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      ‘Here’ Review: A Celebration of Connection

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      In Bas Devos’s muted and luminous Belgian drama, two lonely souls repeatedly encounter each other.One-word titles like that of the Belgian writer and director Bas Devos’s “Here” can create a minuet of meaning. In this hushed drama that gently rebuffs the beats of a love story even as it hints at one, the word is a call for the viewer’s attention and an acknowledgment of place.“This is my home,” Stefan (Stefan Gota), a Romanian construction worker, says to himself, looking out over the city from his apartment in the Jette commune, northwest of Brussels.Sitting in front of his refrigerator, Stefan pulls out vegetables and sniffs containers. He makes a soup that he’ll deliver to friends before he leaves on vacation. But he also alludes to leaving the city for a longer spell. Did we mention he’s struggling with an insomnia that keeps him walking the streets in the still hours, paying heed to things that might be lost in the daylight’s bustle?Across the city, a graduate student named Shuxiu (Liyo Gong) describes a state of being at a loss for words before being fully awake, as images of the natural world unfold. Stefan is observant because he’s sleepless, and Shuxiu, a bryologist who studies moss, is attentive by calling.When Stefan first encounters Shuxiu, he is sitting, soaked, in a Chinese restaurant. When they meet again in a wooded area, it is coincidental and freighted with possibility. What will become of them isn’t the purview of the film, or its point, exactly. And, yet, in this painstakingly muted, luminously photographed testimony to connection, nothing much and everything happens — or could.HereNot rated. In Dutch, French, Romanian and Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘They Called Him Mostly Harmless’ Review: Digital Sleuthing

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      In this schematic HBO true-crime documentary, amateur detectives take the lead in the quest to identify the body of a male hiker.In 2018, an emaciated male body was found in the Florida wilderness. Blood work showed that he was healthy, with no drugs in his system beyond Tylenol. Among his belongings were food and money, but no phone. The man had been hiking the Appalachian Trail. Several hikers recalled encountering him within the eight months before his death — he was handsome — but they only knew him by his trail name, Mostly Harmless.Mostly Harmless did not want to be found.Directed by Patricia E. Gillespie, the HBO true-crime documentary “They Called Him Mostly Harmless” is, on one level, about the quest to identify the body. Hikers, a detective, and the Wired journalist who wrote the articles that inspired the documentary, feature as talking heads.But the other, arguably more unsettling, half of the story centers on the amateur detectives who helped crack the case — all middle-age women involved in a Facebook group dedicated to the cause.This artless documentary, composed primarily of interviews and B-roll footage (of walks along the trail from a first-person perspective; the amateur detectives looking at their computers, brows furrowed), mechanically pieces together the mystery. It’s a film for those who don’t know the outcome, playing upon the viewers’ thirst for answers as it chips away at a clearer portrait of the man.More interesting is the film’s meta-true-crime dimension, which links the case’s obsessive amateurs to a broader fascination with the genre and its fraught form of escapism. Dead ends and false leads aggravate the digital sleuthing hive (a cancer survivor testifies to the online harassment he faced after being falsely identified as Mostly Harmless), and petty rivalries ensue between the Facebook group’s leaders. The documentary doesn’t treat them with outright mockery, but the tone is mildly condescending — a feeling heightened by an outcome that points to the futility of it all.They Called Him Mostly HarmlessNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      ‘Cobweb’ Review: A Film Within a Director’s Cinematic Ego Trip

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      Kim Jee-woon toys with the absurdity of filmmaking itself in this story of a director compelled to take his cast and crew captive to shoot one more scene.To be a director is to be a madman of sorts. It’s a rare artist that has the will and belief required to pull together so many forces to create a movie, let alone a good or even great one. In other words, it’s a space only occupied, perhaps, by the delusional or self-involved.“Cobweb,” directed by Kim Jee-woon, mines the comically absurd reality that is filmmaking, at times with bouncy cinematic verve, at others somewhat aimlessly and a little too indulgently.In the film, set in early-1970s South Korea, a director, Kim (Song Kang-ho), desperately struggling to prove he isn’t a sham, has come up with a new ending to fix his current film that he insists will transform it into a subversive masterpiece. Working surreptitiously around his studio’s president and the government censorship agency, he reconvenes his cast and crew, boards them up in a sound stage, and gets to work on his opus. Personalities clash and antics ensue, as the movie set becomes as much of a soap opera as the movie they’re making, whose scenes are cut into “Cobweb” throughout.Even if “Cobweb” often feels like it’s a film that is telling itself its own industry insider joke — poking fun at the competing, wounded egos of directors, actors and studio brass — Kim Jee-woon captures it all with a sleekly choreographed charm that keeps us along for the ride. Until it doesn’t. Toward the second half, the film becomes overlong, losing its narrative thread and including too many scenes of the movie being made. Eventually we feel a little trapped in the sound stage ourselves, as “Cobweb” falls victim, ironically, to its own punchline — becoming a movie that is too obsessed with itself.CobwebNot rated. In Korean, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 15 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Drift’ Review: Cynthia Erivo Keeps a Breakdown at Bay

