Aurelia Butler

The choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s directing debut is an of-the-moment but scattered take on a classic love story.You can’t have “Carmen” without the color red.In the choreographer Benjamin Millepied’s debut film — an adaptation of the classic story, previously told in prose by Prosper Mérrimée and more famously in opera by Georges Bizet — it’s there from the start, in the opening titles, the pedals of a rose, the title heroine’s shirt.But nothing more than color signifies that this is a “Carmen” tale, that old psychosexual drama of a male soldier so seduced by a Spanish femme fatale, he forgets his duties and is driven to jealousy and murder. No, here Carmen is instead a young Mexican woman both headstrong and naïve, restless and searching — much like the film itself.That is disappointing for a movie seemingly assembled from promise: in Millepied, an enterprising dance-maker who pioneered small-screen performance during the pandemic; in Nicholas Britell, a composer of knockout, earworm-rich soundtracks; in Rossy de Palma, an alluring, otherworldly fixture of Pedro Almodóvar films; and in Paul Mescal, a fast-rising, Oscar-nominated star capable of conveying swaths of biography and feeling in a sadly handsome smile.They make for a film with elements of dance on camera, musical, of-the-moment melodrama and visual poetry — but without a thorough commitment to any one of those and few, if any, moments of coalescence. The screenplay is spare to the point of meager; characters speak in clichés, like claiming that music won’t pay the bills, and are divided, boringly, into categories of unequivocally good (Mexican immigrants mainly) and bad (all white characters except Mescal’s Aidan).No dialogue, anyway, communicates more effectively than Britell’s soundtrack, a constant presence, tense and evocative, functioning like opera by fully integrating with, if not driving, the story rather than underscoring it. The movie also says more through movement than speech: percussive flamenco; climactic krumping in a fight sequence starring and set to an original song by the D.O.C.; a touching pas de deux of Carmen’s balletic fluidity and Aidan’s awkward, failing attempts to match her.Little seems to keep this couple of lost souls — he a tormented war vet, she an undocumented Mexican immigrant on the run — together other than fear. As Carmen, Melissa Barrera is beautiful but somewhat blank, an obtuse mystery next to Mescal, his face having the shape and solemnity of a Roman statue, but eyes that repeatedly betray his pain. De Palma is a welcome source of levity as Masilda, a nightclub owner who tells Aidan that if she were younger she would eat him up like a plate of chilaquiles.Masilda tells Carmen that her name means poem, that she is “the most beautiful poem made into a woman.” Yet much of the film’s poetry comes from the cinematography of Jörg Widmer — a veteran of Terrence Malick’s sweeping, awe-struck camera gestures — who renders a desert landscape expansive and entrapping, and finds wonder in the otherwise stressful tangle of Los Angeles freeways. Millepied relishes close-ups of bodies in motion, and scatters dreamy symbolism throughout the story, populating his world with angels of death.Carmen and Aidan are connected, before they meet, by small flames that rise spontaneously from the ground. In the end, they are separated by tragedy. Their trajectory couldn’t be simpler, but this film, at nearly two aimless hours, doesn’t seem interested in, or capable of, that kind of focus.CarmenRated R for language, nudity and violent dancing. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

In this quietly bold debut feature, the Japanese government offers a euthanasia program and a 78-year-old woman considers her future.In the lurid 1973 dystopian thriller “Soylent Green,” Edward G. Robinson movingly played a man who embraced euthanasia, dying in a special chamber while being soothed by classical music. That story was set in 2022. “Plan 75,” the quietly bold debut feature of Chie Hayakawa, is on the same page, envisioning a more or less present-day version of Japan that hawks euthanasia services to the aged.As macabre as that sounds, the conceit channels actual anxieties in Japan about providing for a growing population of seniors. The sober drama centers on a 78-year-old woman, Michi (Chieko Baisho), who still has her independence, her health and a karaoke-loving friend circle.The government’s assisted suicide program seems like an over-advertised nuisance to Michi, until she loses her job and finds a friend slumped over dead. Life turns precarious, Michi grows isolated and Plan 75 — the name of the government program — starts to sounds appealing. We are also introduced to a Plan 75 clerk, Hiromu (Hayato Isomura), and a Filipino caretaker, Maria (Stefanie Arianne), who takes an unsavory gig with the program.Hayakawa avoids slipping into satire or a stylized dystopia, making details like a euthanasia spa package seem plausible (and insidious). Yet a somnolence hangs over the film, and Hiromu and Maria are left somewhere between having full-fledged story lines and just being useful foils. Still, Baisho gets across the creeping despair that morbidity and the loss of community can create — a sensation that lets “Plan 75” double as a consummate entry in pandemic-era cinema.Plan 75Not rated. In Japanese and Tagalog, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 53 minutes. In theaters. More

