The Italians

Posted on April 10, 2025 at 5:58 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Not rated
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	A scuffle, sad death
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	April 11, 2025

“The Italians” is a messy movie about a messy family. It begins as farce and ends as, well, no spoilers but it ends as something more serious.

Director Michelle Danner stars as Angelina, a middle-aged mother of Nico (Matthew Daddario) and wife of Vincenzo (Rob Estes). She is very Italian. Exaggeratedly Italian. Meaning that she has very strong views and is very open about expressing them: everyone should be Italian, Italians should only marry church-going, previously unmarried Italians who are eager to have babies, and feeding everyone Italian food is much more important than having conversations about feelings or finding compromise. Even her husband calls Angelina sterotypical.

The movie begins with Nico, Angelina, and Vincenzo going to confession with Father Joe (Luca Riemma). They begin to tell him the story we will soon see unfolding, about two family dinners.

The first is when Nico brings his girlfriend, Lily (Abigail Breslin) to meet his parents. She is not what Angelina had in mind. She is not Italian. She is an atheist. More disturbing, she does not eat meat, she has been married before, and she is not sure whether she wants to have children. All of a sudden, a previous girlfriend of Nico’s, known in the family as Geena the Hyena (Olivia Luccardi) for her loud, honking laugh, is looking better. At least, she is Italian. Angelina invites her to the second dinner without telling Nico. Things go even more badly, and Lily leaves in the middle of the meal.

The Italians trailer

We think we know where we are at this point, a relatable romantic comedy about culture clash and family pressure. But even with the flashback from the confession booth structure and the heightened tone, it never captures the rhythms of comedy and lurches when it should zip. The actors seems to be in different movies; their performances are tonally out of synch.

And then the movie shifts in subject and tone to focus on marital issues between Angelina and Vincenzo and then shifts abruptly into sentimental drama. Somehow by that point we still feel connected to the family and the conclusion is genuinely touching.

Parents should know that this film includes discussions of infidelity, family conflict, and illness and a sad death.

Family discussion: Does your family blend more than one culture? If so, did it create any conflicts, big or small? If not, do family members feel pressure to stay within the culture?

If you like this, try: “Moonstruck”

The Ballad of Wallis Island

Posted on April 3, 2025 at 5:40 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Reference to sad death
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 28, 2025

Come on, admit it. Somewhere secretly stored away in your heart, you know what you would do if you won the lottery. “The Ballad of Wallis Island” is a wonderfully warm and touching film about a male nurse who won the lottery twice. The first time, he and his wife travelled all over the world. The second time, now a widower, he decided to spend it all on a concert for an audience of one, reuniting his all-time favorite musical duo for a performance on a very remote island.

That duo is McGwyer & Mortimer, who last performed together 15 years earlier. Herb McGwyer (Tom Basden, also co-screenwriter and composer of the songs) is cynical and detached. He has no idea what he is getting into, even when it turns out he has to disembark from the small boat bringing him to the island by wading to the shore. He assumes that Charles Heath (co-screenwriter Tim Key) is something like a bell boy come to carry his bags. And Charles’ natural awkwardness, compounded by five years of near-complete solitude and being overwhelmed by the presence of his idol, is no help in clarifying the situation.

Furthermore, Charles has not told Herb that Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan) is coming and the performance will be the songs they recorded together. Also, she is married and living in America, where she now sells chutney at the farmer’s market.

Herb needs the £500,000 Charles is paying to make his next solo record. So, even though each new piece of information he learns about the gig is increasingly distressing, he agrees to stick it out, with the exception of the time he tries to leave and finds out that the one boat that takes people to the mainland does not come in bad weather. He is stuck. And then Nell arrives, with her husband, Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen), an easygoing American who spends just long enough at Charles’ house to unsettle Herb and then departs for a birding tour.

This gives Herb and Nell a chance to practice for the upcoming performance. And it gives Charles a chance to go from extremely annoying to less annoying to endearingly annoying.

That’s a tricky challenge for any actor, but Key and Basden created these characters to play to their strengths as performers and it works beautifully. Key shows us that Charles is shy, lonely, sad, and vulnerable. He is not good at showing how much he cares. Basden shows us that Herb is lonely, too, and his songs are everything a character with Herb’s level of success should have in his set list. Mulligan harmonizes beautifully and we see what her experience after the break-up has been when she says what she misses is the music, allowing Herb and us to fill in what she leaves out: she does not miss him. Seeing each other does, though, allow them both to go forward with a better sense of what they have and what they want.

