Movie Review Roundup: Women in Film Rule the Weekend

This weekend, there are some great movies in wide release, in independent arthouse theaters, and on demand There is a celebration of powerful female characters, as in A Simple Favor, a lyrical award-winning indie by a first-time female filmmaker with I Am Not a Witch, and a crowd pleasing documentary co-directed and written by a woman that is just the sort of escapist yet educational fare that can make a Saturday night at home a way of resetting your optimism. Whether or not you are committed to supporting women in film and the male allies who help promote them, these are the films you're looking for....

A SIMPLE FAVOR

Sometimes a torrid thriller is just the thing, but they’re so rare these days. Do you miss Joan Crawford and Hope Lange and all those trashy melodramas of the 50s, even though you weren’t alive back then? Me, too. Thank the cinematic gods for director Paul Feig, who helms A Simple Favor, a film based on the Darcey Bell novel, written for screen by Jessica Sharzer. You may already know Feig as an ally in the support of portrayals of unapologetically powerful women onscreen. After all, he is responsible for the female reboot of Ghostbusters, which inspired basement-dwelling dude-bros around the country to take to their computers in protest. Here again, Feig brings strong female characters to the screen, this time in a fluffy throwback to the B-movie thrillers of the 50s. A Simple Favor is sometimes ridiculous and goofy, often unexpected in its twists, and always thoroughly entertaining.

Three very interesting actors with equally powerful star quality play what seem, even to the characters themselves, as film noir caricatures. Ahh, but they are all so much more than they seem. Stephanie Smothers (Anna Kendrick) is a type-A Gap-sweater wearing mommy vlogger and widower who has a hard time making friends at her kid’s private school, where she ingratiates herself to the other parents, and signs up for every PTA and school special event. She and her son pay into what she calls the “Oopsy” jar every time they swear. Enter the Louboutin-heel wearing, highly glamorous Emily Nelson (Blake Lively). She befriends Stephanie after their two kids begs for a play date, and off they go to Emily’s chic multi-million dollar modern mansion. This becomes a habit. Every time they get together, Stephanie is more shocked and fascinated by the exotic, blunt Emily. They drink meticulously made martinis, get drunk, and exchange secrets, all while their kids play upstairs. Occasionally Emily’s swarthy, gorgeous husband Sean (Henry Golding) shows up, and he and Emily alternately insult each other and feel each other up while making out. He’s a failed writer, she says. She hates him. She loves him. She pays for everything, she says, including the house she calls a money pit. Despite their differences, within a few weeks, Stephanie is calling Emily her best friend. One afternoon, Emily asks Stephanie for a simple favor. She needs Stephanie to watch her son for a few hours. When Emily disappears, everything starts falling apart.

Activating her A-type personality in a quest to find her friend, she engages her vlog watchers and begins her own investigation. Simultaneously, she’s helping Sean, still gorgeous even in grief, deal with the loss of his wife. The plot, as they say, starts to thicken, and the rest is surprise after surprise. Lively channels some weird, OTT post-modern mix of Bette Davis, Veronica Lake, and Barbara Stanwick, spouting curses, manipulating and commanding those around her like an alpha she-wolf. She might at any moment either stick her tongue into or rip open your throat. As traditionally beautiful as Lively is, it’s easy to forget she can actually act, and here Feig and the script give her ample opportunity to serve up a really memorable character while giving it her own style.

Anyone who has followed Kendrick’s career will remember the star-making turn in her first movie as Fritzi in Camp, where the bad-stabbing ingenue shows her dark side singing a rendition of “The Ladies Who Lunch”. Her role as Stephanie reminds me of Fritzi, as well as the many times in her career Kendrick has believably built and served up a complicated, unusual character. Her comedic timing and her chemistry playing against Lively and Golding keep the audience’s attention, as well as their support for her, well anchored. For his part, Golding, who, with no formal training as an actor, has been thrust into superstardom with his co-starring role in Crazy Rich Asians, shows he can more than keep up with these two relative veterans. He also has the charisma to match them, scene for scene.