Jake Gyllenhaal stars in this furious and discomfiting war film that tugs on your conscience for days.“Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,” the saga of a U.S. sergeant (Jake Gyllenhaal) honor-bound to his Afghan interpreter (Dar Salim), starts like most other movies about the ultimately unsuccessful 20-year effort to suppress the Taliban. There’s aerial footage of parched mountains, sudden explosions of violence and an outdated wail of classic rock exposing a younger generation’s as-yet-unrealized ambition to make war pictures able to stand alongside those that sprang from Vietnam. Sincerity is an unusual tone for its director, Guy Ritchie, who specializes in laddish shoot-’em-ups. Here, Ritchie is not just earnest — he’s morally outraged about the broken promises made to thousands of Afghans who believed they’d earned Special Immigrant Visas only to be abandoned to fend for themselves. For all its clichés, this furious and discomfiting film tugs on your conscience for days, making a powerful case to turn the American public’s attention back to a conflict it would rather forget.John Kinley (Gyllenhaal) is on his fourth tour when his squad partners with Ahmed (Salim), a former heroin trafficker, to scour the countryside for bomb manufacturers. During this ain’t-war-hell opening stretch, Ritchie and his co-writers Ivan Atkinson and Marn Davies attune the audience to the use of language, particularly how most soldiers refer to Ahmed as “the interpreter,” as if he’s a tool, not a person. In the field, John is terse and authoritative; Ahmed, intuitive and polite. “I believe you, but they need to believe you,” he advises one local. Back under the goofily dramatic flickering lights of Bagram Air Base, Ahmed presses John on the distinction between “translate” and “interpret” with the acumen — and enunciation — of a Cincinnati lawyer. (Salim, raised in Denmark, doesn’t slather on an accent.)Then the film pivots. In the second act, the two men are stranded in hostile terrain. Ahmed saves John’s life. Once home in California, John vows to save Ahmed after he learns his protector has been forced into hiding. “I’m on the hook,” John explains to his wife (Emily Beecham), as Gyllenhaal’s watery blue eyes flood with shame. When John braves the State Department’s byzantine phone tree, he soon becomes so irate that he grabs a beer and a hammer. The bombastic rescue attempt that follows is the bitterest form of wish fulfillment — a showcase of individual loyalty intended to embarrass gummed-up bureaucracy.Ritchie’s action scenes suffer from the gamification of combat: Our heroes shoot first, grab a dead man’s gun and repeat. The body count becomes unconscionably high. Yet we eventually submit to the primal awe of the film’s fraught and nearly dialogue-free escape sequences, driven by Christopher Benstead’s meaty, hand-thumping score. Watching the exhausted Ahmed shoulder John through mud and fog while sharing a long opium pipe for the pain, one can’t help overlaying images of Samwise and Frodo in Mordor. Gyllenhaal’s character becomes so stoned that the film rewinds the first adventure in flashback almost as soon he sobers up — an unnecessary flourish whose sole benefit is letting us relax the second time the same pack of long-nosed Afghan hounds comes sniffing back into view, only now in slow-motion and upside-down. For once, Ritchie might not want the audience to giggle. But in the moment, we’re relieved that we can.Guy Ritchie’s The CovenantRated R for grisly violence and language befitting the circumstances. Running time: 2 hours 3 minutes. In theaters. More

