Catching Up: "Just Mercy"

 ☆☆☆☆½ 

The story of Just Mercy is so good, so compelling, and the movie is made and performed with such crackling intensity, that it may come as a surprise about two-thirds of the way through to realize it's actually based on a true story.

Just Mercy moves with the narrative thrust of a legal thriller – an idealistic young lawyer, fresh out of Harvard (Michael B. Jordan) moves to the Deep South to become an advocate for death row convicts.  It's the late 1980s, but in Monroeville, Ala., time has stopped, and other than the cars, the phones and some embarrassing hair choices, nothing has changed at all since long before the town's most famous resident, Harper Lee, wrote To Kill a Mockingbird. Townsfolk proudly tell the new black man in town, who they assume is visiting, not to miss the Mockingbird museum, proudly asserting that Atticus Finch was real.

As the lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, meets the men he wants to help, their stories stun him. Two in particular – a Vietnam veteran (Rob Morgan) so emotionally wounded by battle that he still cannot understand why he did what he did, and the hardened and embittered Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx), who has come to believe it's irrelevant that he didn't actually commit the murder that sent him to prison. Truth, he knows, is merely an inconvenience. But Stevenson is determined, and he's helped by a young woman (Brie Larson) whose skin color is a distinct advantage in the "community" that only considers white people.

Just Mercy is indeed concerned with travesties of justice, which makes it achingly relevant. Director Destin Daniel Cretton (Short Term 12) has set to to make a superior thriller, and it's because Just Mercy works so fantastically well at that level that it more than earns its disbelieving rage and clear-eyed anger. Just Mercy will get you worked up, but not at the expense of a captivating story told with impressive style and skill.



Viewed June 9, 2020 -- VOD

"The Vast of Night"

 ☆☆☆ 

To set us in the right frame of mind, The Vast of Night (exclusively on Amazon Prime) opens with a sly and inventive riff on Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone," pushing in to a mid-century television set that presents the story as a tale of the weird and unexplainable.

Indeed, much of The Vast of Night is deliciously weird and unexplainable, also visually stylish and suffused with the lonely, echoing feel of a distant AM radio station playing love songs at night.

That makes sense because the film, by first-time director Andrew Patterson (from a script by James Montague and Craig W. Sanger) is set in a remote, barren New Mexico town in the late 1950s, when thoughts of Sputnik and atomic war and monsters from beyond filled everyone's heads. Everett (Jake Horowitz) is the DJ at the local AM radio station and Fay (Sierra McCormick) is the overnight telephone operator. In a wonderfully acted, technically dazzling scene near the beginning of this brief, moody movie, Fay comes across a strange sound, and soon discovers that something even stranger seems to be happening outside of her little cubby hole of an office.

She and Everett begin to investigate, and stumble onto a complicated backstory related by two people in scenes that are not nearly as captivating as they should be. Because The Vast of Night was made on a minuscule budget, the film necessarily needs to tell more than than it can show. That may be all well and good for an indie drama, but if you're going to tell a sci-fi story like this as a movie, you need to be prepared to show more than The Vast of Night possibly can. In two uncomfortably long stretches, the screen turns black – and while that's unnerving and disorienting, it's also less effective than director Patterson hopes.

Another scene with a woman who may hold a key to understanding the mystery goes on far too long – it takes up about 20 percent of the movie's short running time, and the energy flags. The finale gives us more than might be reasonably expected, but after such a strong, mesmerizing start and such a bad fumble a third of the way in, The Vast of Night ends less with a bang than with a whimper.



Viewed May 31, 2020 – Amazon Prime

"Driveways"

 ☆☆☆☆½ 

Two months ago, Driveways would have seemed like a sweet and touching film, a movie so tender and gentle that if you aren't also very quiet might surprise you by flying away. Yet, here it is now, in the middle of May 2020, and it seems almost profound – a portrait of the way we lived then, back when the great Brian Dennehy was alive in a world untouched by sadness and trouble.

Driveways is a beautiful film under any circumstances, but even more because Dennehy is gone now, and because it wants to show us how hard it is to connect with people, and how that can be both rewarding and painful. No one is a threat in Driveways, no one is to be feared, and life is to be celebrated, even its pains and heartaches, its incalculable losses and unending regrets.

