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    Film Reviews: Bohemian Rhapsody, Beautiful Boy & More

    Holy cow, there is a lot to choose from in theaters this week. So much music! Witches and rats dance in totally separate films, meanwhile Freddie Mercury rocks out, joining Orson Welles and Oscar Wilde in finding new life on the big screen. And speaking of Oscar, two clear Oscar contenders try to rip your heart out. Settle in, we’ll get this covered.

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    Bohemian Rhapsody

    by George Wolf

    After several false stars and a midstream director change, the long-awaited Queen/Freddie Mercury biopic lands as a celebration of one legendary band and one bravura performance.

    Rami Malek is a certified powerhouse as Mercury, the former Farrokh Bulsara, the uniquely gifted performer and iconic presence who became of rock’s most enduring frontmen.

    Mercury’s extravagant persona lent itself to caricature, but Malek has none of it. His is a true characterization, eerily mirroring the singer’s appearance, elegance, movements and, with help from both original Queen music and Mercury soundalike Marc Martel, his incredible voice.

    Malek’s performance stands out all the more from the void left by Queen’s surviving band members. As executive producers, they’ve whitewashed themselves into more reaction shots and less actual human beings.

    It’s one of several ways the film plays it safe and settles for a crowd-pleasing greatest hits package. Directors Bryan Singer and an uncredited Dexter Fletcher work wonders with the performance pieces (the thrilling recreation of Live Aid is worth paying for IMAX), but soften the sharp edges of rock hedonism enough for a PG-13 rating. And rock and roll ain’t PG-13.

    The biggest missed chance comes in the relationship between Mercury and his muse for the song “Love of My Life,” Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton). From their first scenes together, Malek and Boynton fuel the emotional core of the film, creating an absence felt whenever screenwriter Anthony McCarten (Darkest Hours) broadens the focus, which is often.

    Factual liberties are taken, timelines are sometimes carelessly misrepresented (“We Will Rock You” was not written in the 80s), and there’s a totally needless gag from Mike Myers, but whenever Bohemian Rhapsody is most unsteady, Queen’s music is there for a bailout.

    It’s still great. And so is Malek.

    Grade: B-

    Suspiria

    by George Wolf

    Seventies horror has had a damn good month.

    Just weeks after David Gordon Green gave 1978’s Halloween the sequel it deserved, director Luca Guadagnino re-imagines 1977’s giallo classic Suspiria as a gorgeous rumination on the horror of being haunted by echoes of your past.

    Wait, wasn’t the original about witches?

    It still is, more than ever. Guadagnino and screenwriter David Kajganich (True Story, A Bigger Splash, the upcoming Pet Sematary remake) remove the guesswork about the dance academy coven in favor of a narrative much more layered, meaningful and bloody.

    The building blocks remain the same. It is 1977 in “a divided Berlin,” when American Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson, nicely moving the character from naïveté to complexity) arrives for an audition with a world-renowned dance company run by Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton, mesmerizing). Susie impresses immediately, and is soon given the lead in the company’s next production.

    Guadagnino continues to be a master film craftsman. Much as he draped Call Me by Your Name in waves of dreamy romance, here he establishes a consistent mood of nightmarish goth.

    But even when this new Suspiria is tipping its hat, Guadagnino leaves no doubt he is making his own confident statement.

    A glorious celebration of the grotesque, the climax explodes into a cathartic mix of Ken Russell’s The Devils and GOT‘s “Red Wedding” that more than affirms the film’s intense, obsessive build. Guadagnino has thrown so much at us, he knows we deserve a payoff and damn, he delivers one.

    Grade: A-

    Beautiful Boy

    by George Wolf

    Those of a certain age hear the title Beautiful Boy and most likely think of the John Lennon song, a sweetly poignant ode from father to son. It’s used to touching effect in the film that shares that title, an utterly heartbreaking but ultimately hopeful adaption of separate memoirs by David and Nicolas Sheff.

    David was the proud father, a successful writer who dreamed of great things for his bright, ambitious son. Instead, Nic became an alcoholic and drug addict who offered his family countless promises of recovery that always fell empty.

    Two masterful performances drive this film to its emotional heights, keeping it steady the few times it teeters on slopes of undue manipulation.

    Steve Carell makes David an instantly relatable mix of unconditional love and crestfallen confusion. Carell makes it feel real with a thoughtful, often understated turn.

    And people, if last year didn’t hip you to the immense talent of Timothee Chalamet, he’s back to seal the deal with a performance certain to be hailed come Oscar time.

    Just when you’re comfortable with the authenticity of Nic’s slide into addiction, Chalamet digs deeper to find the shattering center of a soul at war with dependence and desperation. Scenes with Carrell — where Nic tries taking advantage of his father’s love only to turn on him moments later — find two actors in complete sync, revealing a crushing humanity that hits you hard.

    There are two important stories here, and they only falter when it feels some intimacy from each has been shortchanged to make room for the other. Director/co-writer Felix Van Groeningen (The Broken Circle Breakdown) merges the dual memoirs for a film that works best when it lets events find their own resonance and forgoes heavy-handed reminders about how quickly children grow up.