Sian Clifford is terrific as the proprietor of the tiny local store on the island, which never has anything the mainlanders want, like rice to cure a phone that fell in the water (“We have pasta?” she asks hopefully) or a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. We may all wish for a visit to Wallis Island when the movie ends.

Parents should know that this movie has strong language, smoking and drinking, and some mild sexual references.

Family discussion: If you won the lottery, what would you spend the money on? Why is the music so important to Charles? Herb left two things for Charles — what was the reason for each of them? What will Herb do next?

If you like this, try: “Once” and “Sing Street”

The Friend

Posted on March 25, 2025 at 5:36 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language including a sexual reference
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death by suicide
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	March 28, 2025

“How can you explain death to a dog?”

A character in “The Friend” asks that question as she tries to persuade Iris (Naomi Watts) to take a very sad dag who is mourning the loss of Walter (Bill Murray). It is the hardest kind of death to explain to anyone, canine or human. Walter took his own life.

Walter was a writer and he loved to tell the story of how he found the dog, a very large black and white Great Dane named Apollo. Walter’s widow is the rather imperious Barbara (Noma Dumezweni), his fourth wife. She does not like dogs. Iris, also a writer, is an animal person, but she likes cats, not dogs. Her building does not permit animals of any kind. Yet when she finds out that Barbara has sent Apollo to a kennel, she allows herself to be persuaded — temporarily. Iris lives in a rent-controlled apartment. She cannot move. And yet once Apollo gets past the tearing up the pillows and knocking over the furniture phase and Iris gets used to giving him the bed and sleeping on a blow-up mattress, she finds she is very attached to him.

Walter was Iris’ closest friend, and his death is devastating. Iris is struggling with her latest book and also teaching college students and working on a book of Walter’s collected letters with the help of his daughter, Val (Sarah Pidgeon). We get a brief look at a happy dinner party, and it is clear Walter is a natural story-teller who relishes being on center stage, being charmingly incorrigible. It is also clear that Iris relishes challenging him with love and humor as only the dearest friends can. Later she will speak fondly of the way they talked for hours about books and people and we can imagine that their conversations were playful, heartfelt, and very literary, lots of witty references and ripostes.

One of the best scenes in the film has Iris meeting with a therapist for what she thinks is going to be a simple request. Tom McCarthy, better known as a director of films like “The Station Agent” and “Spotlight,” gives a beautiful performance as the sympathetic doctor, gently asking Iris what she would say to Walter if he was there. Watts shows us the pain and confusion Iris is feeling, and the anger she has not been willing to allow herself to feel. Being honest with herself gives her the insight she needs to tell her own story, gently revealed to us in an imaginary conversation between Iris and Walter.

McCarthy is just one of the outstanding cast in supporting roles, including Constance Wu and Carla Gugino as Walter’s previous wives, Sara Pidgeon as the daughter Walter did not know about until she was an adult, Josh Pais as Iris’s editor, who cheerfully tells her that Walter’s suicide has made him “hotter than ever,” which will help sales of the book of his letters, and Felix Solis as Hektor, the super in Iris’ building who tries to enforce the no-pets rule.

“The Friend” is based on a best-selling book of that name by Sigrid Nunez, winner of the National Book Award. While we see the Iris-Apollo relationship develop from putting up each other to deep affection, the movie is much more a meditation on grief, and it matches the literary grace of the book with delicacy and depth.

Parents should know that this film includes discussion of suicide and loss, some strong language, drinking and drunkenness, and sexual references.

Family discussion: Would you want to be friends with Walter? Why were people so devoted to him despite his faults? Was the solution Iris came up with fair?

if you like this, try: “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” and “Wonder Boys”

Opus

Posted on March 13, 2025 at 12:50 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violent content including a grisly image, language, sexual material and brief graphic nudity
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	March 14, 2025

“Opus” is almost smart, almost good, and almost worth your time. A first-rate but mostly under-used cast flounders in the second half of a story that begins as a satire of obsession with celebrity that veers into a less successful thriller.

The first feature film from writer/director Mark Anthony Green stars John Malcovich as Alfred Moretti, a rock star who is a combination of Bob Dylan and Elvis Presley, not in style of music but in prominence and influence. Thirty years ago, he was the most popular musician in the world (every teenager of the era used his signature song as a ring tone, we learn). And then he burnished his legend by disappearing. Now, after decades of isolation, his long-time publicist (a very funny Tony Hale playing a character with the wonderfully name Soledad Yusef) informs the world that Moretti will release a new record and he is inviting a very small group to his compound to be the first to hear it.

