the guiltiest of guilty pleasures.

Director Matthew Vaughn’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle is just as hyperkinetically loopy as its 2014 predecessor, and I mean that in the best possible way. Both films are deranged riffs on the 1960s spy craze: from the colorfully mod sets to the manic gadgets and weapons. Think Our Man Flint or The Man from U.N.C.L.E. ... on steroids.

Waitaminute ... isn't he dead? Having tracked the nefarious Golden Circle's drug-dealing
enterprise to a huge lab concealed beneath a mountain ski chalet, Eggsy (Taron Egerton,
left), Galahad (Colin Firth, center) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal) plan their assault.

The Kingsman films are over the top in all respects, which includes frequent profanity and outrageous dollops of violence, the latter guaranteed to whiten the faces of sensitive viewers. (Consider this ample warning.)

But none of this should be taken seriously. These are comic book-style comedies, even if Vaughn and co-scripter Jane Goldman repeatedly crash the boundaries of good taste. Actually, this sequel is more palatable in one key respect: It lacks the first film’s vulgar sexuality, which is a blessed relief.

On the other hand, this second outing does suffer from bloat. At 141 minutes, Vaughn and Goldman overstay their welcome by at least one frenzied action sequence. Too much of anything becomes tedious.

Following a brilliantly choreographed, pedal-to-the-metal prologue that nearly claims the life of Savile Row-garbed Kingsman agent Eggsy (Taron Egerton), Vaughn and Goldman kick this second global adventure into even higher gear, with an unexpectedly vicious housecleaning: a purge reminiscent of how 1996’s first big-screen Mission: Impossible began. When the dust settles, only Eggsy and Merlin (Mark Strong), the organization’s fastidious Scottish tech guru, are left standing.

Forced to activate their organization’s emergency “Doomsday Protocol,” Eggsy and Merlin are guided to the plains of Kentucky, and the massive Statesman bourbon distillery: actually a front for an even more massive compatriot spy organization that clandestinely protects the civilized world. In its own, inimitably American fashion.

2014’s Kingsman milked considerable humor from the class divide that initially separated Eggsy — introduced as a wayward, uncouth, working-class bloke — from Harry Hart/Galahad (Colin Firth), the seasoned operative who brought the young man into the fold. This film does the same, with even funnier results, as the now-suave Eggsy and (always suave) Merlin confront their rougher, gruffer American counterparts.

Kentucky is cowboy country, and everything about Statesman adheres to that model, starting with boots, pronounced drawls and plenty of denim. The primary Statesman field agents are Tequila (Channing Tatum) and Whiskey (Pedro Pascal); their tech guru — Merlin’s counterpart — is Ginger Ale (Halle Berry).

As for the group’s leader, who else but Jeff Bridges would be cast as Champagne? He has a great time sending up his various cowboy roles, down to little gestures such as Champ’s habit of wiping his mustache with a finger moistened in bourbon.

Maggie's Plan: The best-laid schemes...

Maggie's Plan (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, sexual candor and brief nudity
By Derrick Bang

God must chuckle over how we mortals keep screwing up our own lives.

We fret, we fuss; we second-guess ourselves; we concoct absurdly elaborate schemes designed to accomplish this or that, but which invariably fail; we rebound with even more ludicrous counter-schemes.

When Maggie (Greta Gerwig, left) realizes that she has made a mistake by marrying John,
she concocts an unlikely scheme to re-unite him with ex-wife Georgette (Julianne Moore).
That's assuming, of course, that Georgette even wants him back...

If we’d simply relax and get out of our own way, letting nature take its course, we’d likely be much more pleased with the results.

Writer/director Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan has great fun with this notion. The indie filmmaker’s endearing romantic comedy — based on a story by Karen Rinaldi — also is another fine showcase for steadily rising star Greta Gerwig. The angst-riddled characters and New York setting make comparisons to Woody Allen inevitable, although Miller’s focus is female-centric; she’s also better — more organic — at skewering the pretentious affectations that make her characters so frequently sound like recently arrived visitors from Jupiter.

I’ve often felt that Allen’s gibes at Manhattan pomposity are made at the expense of his characters; the tone feels snooty. Miller, in great contrast, clearly sympathizes with her protagonists, even as she exposes their narcissism; it feels more like Miller is ruefully shaking her head, hoping that we’ll learn by this gentler — but still quite funny — example.

Maggie Hardin (Gerwig) wants to have a baby. Desperately. But she’s unwilling to take the conventional approach, given a track record of relationships that have lasted no more than six months. Artificial insemination therefore seems the best route, and Maggie has selected a slightly off-kilter, former college acquaintance (Travis Fimmel, as Guy) who abandoned a mathematics degree in favor of becoming a pickle entrepreneur.

Despite the decision having been made, Maggie remains conflicted. She shares her doubts with a personal Greek chorus: longtime best friend Tony (Bill Hader) and his wife, Felicia (Maya Rudolph). He’s a lawyer; she and Maggie are work colleagues at The New School, in Greenwich Village. Although Tony and Felicia are a bit crusty with each other, theirs is a loving and successful relationship, and they also care deeply about Maggie ... even if they frequently fail to understand her.

Maggie’s chance encounter with New School part-time teacher John Harding (Ethan Hawke) leads to a fast friendship. They spark: He’s a frustrated debut novelist trying to find his voice; she’s an eager and sympathetic reader. The bond deepens, and that’s a problem; John is married to Georgette (Julianne Moore), and they have two children.