Ray Romano plumbed the absurdities of family life on his sitcom “Everybody Loves Raymond.” For this, his feature directing debut, he sticks to an Italian American milieu.Someday, when conventional wisdom gives way to common sense, “Everybody Loves Raymond” will be recognized as one of the best network situation comedies. Incisively written and superbly acted, it explored with surgical precision the bottomless hostility animating passive-aggressive family dynamics. Ray Romano, whose standup comedy fueled the series’ themes, very successfully bridged the skill set of a standup comedian with that of an ensemble comedic actor. And yet. No respect, or not enough respect.In any event, the series is now a thing of the past, and Romano is taking a turn behind the camera for his feature directing debut, “Somewhere in Queens,” which he co-wrote with Mark Stegemann. Here, Romano sticks to the outer-borough Italian American milieu of his series. The results are mixed.Romano plays Leo Russo, a likable, “Rocky”-obsessed screw-up who’s the underdog of his dad’s family construction firm. His tough cookie wife, Angela (Laurie Metcalf), is recovering from cancer. Their only son, nicknamed Sticks (Jacob Ward), is recessively shy but fiercely talented at basketball. His gift might yield him a college scholarship and has already attracted Dani (Sadie Stanley), a free-spirited girl.But when Sticks crowds Dani, things cool between the two. Leo, in a fit of desperation, approaches Dani with an appalling proposition that will continue the momentum of the young couple’s relationship and keep Sticks on track for his college tryout.This genuinely discomfiting narrative material hits some raw nerves, and the cast, which also includes the great Tony Lo Bianco, doesn’t back down from emotional authenticity. But if you’ve been following the movie’s music choices, which contain a number of songs that are at least wet-noodle adjacent, you won’t be surprised that Romano eventually contrives soft, and arguably goofy, exits for his troubled characters.Somewhere in QueensRated R for language and some sexual material. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. In theaters. More

Naomi Watts: Elle impressed me the first time we met [while making the 2015 film “3 Generations,” in which Watts plays the mother of Fanning’s character]. She was 16, but with such emotional intelligence. When I was trying to get my start in my late 20s, I was already being told I was too late. They said, “You’d better get going. You’ve got only seconds left!” I think that’s changed — for the better, obviously. We’re now seeing women in their 50s carry films. There even seems to be a bit more movement in the opposite direction, like aging is suddenly trending.On the CoverWatts wears a Bottega Veneta dress, $6,600, and boots, price on request, bottegaveneta.com; and Ana Khouri earrings, price on request, anakhouri.com. Fanning wears a Bottega Veneta dress, $20,000.Hart Lëshkina. Styled by Tess HerbertWith women, but never with men, “ambition” always gets labeled an ugly word. I’ve always been hungry, and that’s what got me here. I spent many years under the radar, not getting jobs — just tiny bits here and there — until David Lynch gave me an incredible role [in 2001’s “Mulholland Dr.”]. Had I not maintained that level of determination or ambition, whatever you want to call it, I would have packed it in and just tried to find something else. Knowing why you love what you do is important. What’s feeding you that makes you keep coming back for more?Watts wears a Bottega Veneta dress. Fanning wears a Bottega Veneta dress.Hart Lëshkina. Styled by Tess HerbertWatts wears a Bottega Veneta dress; and Ana Khouri earrings.Hart Lëshkina. Styled by Tess Herbertculture banner More

Gina Prince-Bythewood: When Thuso first auditioned for “The Woman King,” I thought, “This is Nawi” [one of the film’s leads, a warrior in training], but there were still other people she had to meet with, so I said, “Good luck with your career.” We laugh about it now, but to her that sounded like a death knell. Once we were on set, my admiration for her only grew. You see her going toe-to-toe with Viola [Davis] and Lashana Lynch. Plus I could give her harder and harder fight elements — she’s someone who has the desire to be great and who puts the work in until she is. In the big Oyo battle, her character has this sequence with a machete tied to a rope that I didn’t know how we were going to do without a stunt double. Well, Thuso learned it. She took that rope everywhere with her.culture banner More