July Review Round-Up

(Images/trailers courtesy of Imdb.com, youtube.com)

July Review Roundup

The middle of the summer film releases is happening rapidly. On a weekly basis, there can be as many as five films opening! In order to keep you updated with what you should be watching, I decided to cover five different movies. Some are coming to theaters, currently in theaters, or streaming now. My reactions to all of these films are incredibly varied which should make for a fun discussion!

There is a category of films defined as those you would “take your grandma to.” These sorts of films have no real conflict and focus on kind characters. “Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris' ' follows widowed cleaning lady Ada Harris (Lesley Manville), who falls madly in love with a couture dress. This sends Harris on a journey to Paris to claim a dress for herself, which allows her to meet a variety of colorful characters. Manville’s performance is easily the strongest part of the film, with its disarming warmth. It’s quite easy to uncover where things will go but the story's heart is always in the right place. If you enjoy a warm central performance and a “nice” story, you should see this movie.

Certain films want audiences to leave thinking about different themes and human beliefs. In a year like 2022 “The Forgiven” attempts to tackle what social hierarchies mean in the world. Taking place over a weekend in Morroco’s High Atlas Mountains, we follow a couple (Ralph Fiennes, and Jessica Chastain) who are involved in a random accident on the way to a party. What follows is an analysis of cultures, both Western and Muslim, and the difference between social divides and basic human decency. The film definitely leaves the audience thinking for the majority of its running time. The performances of Fiennes and Chastain are quite compelling, especially in the latter half of the film. We are given an incredibly strong first act which makes the middle even more frustrating. “The Forgiven” has a lot going for it thematically, but suffers from a languid pace that won’t be for everyone. 

What I love so much about the film is the ability it has to make you feel intense emotions. A24’s “Marcel The Shell With Shoes On” is a perfect example of a film that left me feeling joyous. Based on the short film of the same name, we follow a mollusk named Marcel (voiced by Jenny Slate) as he is being interviewed by a documentarian (played by director Dean Fleischer-Camp). What starts as a basic documentary, evolves into Marcel’s attempt to find his lost family. The case with this film is one of the journey being much more substantive than the destination. Marcel is an endearing character who wears his heart on its sleeve which becomes quite infectious. He’s so kind and so innocent that it is hard not to be smitten with his charm. In a world riddled with controversies, it’s wonderful to have a film that is all about kindness. 

Director Hannah Marks' 2021 film, “Mark, Mary, and Some Other People” was one of my biggest surprises of that year. It was a romantic comedy that defied the conventions of the genre in surprising ways. Marks showed an understanding of balancing tones, which made me excited for her follow-up film, “Don’t Make Me Go.”  When a single father (John Cho) discovers he has a brain tumor, he takes his daughter, (Newcomer Mia Isaac) to find her mother who abandoned her years early. Along the way, he tries to teach her everything he might need for the rest of his life. It’s a feel-good premise that suffers from an absolutely ridiculous third-act twist.  There is a certain amount of realism in the story, which is stripped away for uninteresting drama. This is yet another example of a film with a great journey, but a nonsensical destination.

“RRR'' was a film that definitely flew under my radar when Netflix released the film in May. Once the positive buzz was growing, I decided to wait and see the film where it deserves to be seen, the big screen! Telling a fictitious story of two Indian revolutionaries, we follow their journey away from home before they started fighting for their country in the 1920s. This was my first ever Tollywood film, and calling it an experience would be an understatement. It is a ridiculous, cheesy, and consistently entertaining epic that deserves to be seen on the biggest screen possible. I want to be careful about what I say to avoid spoilers, but the extremist approach to the stunts is unmatched. There are certainly lots of laughably bad moments, but you are so swept up in the story making the film become something quite special.

We are living in an age of entertainment where period pieces are incredibly popular. This also means we are given a lot of period romance-like content. Netflix’s latest film “Persuasion” suffers from being nothing more than a retread of tropes and cliches. Based on the Jane Austin novel, Anne Elliot (Dakota Johnson) is still pining for a lost love (Cosmo Jarvis). When they have a surprising second meeting, Anne will have to decide if she is worthy of love at all. On paper, it is the kind of premise that should make for a swoon-worthy romantic epic. The finished result however is just a bland mishmash of cliches that are not very interesting. As energetic and likable as Johnson, Jarvis, and Henry Golding are, they are not given much to work with. It is a  film that makes you pine for the better films in the same genre.