Directed by Andrew Ahn from a screenplay by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen, Driveways is easy to mistake for a film in which not much happens; watching it is like driving by the nondescript little house on the nondescript little street where most of it takes place – you'd never know at first glance how much love and loss and joy and pain are contained within it.

Hong Chau plays Kathy, whose sister April has died and left behind a mess, physically and emotionally. It falls to Kathy to clean up April's house, and April was a tortured, hoarding soul. Kathy brings her son Cody (Lucas Jaye) with her, and it isn't long before the boy has met the next-door neighbor, a Vietnam veteran named Del (Dennehy). They befriend each other. And that is the movie.

Driveways has little straightforward plot, but is suffused with love for its characters and their humanity. It is about the way we suffer through our losses, our tiny ones and our biggest ones, and still get by – fine the way we are, maybe, but better with each other. It is graceful, emotionally resonant and in its own very quiet way, if it strikes you in just the right mood and at the right moment, staggeringly great.

NOTE:

This is one of a series of new-release films that cannot be seen in theaters due to ongoing closures. Through "virtual cinema," it can be rented and watched at home, with a portion of each "virtual ticket" going directly to the cinema you choose. https://drivewaysfilm.vhx.tv

Viewed May 9, 2020 – Virtual Cinema

"Spaceship Earth"

 ☆☆☆☆½ 

If you remember Biosphere 2 at all, it's probably because you recall it being a vaguely wacky, questionably scientific science experiment in the Arizona desert in the early 1990s ... or maybe because you saw Bio-Dome starring Pauly Shore way back when. Though it was heralded with a media blitz, Biosphere 2 became an oddity.

Its science was questioned, its motives and ideals became suspect, and eventually – well, there's no way I'd ruin the plot twist that comes more than two-thirds of the way through this marvelous, stirring  new documentary.

Biosphere 2 had the vague air of absurdity about it because it was, in fact, absurd. Filmmaker Matt Wolf doesn't try to pretend otherwise. As Spaceship Earth makes entirely clear, it was a radical, liberal, hippy concept created by a radical, liberal, hippy theater troupe led by a charismatic, mercurial man named John Allen. What place does a communal theater troupe have exploring questions of science, humanity and the ways mankind might live in space?

Wolf's film asks that question seriously, and explores the drama, the media frenzy, the personalities and an eleventh-hour plot twist so surprising it made my jaw drop and so ultimately disheartening it makes the film resonate with unexpected power.

As to what place a visionary artist has in dreaming up a possible future, Spaceship Earth does drop a reference to Walt Disney's EPCOT Center – and tantalizes with a wistful truth that it's the crackpot dreamers who have shaped our history ... and who too often, and with devastating consequences, are undone.

NOTE: Spaceship Earth is available on Hulu and other streaming services, but may also be watched by purchasing a "virtual cinema" ticket from many local, independent movie theaters. About half of the cost of the ticket will go directly toward the movie theater.


Viewed May 8, 2020 – Hulu

"Portrait of a Lady on Fire"

 ☆☆☆½ 

In the end, the quality of the best romantic films can be determined by the final shots. Think about The Way We Were or Bridges of Madison County or Call Me By Your Name and the exquisite heartbreak of those final moment. Portrait of a Lady on Fire comes achingly close to achieving that transcendence, and I had to wonder why it just almost worked despite perfect performances and a visual magnificence that is truly rare.

There's a much buzzed-about (quite literally; see the movie, you'll know what I mean) scene in the middle where the two protagonists – the aristocratic Héloïse and the working-class painter Marianne – accompany the household maid to a nighttime gathering of women, who sing the most haunting song you might ever have heard in the movies. While it's impossible not to be struck by the beauty of the moment, it overwhelms the story.

Though the movie certainly brought me closer to these two women (played by Noémie Merlant and Adéle Haenel), yet they both are decidedly impenetrable. The movie held me at a distance until close to the end, when one accuses the other of the passions of jealousy and possession, and finally their repressed emotions come to the fore. In a movie about same-sex romance in the 18th century, repression is to be expected. Yet by that final shot, when one character breaks down while she listens to a symphony, I wanted to break down, too, rather than be intrigued, but not consumed, by the fate of these women and their love.