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      Anthony Chen’s quiet character study follows a traumatized Liberian woman (Cynthia Erivo) on a Greek island who befriends an American tour guide (Alia Shawkat).“Drift,” a patient character study set on a craggy Greek island, proves a mesmerizing showcase for the actress Cynthia Erivo’s talents. She plays Jacqueline, a traumatized Liberian refugee whose cautious air is a gentle source of forward motion even as the film around her stalls.The story takes place during a season of vagrancy in Jacqueline’s life, tracking her efforts to find shelter and enough food to keep from fainting. She spends her days selling foot massages to sunbathers and her nights sleeping in sandy beach nooks, and is often pictured alone against the coastal scenery. Eventually, she meets Callie (Alia Shawkat), a chatterbox American tour guide whose hunger for friendship helps Jacqueline to open up.The director, Anthony Chen, is sensitive to Jacqueline’s struggles, and shows her mental state as a delicate equilibrium. The film features limited dialogue, and Erivo conveys feeling through body language, expression and small glances. What emerges is a portrait of a young woman using survival mode as a means to stave off an impending breakdown.“Drift” frames the source of Jacqueline’s psychological torment as a mystery, meting out cryptic flashbacks to the character’s back story in Liberia. Those scenes culminate in seemingly inevitable tragedy that the film treats as a grand reveal. This upheaval is informative, but the film is at its strongest when it lingers in present tense, exploring how Jacqueline’s strategically cultivated myopia keeps her alive.DriftNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Out of Darkness’ Review: Prime Evil

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      A Stone Age tribe is hunted by an unseen entity in this wondrously atmospheric survival thriller, which unfolds in a fictional language.Set in the Scottish Highlands some 45,000 years ago, “Out of Darkness” follows the misfortunes of a small band of humans whose boat has landed on a lonely beach. What they hope for is food and a cave to shelter in; what they find is terror and torment.At first, the group is purposefully united, its leader (Chuku Modu) calming the worries of his young son (Luna Mwezi), pregnant partner (Iola Evans) and more fragile younger brother (Kit Young). As they head toward distant hills, however, their anxieties grow. Above them hang graphite skies; underfoot lie treacherous rocks. Huddled around a campfire in a forbidding wood, buffeted by unearthly nighttime noises and fearsome black shapes, the tribe begins to panic — all except one young woman (a ferocious Safia Oakley-Green) who’s prepared to go to unspeakable lengths to survive.Unfolding entirely in a fictional language (which the actors deliver with fluid conviction), and enriched by lovingly rendered practical effects, this first feature from Andrew Cumming pairs its minimalist narrative with the maximum of atmosphere. The setting may be prehistoric, but there’s nothing primitive about the filmmaking, which molds mostly natural light and an unusually rich soundscape into something both elemental and hostile. Trees sigh and shadows stir, and milky mists blur our field of vision as the cinematographer, Ben Fordesman, turns the forest itself into a predator.Bolstered by extensive period research — and in line with our evolving understanding of the overlap between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens — Ruth Greenberg’s script delivers a thoughtful, unexpected ending that’s more cautionary than splatterific. We can’t be reminded too often that fear and ignorance can kill as surely as any enemy.Out of DarknessRated R for mauled flesh and misogynistic beliefs. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Marmalade’ Review: Getting Out of a Jam

