'Enemy' and four more reviews
NEW RELEASE
Enemy
R, 1 HR., 30 MINS.
Fans of the surreal brainteasers of mid-period Cronenberg and Lynch will dig Denis Villeneuve’s puzzle-box thriller starring Jake Gyllenhaal as a professor who discovers his doppelgänger and falls down a psychological rabbit hole. The film is long on mood and mystery. It also just feels long. Still, its WTF ending is so insane you’ll forgive almost anything. B —Chris Nashawaty
NEW RELEASE
The Art of the Steal
R, 1 HR., 30 MINS.
You could say that Kurt Russell, as the ringleader of a robbery of priceless religious texts, is jaunty and appealing. You could also say that Russell’s unfailing cocksure glibness fits in all too snugly with the overly breezy tone, the Who cares? plot clichés, the coyly named sub-Guy Ritchie hooligans. The heist itself is halfway clever, but since the film keeps leading with “attitude,” it has almost no weight. (Also available on iTunes and VOD) C+ —Owen Gleiberman
NEW RELEASE
Better Living Through Chemistry
NOT RATED, 1 HR., 31 MINS.
Taking a page from the dog-eared American Beauty suburban-malaise playbook, Chemistry stars Sam Rockwell as a henpecked pharmacist who has an affair with a rich housewife (Olivia Wilde), gobbles pills, and finally grows a pair when he stands up to his castrating wife (Michelle Monaghan). You’ve seen all this before (except for Jane Fonda as the tale’s saucy narrator). Too bad it isn’t as subversive or funny as it should be. (Also available on iTunes and VOD) B- —Chris Nashawaty
NEW RELEASE
On My Way
NOT RATED, 1 HR., 53 MINS.
Catherine Deneuve plays a fading former beauty-pageant queen whose life is crumbling. Her lover has left, her restaurant is going under, and her daughter hates her guts. So she impulsively hits the road and lets the French countryside work its rustic magic. On My Way is sweet but slight. But Deneuve is as luminous as ever at 70. There’s nothing fading about her. B —Chris Nashawaty
NEW RELEASE
Le Week-End
R, 1 HR., 33 MINS.
Jim Broadbent and Lindsay Duncan seem like two actors who stumbled in from a neighboring Woody Allen film in this bittersweet drama about a British couple who head to Paris to rekindle their romance and live a little. Instead, they spiral into a whirlwind of bickering and barbed insults. Smart, wickedly funny, and surprisingly touching, Le Week-End is an intimate portrait of two people who can’t stand each other but can’t live without the other, either. B+ —Chris Nashawaty