Viewed Feb. 29, 2020 -- AMC Burbank 6

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"The Invisible Man"

 ☆☆☆½ 

The opening scene of The Invisible Man is a wordless master class in suspense filmmaking. It shows us a person we don't know, and within a few minutes, we are entirely invested in her story as she flees a modern mansion on a secluded hillside.

Cecelia (Elisabeth Moss) finds a physical way out of an abusive relationship with a Silicon Valley optics pioneer, but this man is not out of her head. The unbearably tense introduction establishes Leigh Whannell's Invisible Man as a multi-layered horror film. In its first hour, it pivots between scary, tense, disturbing and excruciating, cementing Whannell's reputation as one of the best directors working in horror, and Moss's career of playing victims who are sick of being victimized. She, and the film – one of the best-ever depictions of the deep terror of domestic violence – are extraordinarily good for a very long time.

As it takes a necessary a turn into more action-driven territory, it remain a compelling puzzle (its twists are such that I'm not sure they could be entirely explained, even with a diagram), it loses some of its deep-seated fright. The latter half feels a little like a pastiche – mix some Halloween, The Matrix and a touch of the underrated '80 gem Jagged Edge, but be sure not to overtake – and contains moments that require a bit of disbelief. It's also consistently satisfying, though sometimes only just, because its biggest flaw is a villain who can't match Moss's complex, tortured, courageous Cecelia. Moss is more than visible; she's superb.



Viewed Feb. 28, 2020 -- AMC Universal City

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"Ordinary Love"

 ☆☆☆☆ 

In its quiet specificity, this small movie about a long-married couple coping with illness elicits a warm, compassionate empathy, so by the end it is about any two people who come to sad and difficult realizations about life and happiness.

Joan (Lesley Manville) and Tom (Liam Neeson) have, it's revealed, already survived loss, and learned how to navigate around mortality. But one morning, it rears its head again as Joan discovers a lump in her breast. On one level Ordinary Love is about how they both struggle with the devastating effects of cancer. But what's really magnificent about Ordinary Love is how it shows people whose commitment is tested, and how their relationship evolves to take on the shape of their challenges.

Ordinary Love watches Joan and Tom eat together, walk together, shop together, bicker together, and sometimes love together so fiercely that it looks like hate, or maybe it's the other way around, and then they wake up and have to do it all over again. It's a rare depiction of marriage, and in its gentle way may be even more honest than the intense drama of Marriage Story.

Manville is magnetic, bringing warmth, grace and fragility to this carefully observed woman. Neeson is equally strong and both are beautifully understated as the turns in directions both wholly anticipated and, often, wonderfully not. Ordinary Love, as the title implies, is not looking to break new ground, but rather to see a common world in an uncommonly compassionate light.



Viewed Feb. 21, 2020 -- AMC Burbank 8

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"Downhill"

☆☆½ 

It's a brave thing to take on a movie as complicated, introspective and uncomfortable as Force Majeure and try to turn it into something resembling a mainstream Hollywood film, and for that directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (with co-screenwriter Jesse Armstrong) deserve more credit than they'll probably ever get. They've actually done an admirable job, but they've also cast Will Ferrell in one of the lead roles, which is, to be generous, a mistake.

On the other hand, there's Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who comes close to rescuing the movie from Ferrell's avalanche of bad choices. He is exasperatingly impressed with his own inflated sense of comedic genius, completely disconnected from everything around him. Mockery comes so naturally to him that his efforts at sincerity are forced and unconvincing. He's the worst part of the movie; unfortunately, he's also the main part of the movie.

He plays a husband and father who makes a miscalculation during a Swiss Alps vacation that undermines his wife's sense of stability and commitment. As counterpoint to Ferrell's inept atttempts at drama, Louis-Dreyfus she shines in every scene she's in; with just a look she's able to years of hostility, resentment and, somewhere in there, love. She fills the movie with a sense of uncomfortable loneliness, but both her co-star and the script cast her adrift (quite literally for a while), and Downhill never achieves the sustained mood or moral ambiguity of its superior, Swedish inspiration -- though it's impressive that it even tries. 

"The Assistant"

 ☆☆☆ 

For a movie that has moments of caustic anger and even brutality, The Assistant is awfully restrained. At first, it seems a fitting response, like a quiet, reserved victim who isn't sure about speaking out. But as this brief film unfolds slowly, its restraint becomes less intriguing and more confounding.