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      Joe Keery plays a seeming dupe in a crime movie that plays dumb, then tries to play smart, but only becomes dumber.The protagonist of “Marmalade” is “dumber than a box of crayons,” a police chief declares at one point in the movie. That may be true — but it’s no reason to treat viewers that way.Written and directed by Keir O’Donnell, “Marmalade” never actually locates any humor in the main character, Baron (Joe Keery), who speaks with an exaggerated Southern twang and uses malapropisms like “inseparadable.” On some level, O’Donnell seems to recognize that he has gambled on an unfunny premise, and so what begins as a hicksploitation comedy tries to save face by recasting itself as a twisty thriller. In essence, “Marmalade” pretends to be more dunderheaded than it is, then acts as if it’s been smart all along, in a shift that takes it from insulting to incoherent.Broadly speaking, “Marmalade” consists of the newly imprisoned Baron explaining to his cellmate, Otis (Aldis Hodge), how he met and fell for a strawberry blonde named Marmalade (Camila Morrone) who sweet-talked him into helping her rob a bank. (He only wanted to buy medicine for his ailing mother, of course.) If Otis, who claims to have experience with prison escapes, helps Baron break out, the bank loot — $250,000 — awaits him. All Baron wants is Marmalade.Does Baron’s naïveté mean he is on the list of cinematic dimwits who have never seen a movie with a femme fatale? O’Donnell surely has. There is also a particular, much-imitated crime movie from the 1990s whose conceit “Marmalade” draws on shamelessly. O’Donnell may not owe royalties, but he might consider finding a way to repay the audience for its time.MarmaladeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Lover, Stalker, Killer’ Review: True Crime With Lots of Twists

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      This documentary directed by Sam Hobkinson focuses on a jump back into the dating pool that soon turns horrific.True-crime doc watchers who are in committed relationships may see “Lover, Stalker, Killer,” a bracing account of a lurid series of misdeeds directed by Sam Hobkinson, and breathe a sigh of relief over being out of the dating pool.It begins in 2012, when Dave Kroupa, an auto mechanic in Omaha, was rebounding from a breakup. He finds himself at 35, single and ready to mingle. On a dating app he meets Liz Golyar (likes bowling, enjoys giving the finger to video cameras, as per the archival footage) and then, believing their relationship to be nonexclusive, also takes up with one Cari Farver.Soon into the liaison, Farver starts freaking out. Dave is pelted with nasty texts and emails — the screen fills with vulgar words and threats and the soundtrack becomes awash in digital glitches. The violence soon escapes the virtual: Golyar’s house burns down.As the litany of harassment unfolds, Farver has yet to be seen. The puzzle here might have been solved by the application of Occam’s razor, had all the variables been known at the time. Even so, the twists include a few that even the keenest of armchair sleuths would not have guessed.The filmmakers indulge in some legerdemain, having the real-life participants recount the events as if certain facts were not already in the open at the time of the interviews. The movie also contains staged footage, including arguably cheesy Midwest-law-enforcement world building: Two detectives who help break the case are introduced while killing time in a pool hall. By now these are accepted conventions, so there’s little point in complaining, especially when the end result is so brisk, in a tight 90 minutes.Lover, Stalker, KillerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Molli and Max in the Future’ Review: Love, Interplanetary Style

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      This rom-com brings futuristic absurdity and nimble timing to a comfort-food story line of friends turned soul mates.Science fiction has become such a mainstay of lumbering franchises that it’s hard not to root for left-field small-scale twists on the genre like the fizzy, funny “Molli and Max in the Future.” Michael Lukk Litwak’s quantum-age rom-com brings futuristic absurdity and nimble timing to a tried-and-true story line of friends turned soul mates.Molli (Zosia Mamet) and Max (Aristotle Athari) meet-cute when their spaceships collide near an asteroid field, and despite different outlooks — she’s hunting for crystals, he’s an aspiring mecha-fighter — they end up bonding for a while until Molli goes off on a quest. But in the movie’s next chapter, five years later, they cross paths by chance: Molli is now a “passionaut” in a bigamous cult led by a psychic floating head (Okieriete Onaodowan), and Max has legions of fans as a robo-gladiator and a relationship with his own bot (Erin Darke).The space-age paraphernalia abound — interdimensional travel, digital pickleball, a gabby galactic goddess named Triangulon (Grace Kuhlenschmidt) — but Mamet and Athari take the ridiculousness in stride, which is also funnier. The thread of their on-again-off-again connection is never lost in the film’s pleasingly artisanal, jazz-scored futurescape, which meshes practical and digital effects under the sign of Douglas Adams as much as Adult Swim and anime.Many of the complications for Molli and Max — like a trash-talking political candidate (Michael Chernus) whom the crowds eat up — echo the present day, and yet as the pair hit their requisite rom-com marks, it’s comforting to think of love as something still reliable in a sea of mind-boggling cosmic tumult.Molli and Max in the FutureNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More