Michael

Posted on April 22, 2026 at 12:04 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some thematic material, language, and smoking
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Smoking
Diversity Issues:	Child abuse, parent whips a child with a belt
Date Released to Theaters:	April 24, 2026

To understand what kind of movie this is, you need to know that most, but not all, of Michael Jackson’s siblings and most, but not all, of his children were producers. His lawyer, John Branca, also produced and is played by Miles Teller.

Janet Jackson, Michael’s sister and a musical superstar of almost equal prominence, who did not produce, is erased from the story. So his non-superstar sister Rebbie. So is any possible fault or flaw in the title character, and any effort to give the rest of the characters any depth or personality. What it does find time for is way too many scenes of ecstatic fans at concerts and Michael visiting sick children. The movie has its entertaining moments, mostly when Jaafar Jackson replicates some of his uncle’s most iconic performances, but the dramatic sections are weak and sanitized.

The late self-titled “King of Pop” is played by his real-life nephew, Jermaine Jackson’s son, Jaafar., who evokes the memory of his uncle with his look (before and after nose job) and moves. Colman Domingo is powerfully crafty and brutal as Joseph Jackson, the cruel factory worker who was determined to make his children his ticket out of Gary, Indiana, and did not hesitate to pull out his belt to whip them if he felt they were not paying him enough respect. Nia Long is warm and empathetic as Katherine Jackson, whose quiet support for Michael gives him something to hold onto and whose mild protests get less mild after Michael’s success.

A stand-out here is Juliano Valdi as young Michael Jackson, both in his ability to show us the then 10-year-old (but claiming to be 8) as an already-electrifying performer. (I well remember how dazzling my sisters and I were by the Jackson 5’s first national television appearance, introduced by Diana Ross.)

The Michael of this film is a 20th century Peter Pan and we are constantly reminded of how he identified with that character, writing his father’s name next to a depiction of Captain Hook. He is portrayed here as a gentle, almost angelic, innocent who considers his pets (including a giraffe, a llama, and Bubbles the chimp) as his only friends and who loves to be swept away by classic old films. His bodyguard, Bill (KeiLyn Durrel Jones) is sympathetic. But he seems to have no relationship with anyone in his family except his mother, and in the most simplistic and superficial terms the movie suggests that the only issue is learning how to stand up to his father. We learn little about what inspires his music and what performing means to him. There’s nothing here about “We Are the World” and the controversies over his marriage, his children, his mutilating surgeries, and the allegations of abuse.

The question you have to ask yourself about a musical biography is whether it has something to say beyond what we get from watching archival footage of the subject. The answer here is no. Weirdly, we see Michael tell director John Landis to shoot the dance in the “Thriller” music video the way Fred Astaire insisted his dance numbers should be shot: a steady camera showing the full bodies of the dancers, but the dance numbers here do not follow that good advice. They are dynamic but they cut away from what we want to see.

And the portrayals are paper-thin. We do not learn anything about Michael’s relationship to his siblings, what any human friendships he had were like, or what inspired his music. The movie is clear about Joseph’s exploitation of Michael, trying to control him to continue to do what is best for the family (meaning money and attention for Joseph), with no commitment or even recognition of what might be best for Michael. Joseph wants him to continue to perform with the family, making solo music only on his off hours. We are supposed to cheer for Michael when he gets a lawyer to stand up to Joseph and then stands up for himself. But it is hard to see this film as anything but continuing the family’s efforts to make money from Michael’s talent. At the end we wonder whether he would see this as just another attempt to profit from his legacy.

Parents should know that this film includes child abuse, smoking, body dysmorphia, and a scary accident when Jackson is badly burned. He also visits very sick children and patients.

Family discussion: Is this a fair representation of Michael Jackson? What more do you want to know? Why was he so beloved?