Its quiet nature is sometimes a plus, but in the end writer-director Kitty Green's film is so glum and numb that it loses potency – even while, oddly, it manages to disturb and distress.

The movie takes place on one long, dark, winter day as Jane, the assistant to a powerful New York film producer clearly modeled on Harvey Weinstein, goes about her thankless, abusive job. She's played by Julia Garner, whose character seems (unintentionally?) destined to be a victim. She's so oddly timid that it's hard to see how she was chosen for the job by such an abrasive, abusive human, (never shown but impressively voiced by Jay O. Sanders). As the day wears on, Jane withstands the behavior, then becomes overwhelmed by it, and finally tolerates it, but The Assistant offers no real perspective on why.

It is, to be sure, a finely detailed observation, and an unnervingly accurate portrayal of the entertainment industry, which seems so incapable of handling the #MeToo movement or its ugly nature. But to what end? That's uncertain, which is both the problem and, maybe, the point -- The Assistant merely watches and instead of passing judgment on what it sees, just shakes its head sadly.



Viewed Feb. 7, 2020 -- Arclight Sherman Oaks

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"Uncut Gems"

 ☆☆☆½ 

It's often loud, overbearing and hyperactive, but just as frequently Uncut Gems is audacious, creative, involving and suspenseful. The real question is whether the good qualities outweigh the difficult ones, and to answer that requires looking at the movie's last 30 or so minutes, which are magnificent.

Does that final stretch justify the uncomfortable, often confusing, jumble that precedes it? Maybe. Directors Josh and Benny Safdie take a layered, complex approach to telling what could be a simple story. Their Robert-Altman-meets-Martin-Scorsese approach demands attention -- the story develops on the sides of the frames and finally coalesces toward the center, and there is almost never a moment when the movie is capable of slowing down. It's no wonder people get exhausted to the point of leaving the theater or falling asleep: Uncut Gems requires active effort in the same way as talking to  a hyperactive 3-year-old.

The story sometimes defies credulity. None of it would happen but for one stupid, in-the-moment decision that jeweler Howard Ratner (Adam Sandler) makes, and some other unlikely scenarios ask that you just ignore them. That's easy to do in a film that won't slow down, that screams almost every line of dialogue. This is how these characters live their lives, flailing about in the hope that no one will notice their desperate moves. The story involves Howard's fixation on a large, uncut set of opals, and his obsession with gambling, and everything leads up to inventive, tense filmmaking backed by a love-it-or-hate-it score (I loved it) and played by a cast that is perfectly unlikeable.

There's no one to root for in Uncut Gems, no one to pin your hopes on, nothing at all to like about these people, the way they live, or their cheap obsession with material wealth -- but if you're going to make a movie like this, you might as well go all the way. The Safdie Brothers go all the way with Uncut Gems ... and then they go a little further.



Viewed Jan. 10, 2020 -- AMC Universal

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2019: The Deplorables

There were some genuine cinematic wonders in 2019 -- and some real big-screen blunders. When things got bad this year, they got really, really bad.

How bad?  Read on for my list of the five worst movie experiences I had in 2019:

 5:  The Wandering Earth  

One of China's biggest movies in history was also one of the year's highest-grossing films worldwide -- but in America, it was all but non-existent. (Netflix bought the title, proving that Netflix is, if nothing else, a black hole for most content that appears on its platform.) Compared with other films on this list, it's at least inoffensive, except perhaps in its godawful subtitles, which (at least in the theatrical version I saw) were hilariously filled with malapropisms and misspellings, and had all male characters refer to each other as "bros" with alarming frequency. The story is completely non-sensical – the sun is exploding, so the Earth has been converted into a moving spaceship destined to wander the galaxy until it can find a new home – and the digital effects are largely atrocious. The Wandering Earth proves that Americans have no lock on bad filmmaking, and this one is bad alrigh; it's terrible, in fact, but at the very, very least, it's inoffensively so.

 4:  Bird Box  

The only saving grace on this stinker is that it wasn't in movie theaters, relegated instead to Netflix, which made big noise about how many people watched it. But people can be fools, as anyone who saw this dreck can attest. Somehow, it stars Sandra Bullock and lots of other recognizable actors in a craptacular story about people who do a very, very stupid thing to react to a situation that has dozens of other more probable solutions. Stupid in concept, cheap in execution, and unbearable to watch. My original rating was 2½ stars. My New Year's resolution is to be more honest about ratings. It's a terrible film. Shut your eyes, indeed.