Those who deride the film as trashy are completely missing the point. Of course it’s trashy. Praise Goddess for that. It’s a delight to watch this tonal mashup of a comedy and psychological thriller, the likes of which haven’t been available at the theater for way too long, especially with women as leads. It’s like The Girl on the Train, only without making the viewers want to roll up into a ball, or wash their hands like Lady Macbeth. Good, bad, or both, these are the female characters you never knew you needed. More, please.

B+

I AM NOT A WITCH

In limited release this weekend, but worth seeking out in your nearest arthouse theater, is I Am Not a Witch, the British submission for this year’s Oscars in the foreign film category. This multi-award winning directorial debut by Zambian-born Welsh writer-director Rungano Nyoni, through the collaboration with cinematographer David Gallego, uses the stunning backdrops of rural Zambia to spin a sometimes surreal, sometimes heartbreaking tale of Shula, a child accused of witchcraft, and declared a witch. Newcomer and previously untrained 9-year-old actress Maggie Mulubwa was nominated for Best Actress at the British Independent Film Awards for her portrayal. What a debut.

It is a rare to watch a film that is at once so languid and tense. I Am Not a Witch is, at heart, a fairy tale. The accused, however young or old they may be, are placed in this exclusively female community, branded on the face as one of them, and outfitted with a spool of thick white fabric that is tethered to their backs. This, the paying tourists who traipse past them are told, is to keep them from flying. Shula is first welcomed by the elders with songs. She is swiftly put to work by a local government official, who dresses her in feathers and paint, trots her out to declare the perpetrator in local crimes, getting paid to do so. This government official has a wife who does his bidding and caters to his every desire. She is a former member of the witch camp, and he threatens to return her to that life if she doesn’t please him in any way he sees fit. He continually reminds her she can be replaced, eyeing Shula with creepy consideration.

For her part, Mulubwa carries a sorrow that reads as both weary and bone deep, as if, rightly, the audience can’t possibly imagine the personal history that has led her to her near muteness and apathy in being exiled, confined, and treated as government property.

From early in the film, viewers must wonder if a camp, such as the one in which Shula is placed, exist in any African country. They must also question if children are accused of sorcery with any regularity. The answer to both questions is yes. Writer/director Nyoni actually spent time at one of the oldest witch camps in the world in Ghana, which has existed for over 200 years. She was the first foreigner to sleep there. There are also such camps in Zambia, which Nyoni says is particularly surprising, given that the Bemba people, the dominant tribe in Zambia, pride themselves in the equality between men and women. The women of the tribe are allowed to own land, inherit, and be in the army and police. It is that contradiction that drew Nyoni to the subject matter and called to her as a writer and first time director. That curiosity led to a beautiful, passionate piece of filmmaking, and gleaned her a BAFTA as director for an Outstanding Feature Film Debut.
There are decidedly lyrical elements of filmmaking, like the bold touches of red in an otherwise bleak, ashen landscape, and the slow, widening shots of Shula seeming to consider the cost of freedom, or even whether such a thing as freedom is possible. They do not dilute the palpable horror of the ingrained misogyny necessary for such witch camps to exist. In reality, those accused are either killed, beaten, ostracized, or relegated to witch camps are often women. They may have transgressed patriarchal gender norms by being economically successful or widowed by husbands with means, or they are orphan children without protectors who bear the brunt of communal fears.

I Am Not a Witch debuted last year at Cannes and in the UK, and has gathered an impressive amount of awards from film festivals around the world. Now it is finally being made available stateside. The timing is interesting, given how much the expression “witch hunt” has been bandied about by top members of the US administration. The irony is witch hunts are almost entirely levied towards women in a society where men are feeling threatened. Those coopting the term would do well to reflect on how many of the policies that are bad for women, limit their autonomy, and reduce their access to equal rights under the law, are being introduced by the very men declaring themselves as unfairly targeted. No. That term is still shockingly alive, and still in literal use against women and girls in many parts of the supposedly civilized world. Nyoni’s film, though fiction, brings that reality home with the best possible use of the female gaze.