If you like this, try: “The Jacksons: An American Dream,” “This is It,” “The Jacksons: Road to Victory,” and clips of Michael Jackson singing and dancing

Rental Family

Posted on November 20, 2025 at 8:54 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated Rated PG-13 for thematic elements, some strong language, and suggestive material
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad death, family conflicts
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	November 21, 2025

“Rental Family” written and directed by a Japanese woman who goes by the mononym Hikiri, is one of the most heartwarming and humane films of the year, with wise and touching insights into the connections that make life meaningful and the fear of being hurt that holds us back from trusting each other. It is a festival favorite, with audience awards that include a narrative feature award at the Middleburg Film Festival.

Brendan Fraser plays Phillip, an American actor who is adrift in Japan, still living there years after his most popular role in a toothpaste commercial. His most recent role was a tree. He lives in a tiny apartment, eating take-out dinner and looking at the neighbors in the high rise across the street, “Rear Window”-style and has occasional encounters with a sex worker, to have some semblance of human contact.

His agent calls him with an offer. All he knows about the part he is to play is “sad American.” He discovers that it is not the kind of performance he is used to. He is a fake mourner at a fake funeral the fake corpse has purchased to see if the affection and respect he might get after his death is enough to make him want to continue to live.

In the US, if someone is having suicidal thoughts, we would expect them to see a psychotherapist or other counselor. But in Japan, where cognitive therapy and other psychological resources are not as accepted or available, an alternative has served the same purpose: “rental” family members to do what their customers wish they could get from the people in their lives. It’s not as different as we might think, especially in the emerging opportunities of parasocial and AI “relationships.”

Just as a therapist can sometimes be a stand-in for characters who create conflicts in the life of a patient, the rental family can be a way of accessing the support or even the conversations that a struggling person wishes for.

At first, Phillip turns down an offer to join a rental family company. But the money is good and it is kind of an acting job. His first “role” is fiancé to a young woman who needs a Caucasian man from North America she will call Brian to go through a wedding ceremony with her so she does not have to tell her parents the real reason she is moving to Canada. Then he has to pretend to be the father of a young girl who needs both parents to apply to a special school.

Each of his jobs begins to open up a part of him that he did not realize he had closed off. The sympathetic sex worker (who makes a delightful surprise appearance in another context later on), is only half teasing when she tells him they have the same job, paid intimacy. Phillip cannot help first being interested, then concerned, then invested, and then committed to the people he is being paid by. This is ideal casting for Fraser, uncomfortably large among the much smaller Japanese, his deep, expressive eyes showing us the way he slips from closely observing for “yes, and” improv-style purposes to finding depths of compassion and connection. His scenes with the little girl are endearingly natural, and the look on his face when the initially hostile and wary child falls asleep with her head on his shoulder is infinitely moving. This is a lovely tribute to the people who pretend to be part of someone’s family and an even lovelier one to the people who take the risk of letting themselves truly connect.

Parents should know that this film includes a sad death, some strong language, a non-explicit sexual situation with a sex worker, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: Which job was the most difficult for Phillip and why? What do people get from renting someone to be their family or friend?

If you like this, try: the Japanese film “Departures” and “Local Hero”

Grow

Posted on October 13, 2025 at 2:59 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	Kindergarten - 3rd Grade
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG for thematic elements, some suggestive references and brief language
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Some vandalism
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	October 17, 2025

Grow is that rare theatrical release that is a genuine treat for the family, filled with charm and lightly dusted with whimsy.

Charlie (Priya-Rose Brookwell) lives in an English orphanage she is determined to leave so she can try to find her mother, who left her behind so she could go to Los Angeles to try to become a movie star. When the head of the orphanage, exhausted by chasing after Charlie, tracks down a relative, she is relieved to be able to hand her off.

That relative is Charlie’s Aunt Dinah Little (Golda Rosheuvel of “Bridgerton” and “Queen Charlotte”), who is struggling to keep the family farm going. She is resolved but grim about taking on another responsibility.

Dinah’s farm is in a (fictional) rural community that is obsessed with pumpkins. The annual pumpkin competition is so essential to the town’s identity that there is a permanent count-down sign showing how many days to the next festival, and a gigantic annual prize of 100,000 pounds.