 3:  Ma  

I was likewise stupidly lenient about Ma, which did get a theatrical release, which only proves that there is no accounting for taste. Oscar winner Octavia Spencer, who is generally an intelligent and interesting actor, stars along with Oscar winner Allison Janney and Oscar nominee Juliette Lewis, and Ma is the sort of movie that makes you wonder if these successful, acclaimed performers actually read the script first. These fine actresses appear in a movie that presents women in such a vile light it's shocking. In Ma's world, women over 40 are shrewish, sexually repressed and ugly, existing only to torture others and harbor jealousy over their past lives. Ma is divertingly entertaining in the moment, and squalid and depressing in hindsight.

 2:  The Lion King  

What a sad, sad state of affairs this is. What have we come to when Disney, a company built on the promise of imagination can't think of anything new?  When the only thing it cares about is box-office dominance? Disney's The Lion King and Aladdin were both remarkably crass commentaries on the state of the film industry and current Disney management, though they were each extraordinarily successful. Aladdin managed to find a few moments of lightness and invention, and was eye-popping to look at, none of which could be said for the despairing dullness and duplication of The Lion King. It made sixteen bazillion dollars, which is a bleak assessment of the state of American consumerism. That aside, it's a terrible concept for a film, and it's terribly executed. It's a shot-for-shot -- sometimes frame-for-frame -- CGI remake of the original animated film that doesn't have an ounce of the original's heart or creativity. While the 1994 Lion King was never among my favorites, this film captures absolutely nothing of that film's liveliness. It's an animated version of Gus Van Sant's Psycho, which was at least bonkers in its audacity; this has no edge to it at all. It's flat, ugly, boring and laborious.

 1:  Joker  

It's a cheat. It's a scam. It's a fraud. Joker has absolutely nothing to say about societal ills or mental illness or the plight of the inner city – it exists only to wallow in its bleak, misanthropic, nihilistic world view and then try to pass it off as some form of entertainment. It can't even find its own cinematic vision. Director Todd Phillips thinks mimicking Scorsese is the same as being Scorsese, and rips off a '70s cinematic vibe without ever creating its own look, feel or perspectives. It's empty. It's soulless. There's not one redeeming element to it, particularly not Joaquin Phoenix's performance, which has nothing to it except show. There's no character here, no reason for this film to exist. It is, perhaps, the blockbuster for the our current political era: blustery, angry, mean-spirited, hostile, ill-tempered, loud, violent and ultimately entirely empty. Painfully, distressingly, sorrowfully devoid of anything at all.

2019: My 10 Favorites

The world seemed filled with vile unhappiness in 2019, yet on the movie screen something wonderful happened: Movies discovered a sense of compassion. There was also some sinister glee, but even in the bleak South Korean thriller Parasite, even in Rian Johnson's back-stabbing Knives Out, even in some of the mediocre blockbusters that filled the screen, there was an underlying sense of humanity.

Is this the cumulative effect of so much unpleasantness in life, or is it just happenstance. In any case, it made for an especially insightful and unusually uplifting year at the movies. Here are my favorite films of 2019:

  10: Knives Out  

It's been a long time since we've had an all-star, big-budget whodunit, at least a whipsmart one, which Kenneth Branagh's lumbering adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express was certainly not. Director Rian Johnson comes at us with a completely fresh mystery, and even if you come close to solving it before the final scenes, you'll still relish in the delight of the actors and the production itself, which is ravishing. It's also continually funny, without the sadistic sleaze of the vaguely similar Ready or Not. It's just gleeful. And wonderful.

  9: The Peanut Butter Falcon 

Who in their right mind would want to see a movie with this title? It sounds treacly sweet, like an after-school special with a hidden "inspirational" message – yet it turns out the film is anything but that. Part adventure, part fable, it's intoxicatingly satisfying, a movie about people with troubles who wish they could just run away ... and do. Yet under the waters of the big river on which they float is the grief and sorrow that is never far away because, it turns out, that's what life is. The Peanut Butter Falcon is indeed inspirational, but in the best possible way.