They are Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri), a frustrated young journalist working at a Rolling Stone-style magazine whose ideas are always given to more senior writers, her boss, Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett), television star Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), estranged former Moretti colleague Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), veteran photographer Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), and “influencer” (I always have to put that term in quotes) Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami). Other than Ariel, these characters have at most one attribute each, despite the best efforts of the excellent cast. Stan is starstruck and arrogant, telling Ariel to take notes and forbidding her to write even a subsidiary piece about the compound and its residents. The others barely have anything to do except taking for granted this exceptional opportunity and going along (as long as they can) with everything that happens because they want Moretti to keep including them. They keep telling the emperor that his clothes are fabulous. Maybe they’ve deluded themselves into thinking he is. Maybe they just want him to think they’re cool, an even bigger delusion.

Their phones and laptops are confiscated “to preserve the integrity” of the experience (so much for the “influencer.” And the residents of this remote compound are more than staff; they all seem to be part of a cult. At first, they seem to be a peaceful arts community. Then things get quirky. Then they get creepy. Then they get terrifying.

Like Moretti, this movie is not as smart as it thinks it is. It is better at raising thoughtful questions than illuminating them. By the end, it does not earn its provocation.

Parents should know that this movie has extended peril and violence with many graphic and very disturbing images. Many characters are injured and killed. Characters use strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: Why do the visitors go along with some of the craziness? At what point would you decide to leave? Who does Moretti remind you of? What is the meaning of the final “thank you?”

My Dead Friend Zoe

Posted on February 27, 2025 at 12:40 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	War violence, suicide, mostly offscreen
Diversity Issues:	Some sexist and harassing characters
Date Released to Theaters:	February 28, 2025

Sonequa Martin-Green gives an exquisite, unforgettable performance in a story of love, grief, memory, and healing, “My Dead Friend Zoe.” First-time writer/director Kyle Hausemann-Stokes was a Bronze Star-awarded paratrooper in the US Army who served as a convoy commander in Iraq. He brings enormous specificity and understanding to an “inspired by a true story” film, with Martin-Green as Merit, a veteran struggling with PTSD. As she says, her struggle is not over “an incident but a person.”

That person is Zoe, played with warmth and bone-dry humor by Natalie Morales. Merit and Zoe have the kind of deep connection that comes from a similar response to intense and terrifying circumstances rather than some of the factors that sustain other friendships like interests in common. The way they talk to each other shows that their rhythms synch perfectly. They can finish each other’s thoughts; they are endlessly supportive through and in spite of perpetual teasing; they can switch seamlessly from joking to, if not seriousness, joking grounded by sincerity. When male soldiers demean Merit with sexist remarks, Zoe stands up for her friend, even though they outrank her. They utterly trust and rely on each other.

For that reason, Merit does not see that they have differences of increasing importance as their terms of service are ending.

Or rather, did not see. As the movie begins, Merit’s service has ended and she is back at home, profoundly traumatized. She will not let herself remember how her best friend Zoe died. Instead, she is awash in memories so vivid she feels like Zoe is still with her. And she likes that feeling. She is not ready to let Zoe go.

We can see why. Morales, always endlessly appealing on screen and here in a perfect role, the warm, wise-cracking, ride or die friend we would all love to have, imaginary if necessary.

Hausemann-Stokes depicts the imaginary character with assurance and exceptional delicacy, especially impressive for a first-time writer/director. It would be easy to make this concept intrusive or unintentionally funny. But we can see, thanks to sensitive writing and Martin-Green’s extraordinary performance. Oscar-winners Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris show up to provide able support. Freeman plays a support group counselor and Harris is Merit’s grandfather, Dale, a veteran whose service inspired Merit to enlist and whose early dementia is both another source of loss and a possibility of finding some purpose. Their scene together in a boat on the lake near his home is especially moving and one of many graceful moments that expand our understanding and move the characters forward.

Merit meets Alex (wonderfully appealing Utkarsh Ambudkar) and their immediate connection gives her the first sense of future possibilities, her first reason to think about leaving Zoe in the past. Hausemann-Stokes and his brilliant cast get the details right to bring us into this world and expand our understanding of our own struggles with loss.

Parents should know that this movie deals with wartime peril and violence, suicide, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Characters drink, smoke, and use very strong language. A character has dementia and there is family stress.

Family discussion: What is survivor guilt? How does Dale help Merit think about memory and loss? Why didn’t Merit know what Zoe was worried about?

If you like this, try: “The Outpost” and “Thank You for Your Service”