A snooty titled couple called Lord and Lady Smythe-Gherkin (Tim McInnerny of “Notting Hill” and Jane Horrocks of “Little Voice” and “Chicken Run”) have won every year except once, when their pumpkin was broken, and that year the prize was taken by a local farmer named Arlo (Nick Frost, often seen with Simon Pegg in movies like “Paul,” “Shawn of the Dead,” and “Hot Fuzz”).

Charlie has a gift for communicating with plants. When Dinah discovers that Charlie can “hear” what plants need to thrive, she realizes that they have a chance to beat the Smythe-Gherkins. She also begins to think that going organic might be a way to save the farm.

Someone else is determined to win the competition, a scientist named Mr. Gregory (Jeremy Swift of “Ted Lasso”), who will lose his job if he cannot prove that his system is superior. Gregory also has a son who becomes Charlie’s friend.

Director John McPhail loves to transcend genres, and this film weaves seamlessly between elements of comedy, fantasy, family drama, and even a touch of (light) horror. The winning performances lend warmth throughout that is endearing, especially the evolving relationship between Dinah and Charlie, from duty to partnership, to family. This is a touching, funny, smart, heartfelt film that should be a family favorite.

Parents should know that this film includes parental abandonment and neglect, brief schoolyard language, and some potty humor.

Family discussion: Have you ever tried to plant something? How did Dinah change and why?

If you like this, try; “Hoot” and “Dolphin Tale”

A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Posted on September 16, 2025 at 3:35 pm

B +

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language
Profanity:	F word used many times
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Sad off-screen death of a parent, medical issue for an infant
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	September 19, 2025

Two strangers meet at a wedding, and the next day find themselves — in both senses of the term — on a car trip, guided by a mysterious GPS, through apparently endless unoccupied rural landscapes, stopping at doors that appear unconnected to any structure but turn out to be portals to the past. The journey, with a script by “The Menu’s” Seth Reiss and directed by Kogonada is romantic in the dictionary meaning of the term, “characterized by themes of love, emotion, imagination, and nature.”

Margot Robbie plays Sarah, and Colin Farrell, who starred in Kogonada’s “After Yang,” plays David. They both arrive at the wedding unaccompanied. And, as we will learn, they both arrive in vehicles provided by a very quirky firm simply called The Car Rental Agency, “specializing in emergencies.” The agency, which operates in a gigantic warehouse with just two cars, 1990s Saturns. Its two proprietors (Kevin Kline and Phoebe Waller-Bridge) sit behind a table and, when David shows up having found his car with a boot for unpaid tickets, a flier for the rental company conveniently nearby, they have a file on him. He initially turns down their GPS, insisting that he can just use his phone. But they warn him that phones can fail, and it is clear they won’t let him go without the GPS, so he takes it.

The GPS works normally on the way to the wedding, where David and Sarah meet, drawn to one another but hesitant. It seems like a missed connection. The next morning, the GPS (voiced by Jodie Turner-Smith, Farrell’s co-star in “After Yang”) invites David on an adventure and then directs him to get a “fast food cheeseburger.” Sarah is there, also eating a cheeseburger. As they leave, her car won’t start and the GPS tells him to give her a ride. The big, bold, beautiful journey begins.

The first doorway is mostly to get them used to the idea, and then each successive doorway takes them to more complicated and painful memories. Two of particular impact show us separate past encounters that intersect in meaningful ways. Others allow David and Sarah to understand their parents (sensitive performances by real-life couple Lily Rabe as Sarah’s mother and Hamish Linklater as David’s father). They get to glimpse how their time at the wedding could have been different. The one audience may respond to the most viscerally, because it’s high school, takes David back to his performance at age 15 in the lead role of “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.” The details of these encounters are wisely chosen and performed with the delicacy and authenticity of Kogonada’s previous films. The affection for theater kids (notice the posters in Sarah’s high school bedroom and the song David sings in the car) underscores the importance of finding the truth in stories.