  8: Marriage Story 

It's raw and it's painful, but Marriage Story is ultimately filled with hope, a feeling of promise that isn't evident at first in this excruciatingly detailed examination of the modern process of divorce. Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver are just right as a couple who never really went together, but tried anyway. The single most sorrowful aspect of Noah Baumbach's Woody Allen-esque movie isn't the subject matter but the fact that it's relegated to Netflix, which is kidnapping wonderful films and dumping them on to its streaming service as so much "content." This is a special film and deserved better.

  7: Rocketman 

If Rami Malek could win an Oscar as Freddie Mercury and Bohemian Rhapsody be taken seriously as an awards contender, how do you explain the fate of this vastly superior, exponentially more entertaining bio-fantasy and its incredible central performance by Taron Egerton? It's a firecracker of a movie, as befits a film about Elton John – and if much of it seems contrived, it probably is. Who cares? It's a joyous affirmation of everything the movies are about: big, bold and endlessly entertaining.

  6: Honey Boy 

If 2019 is remembered for anything cinematically, it might be the year Shia LaBeouf went from irritating former child star to a soulful, wise, compelling big-screen presence. He wrote and stars in Honey Boy, a movie about his own life, which sounds smugly self-satisfied, but isn't. Honey Boy is a harrowing and deeply affecting exploration of the complex love between a faltering father and his promising son. It's emotionally raw, and through its extreme specificity it finds a way to be relevant – and heartbreaking – to everyone.

  5: Booksmart 

It's almost achingly funny, but Booksmart is also achingly astute about the real pains and heartbreaks that come with being a teenager. Director Olivia Wilde's movie is cinematically playful and so perfectly modulated that it is able to balance silliness and pain on the thinnest of lines. One breathtaking sequence moves from broad comedy to intense sadness so effortlessly it's almost stunning. It feels both wonderfully stupid and totally real. Or maybe those are the same things.

  4: Parasite 

Carefully controlled, intricately designed, impeccably crafted and entirely sinister, Parasite is the work of a master filmmaker at the height of his skills. Bong Joon-ho has made a rarity: a thriller that actually knows how to thrill. The suspense at times is almost unbearable, and the surprises are both surprising and surprisingly delightful, in a twisted sort of way. Parasite invites repeat viewings, and dazzles with the kind of filmmaking flare that invites – and deserves – comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock, with a worldview that is equally bleak as that filmmaker's, filtered through a cinematic precision that is just as exciting to watch.

  3: Blinded by the Light 

Here is a movie to make you feel alive, a movie to leave you feeling less alone about loving whatever it is you happen to love. After watching it in August, I recommended it to a friend who was searching for a good comedy, who called me after seeing it and asked, "What about that was a comedy?" Come to think of it, Blinded by the Light – which is about a British boy who discovers an unknown passion for Bruce Springsteen's music – may not be designed for laughs, and it contains some moments of real anguish. Yet, director Gurinder Chada's film is suffused with something rare in movies: a love for life, even when that life is not at all what you hoped it would be.

  2: Apollo 11 

On television, this CNN documentary might seem straightforward and familiar, even though most of its footage has never been seen before. Start to finish, it's a thrilling and magnificently edited account of the Apollo 11 mission in July 1969, and every moment is captivating. But seen on the biggest screen possible, ideally in IMAX, Apollo 11 becomes something even more wondrous: a movie that thrusts you into a different time and leaves you wishing we could find such a sense of purpose and pride. An edited version, which I haven't seen, still plays in science centers, and even in truncated form, it's worth seeking out. Apollo 11 leaves you with a sense of genuine awe.

  1: Little Women 

Here is the film we need in such terrible, angry, hate-filled times. Writer-director Greta Gerwig's adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's much-loved novel finds a new and urgent sense of purpose, and has the desire to impart one quality above any other: kindness. In that, it is noble, but it goes much further – Little Women is sumptuously made, and so filled with a generous spirit of love for humanity that it almost hurts to see. With a screenplay that makes unexpected but entirely fluid jumps back and forth through time, Little Women deconstructs and reconstructs the familiar novel in ways that make it fresh and exciting, even while remaining entirely true. It is an exquisite example of how to adapt literature to the screen, but more than that, as you watch it you get the distinct sense you are discovering a film that will be hailed as a classic decades hence. It is the freshest, most fulfilling, most beautiful experience of 2019.