Out to own today:
Leave No Trace
 | “If it’s still here when we get back, can I keep it?” Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) While the social commentary is meritorious, director Debra Granik’s follow-up to the pounding WINTER’S BONE (2010) is a slight disappointment. It does not feel worth the wait. (With large cinema gaps, one always hopes for a Terrence Malick THIN RED LINE/Stanley Kubrick EYES WIDE SHUT experience.) That’s not to say LEAVE NO TRACE is not worth your time. Nature, machismo and parenting are examined. It’s just not in the same winsome league as the fresh in the memory, CAPTAIN FANTASTIC (2016). [To read more, click here.] |
Anchor and Hope
 | “But she doesn’t want it,” Roger (David Verdaguer) The ending is so trite as to ruin the film. ANCHOR AND HOPE asks a very important question: What happens when two people are in love, and one desperately wants a baby and the other most definitely doesn’t? Cinema rarely deals with the issue. Maybe it is a struggle to fund intelligent dramas about adult topics? Two hours is enough time, as evidenced here. The story should have concluded a few minutes earlier. Up until that point it had not provided the answers (and didn’t need to), but the upbeat choice a scene later is a complete misfire. It reminds of the dire HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU (2009). You don’t have to deliver glibness, just ask the questions and show the aftermath. There might not be a neat resolution. [To read more, click here.] |
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