A

PICK OF THE LITTER:

Anyone who has ever had one of man’s best friends knows just how easily they can transform a bad mood. With just a solicitous face lick or an enthusiastic greeting at the end of a hard day, they can make everything better. Lately there have been a lot of hard days in this country, no matter what your political affiliation or perspective. With the new documentary film Pick of the Litter, Don Hardy Jr, and co-director and screenwriter Dana Nachman have found a way to whisk us all into the world of training for Guide Dogs for the Blind, where it seems perspective pups train as hard as would any Johns Hopkins Medical School student.

When a documentary makes you tear up in the first five minutes, that can be either a very good or very bad sign. For dog fanciers, it’s all good. Before we even get to meet the litter mates that are put through the arduous training making the grade as a guide dog for the blind entails, visually impaired former owners relate how their own pups saved their lives. They all get quite emotional talking about them, and so will most members of the animal-loving audience. It sets up the film as a charming, if somewhat sentimental education on the process of making lifelong companions to humans in need.

Hardy and Nachman show the intense training and care offered by the dedicated community of veterinarians, dog trainers, and loving foster parents, but add enough tail wags, face licks, and enthusiastic park romps to create cheerleaders for each dog profiled. On several occasions, the camera even gets gets butted with a wet nose.

Audiences are first introduced to five newborns, who are promptly named Patriot, Potomac, Primrose, Poppet, and Phil. As each pup grows, they are given ever-more complicated, challenging tests to assess their aptitude for the rigors of guiding the visually impaired, including following or refusing commands, depending on the situation. Will they stay calm and do what’s expected, or will they get distracted and overstimulated? There is a surprising amount of tension created as the directors let viewers get to know each dog onscreen. From the beginning, we are told the odds aren’t in favor of their success. Only a small percentage of those trained go on to graduate, getting paired with hopeful applicants. There is a huge feeling of relief whenever any of the dogs pass their tests.

The film makes it clear just how life-changing these dogs are to their human partners. One person goes from rarely leaving home to going on long walks in the woods. Another, who is not visually impaired but has Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, speaks of just how much better his spirits are when his canine companion is near. It’s clear, regardless of whether these pups are in the lives of featured humans for a short while, or for a lifetime, that they create a huge amount of love. Even those who have to work hard, knowing they are only training the dogs, and will have to give them up, express how much joy they bring.

Those with animals in their life know how powerful the connection can be, and how much they add to their quality of life. With Pick of the Litter, we get to experience just how much these great dogs can do, and how selfless and happy they seem in the doing of it. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Feel-good documentaries aren’t that common, really. For anyone who needs an infusion of positivity, Pick of the Litter is as warm and fuzzy as the puppies it profiles.

B

About Cinema Siren:

Leslie Combemale, who writes about women in film and artists behind the scenes and below the line at http://cinemasiren.com/, is a movie lover and aficionado who aspires to get more people back into the beautiful alternate worlds offered in dark movie houses across the country. She has also been the owner of ArtInsights Gallery of Film and Contemporary Art (https://artinsights.com/) for over twenty five years, promoting artists who are the unsung heroes essential to the finished look of films and their campaigns. She interviews actors, directors, and production artists from all over the world, and writes about film for sites like AWFJ.org, thecredits.org, http://www.animationscoop.com and likeabossgirls.com, and is often invited to present at conventions such as the San Diego Comic-Con, where she has been a panelist and host for The Art of the Hollywood Movie Poster, Classic Film History, Disney & Harry Potter Fandom discussions, and now produces a panel at SDCC called "Women Rocking Hollywood”, in its third year.