Cinematographer Benjamin Loeb (also of “After Yang”) brings a poetic sensibility to the images, enhancing the fantasy element of the story but grounding it (literally) in the landscape. The shape and bright primary colors of the umbrellas are striking, and overhead shots evoke a heroic adventure. The story’s encouragement for those who have the courage to take a risk and change old patterns has a quiet optimism that may send some of us to open a few bold and beautiful doors ourselves.

Parents should know that this movie includes many uses of the f-word, some sexual references, and a brief, non-explicit sexual situation, a sad death of a parent, and a medical issue involving an infant.

Family discussion: How are Sarah and David alike? How are they different? How did what they learn about themselves change the way they thought about each other? What moment in your life would you want to go back to in order to learn from it?

If you like this, try: “9 Days” and “All of Us Strangers”

The Roses

Posted on August 25, 2025 at 5:57 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for language throughout, sexual content, and drug content
Profanity:	Constant very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, drugs, drunkenness
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic, cartoon-style peril, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	None
Date Released to Theaters:	August 28, 2025

There’s a reason romantic fairy tales end with the wedding, assuring us that the couple lived happily ever after but not taking on the difficult task of showing us what that looks like. Very few movies attempt to show what happens after love is declared and the wedding cake has been served to the guests, when the couple has to figure out how to hold onto the stardust while sharing the grubbier and surprisingly controversial tasks of operating a household and, for many, raising children.

“The Roses,” like the 1989 Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner “War of the Roses,” is based on a book by Warren Adler. Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn calls that book “Terrifying, black-humored, black-hearted and bristling,” a description many people might apply to her own work. The book and the two movies are about a once-loving marriage that curdles into scabrous loathing.

This lightly adapted version, changing some details but retaining the vitriol, stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Theo, an architect, and Olivia Colman as Ivy, a chef. The movie opens in a disastrous session with a counselor, as the couple tries to come up with what they love about each other but cannot resist the temptation to insult each other as viciously as possible instead. The counselor tells them there may not be a way to move forward and we get a glimpse of the underlying connection between them. They cannot help laughing at the brutality of the insults. You know the song lyric, “too hot not to cool down?” This is “too hot to ever get irretrievably icy.”

We go back in time to see their meeting in London, both of them unhappy because their ideas are not appreciated by their employers. Their immediate attracting is electric and speaking of too hot not to cool down, minutes after meeting they are having sex in the refrigerator closet.

A few years later, they are in California, parents of twins. Theo is excited about the unveiling of his dream project, a maritime museum and Ivy enjoys her barely-breaking-even crab restaurant near the water. They disagree about some parenting choices; Ivy loves to give them sugary treats and Theo is all about eating healthy and working out. But they are endearingly supportive of one another.

And then, their fortunes turn upside down. Theo’s building collapses, along with his future in the profession, the same night Ivy’s 30 covers a day restaurant instantly becomes impossible to get a reservation following one rave review. Ivy takes over as breadwinner, and Theo takes over as full-time dad, housekeeper, and physical trainer for the twins, who are as into it as he is. This is when Theo and Ivy begin to resent and then feel like they loathe each other. They separate

Colman and Cumberbatch are so endlessly watchable that it’s almost easy to overlook that this is essentially a one-joke movie, the same one over and over as Ivy and Noah get increasingly more frustrated and hurt and lash out in increasingly more lacerating ways. Comedy often comes from seeing someone burn bridges we do not dare to. The brilliant supporting cast is woefully underused, except for Allison Janney, transcending the limits of the script as Ivy’s divorce lawyer, and it just gets exhausting. The ending tries to have it both ways, likely to leave audiences saying, “Wait, what?” On the way there, depending on your tolerance for people saying terrible things to their spouses, you may find it funny.

Parents should know that this movie includes very crude and graphic language and sexual references, extreme insults and pranks, and drinking, drunkenness, and drug use. While presented in a heightened comic tone, the underlying hostility may disturb some audience members.

Family discussion: Did you find yourself taking sides over the course of the film? Whose side? Did you switch sides?

If you like this, try; “The War of the Roses” and the book by Warren Adler and, for a more dramatic and romantic look at marital discord over the years, “Two for the Road”