    Beautiful Boy tells a vital, shattering story, and often tells it beautifully, finding a thread of hope in the ashes of a family’s nightmare.

    Grade: A-

    The Nutcracker and the Four Realms

    by Hope Madden

    Mackenzie Foy is Clara, a young lady who dreads enduring the first Christmas without her mother. She doesn’t even want to go to the big party thrown by her godfather, Drosselmeyer (Morgan Freeman in a really bad wig). But her dad (Matthew Macfadyen) drags her, along with her brother and sister.

    After that, things begin to feel familiar, although they rarely feel like The Nutcracker.

    Helen Mirren plays lord of this disused amusement park overrun by rats and clowns, though, and that is hella cool. Meanwhile, Keira Knightly shamelessly steals scenes as Sugarplum. Both are fun in a film that desperately needs a bit more of it.

    Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger) and Lasse Hallstrom co-direct. That checks out. Johnston brings a rather workmanlike attitude for spectacle, while Hallstrom — whose credits range from the Oscar-winning Cider House Rules to the unwatchable A Dog’s Purpose — brings an eye for manicured beauty and an utter lack of whimsy.

    Do you remember watching the ballet as a child? The spooky, eye-patched uncle? The seven-headed rat? It is seriously creepy, and at the same time, there is wonder in every dance whether you understand the storyline or you don’t.

    There are lovely moments peppered through this visually elegant picture, but there is no passion, no danger and no excitement.

    And weirdly enough, very little Tchaikovsky and almost no dancing.

    Grade: C

    The Other Side of the Wind

    by Hope Madden

    The Other Side of the Wind — how pretentious is that title? It’s supposed to be, of course, because it’s an Orson Welles film and he’s a genius. His latest, released more than 30 years after his death, explores his genius and the changing paradigm of the 70s film industry.

    Esteemed director, Jake Hannaford (John Huston) is to screen his new film at his 70th birthday party to an audience of cinefiles, sycophants, film critics, hangers-on, freaks and industry insiders.

    The event becomes an ingenious satire of 70s moviemaking, and watching it more than 30 years after the fact gives the entire spectacle a time capsule appeal. It’s like a train wreck you cannot turn away from.

    Welles pokes fun at the pretentiousness of then-cutting edge filmmakers and their neurotic relationships with self-loathing, arrogance and idol worship — usually using directors from the period, acting as stand-ins for, well, themselves.

    He doesn’t seem to have much respect for the films being made at the time, either. As Hannaford’s film unspools, one in-the-know viewer yells: “The reels are out of order!”

    To which the projectionist replies, “Does it matter?”

    Nope. It does not. Welles’s film-within-a-film is an unendurable, plotless, hippie hallucination, a perfect parody of much of the arthouse output of the era. It’s as if Welles, by way of Hannaford, is asking: is this what I have to do to get a movie made?

    As well and as wildly as the movie-making satire plays, at the heart of this film is humiliation on exhibition. Hero worship is hollow, commerce is still king and a man who can’t pay can’t play.

    Grade: B

    The Happy Prince

    by Hope Madden

    “Why does one run toward ruin? Why does it hold such fascination?”

    Oscar Wilde, by way of writer/star Rupert Everett, wonders these potent lines partway through The Happy Prince, director Everett’s biopic of the infamous, decadent/undeniable genius.

    Everett’s tale flashes backward and forward but mainly focuses on the period between Wilde’s 1897 release from prison and his death in 1900. It’s a rather bleak time in a very rich and colorful life, but Everett’s execution never forgets the heights, and his performance is haunted with the fall.

    Upon his release, Wilde finds support with sometime lover and literary agent Robert Ross (Edwin Thomas) and writer/friend Reginald Turner (Colin Firth – delightful, especially when his character is not the focus of a scene). But Wilde cannot or will not deny his desire for Alfred “Bosie” Douglas (Colin Morgan).

    It is a perfect vehicle for a film that lays bare this particular genius and that rumination on running toward ruin.

    As a writer and director, Everett tries too hard to use Wilde’s short story The Happy Prince to create a running metaphor, perhaps suggesting that Wilde’s end, like the story’s, reaches transcendence. It’s a tough sell, passing off the short’s image of voluntary self-sacrifice as analogous to Wilde’s fall from grace.

    Everett’s performance is simultaneously full of life and of death. You see the enormous loss, but more than that, the deflating ugliness of this world etched on Everett’s face, echoing in his every gesture.

    Everett’s instincts behind the camera come as a nice surprise. With more than 70 acting credits to judge by — many of them quite fine, some even awards contenders — the real surprise is that he had this performance in him.

    Grade: B+

    Also opening in Columbus:
    The Bill Murray Stories (NR)
    Nobody’s Fool (R)
    On Her Shoulders (NR)
    Viper Club (R)
    Weed the People (NR)

    Read more from Hope and team at MADDWOLF, and listen to their movie reviews via podcast on SCREENING ROOM.

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    George Wolf
    George Wolf
    George Wolf is a member of the Columbus Film Critics Assoc. and a freelance contributor for Columbus Underground covering film. George can also be heard on Columbus radio stations Rewind 103.5, Sunny 95, QFM96 and Mix 107.9.
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