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      Hollywood, Both Frantic and Calm, Braces for Writers’ Strike

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      Studios have moved up deadlines for TV writers, and late-night shows are preparing to go dark. But for other segments of the industry, it’s business as usual.Writers scrambling to finish scripts. Rival late-night-show hosts and producers convening group calls to discuss contingency plans. Union officials and screenwriters gathering in conference rooms to design picket signs with slogans like “The Future of Writing Is at Stake!”With a Hollywood strike looming, there has been a frantic sprint throughout the entertainment world before 11,500 TV and movie writers potentially walk out as soon as next week.The possibility of a television and movie writers’ strike — will they, won’t they, how could they? — has been the top conversation topic in the industry for weeks. And in recent days, there has been a notable shift: People have stopped asking one another whether a strike would take place and started to talk about duration. How long was the last one? (100 days in 2007-8.) How long was the longest one? (153 days in 1988.)“It’s the first topic that comes up in every meeting, every phone call, and everyone claims to have their own inside source about how long a strike will go on and whether the directors and actors will also go out, which would truly be a disaster,” said Laura Lewis, the founder of Rebelle Media, a production and financing company behind shows like “Tell Me Lies” on Hulu and independent movies like “Mr. Malcolm’s List.”Unions representing screenwriters have been negotiating with Hollywood’s biggest studios for a new contract to replace the one that expires on Monday. The contracts for directors and actors expire on June 30.“I support the writers,” Ms. Lewis said. “It’s challenging, though. Just as we are starting to recover from the pandemic, we could be going into a strike.”In recent weeks, television writers have been racing to meet deadlines that studios moved up. Worried about the possibility of having no income for months, some TV writers have been trying to push through new projects — to get “commenced,” Hollywood slang for a signed writing contract, which typically brings an upfront payment.One prominent talent agent, who like some others in this article spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said there was a “mad rush” to complete deals before next week. Some writers began removing their personal possessions from studio offices in anticipation of a walkout.Likewise, studio executives began calling producers last week to tell them to act as if a strike were certain, and to make sure all last-minute tweaks were incorporated into scripts, so production on some series could continue even in the absence of writers on set. Executives have delayed production for other series until the fall in cases where they determined scripts were not entirely ready.The president of one production company said this week that she was “freaking out” over a TV project in danger of falling apart because the star was available only for a limited period and the script was not ready.The writers room for the hit ABC sitcom “Abbott Elementary” is supposed to convene on Monday — the day the contract expires.“I’m making plans to go back to work when we’re supposed to go back to work,” said Brittani Nichols, a producer and writer on the show. “And if that doesn’t happen, I’ll be at work on the picket line.”The last Hollywood writers’ strike began in 2007 and lasted 100 days.Axel Koester for The New York TimesIf there is a strike, which could begin as early as Tuesday, late-night shows, including ones hosted by Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, are likely to go dark. Late-night hosts and their top producers have convened conference calls to discuss a coordinated response in the event of a strike, much as they did during the pandemic.During the 2007 walkout, late-night shows went dark for two months before they began gradually returning in early 2008, even with writers still on picket lines. Jimmy Kimmel paid his staff out of his own pocket during the strike, and later explained that he had to return to the air because his savings were nearly wiped out.Mr. Kimmel and other hosts, like Conan O’Brien, gamely tried to put together shows without their writers or their standard monologues. Jay Leno, on the other hand, wrote his own “Tonight Show” monologues, infuriating the writers’ unions in the process.Though there’s plenty of uncertainty in TV circles, there are also segments of Hollywood where it has been business as usual.Executives at streaming services seemed to exhibit what one senior William Morris Endeavor agent called a “frightening, freakish sense of calm,” perhaps because they were betting that any strike would be short. Most streaming services have been under pressure to cut costs — even deep-pocketed Amazon Studios laid off 100 people on Thursday — and a strike is one quick way to do that: Spending would plummet as production slowed.“It could lead to notably better-than-expected streaming profitability,” Rich Greenfield, a founder of the LightShed Partners research firm, wrote to investors this month.At several movie studios, there is little sense of alarm, partly because a strike would have almost no impact on the release schedule until next spring. (The movie business works nearly a year in advance.) One movie agent said everyone in her orbit was preparing for the Cannes Film Festival, which begins on May 16 and will include premieres for films like “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” and “Killers of the Flower Moon,” the latest from Martin Scorsese. Many movie executives were also preoccupied with CinemaCon this week, a convention for theater operators in Las Vegas.“The writers’ process is like 18 months to two years away from movies’ hitting our cinemas, generally, so you wouldn’t see an impact for quite a while,” said John Fithian, the departing chief executive of the National Association of Theater Owners. “There is a whole lot of writing already in the can — or the computer — for projects the studios are putting into production.”At the Walt Disney Company, the largest supplier of union-covered TV dramas and comedies (890 episodes for the 2021-22 season), more immediate worries have been the focus. Disney began to hand out thousands of pink slips on Monday as part of an unrelated plan to eliminate 7,000 jobs worldwide by the end of June. The company made news again on Wednesday when it sued Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida.During previous union walkouts, television networks ordered more reality programming, which does not fall under the writers’ unions jurisdiction. The long-running “Cops” was ordered during the 1988 strike, while the 2007-8 strike helped supercharge shows like “The Celebrity Apprentice” and “The Biggest Loser.”Paul Neinstein, co-chief executive of the Project X production company, which made the most recent “Scream” movie and Netflix’s “The Night Agent,” said there had been a huge increase in reality TV pitches over the last month, even though his production company was not known for making unscripted television.“All of a sudden everybody’s got a reality show,” he said. “And that to me feels very strike-related.” More

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      ‘Peter Pan & Wendy’ Review: A New Girl in Neverland

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      The filmmaker David Lowery updates the classic tale with his own pixie dust, saving what’s good and scuttling the rest.“Peter Pan & Wendy” is a case study in one of the agonies of growing up: the realization that some of the entertainment that tickled us as youngsters — as in the many troubling scenes in Walt Disney’s 1953 animated adaptation of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan novel, including the ditty “What Made the Red Man Red?” — have aged as gracefully as its lead character.The filmmaker David Lowery has opted to update it with his own pixie dust: save what’s good, scuttle the rest, and add plenty of spit and polish for a 21st-century shine.Seventy years ago, when Peter Pan whisked Wendy and her siblings to Neverland so she could mother his Lost Boys, he treated her like dirt and she swooned over his heroics. Now, Wendy (a compelling Ever Anderson) decks Peter Pan (Alexander Molony) and seizes the helm of her own story. “I don’t even know if I want to be a mother!” she protests.Lowery is a wise choice for a salvage attempt. He’s gifted at exploring the haunted corners of familiar tales (“Pete’s Dragon,” “The Green Knight”) and has revealed a morbid reverence for the passage of time — perfect for a story whose villain, Captain Hook (a scene-stealing Jude Law, hiding beneath artificial under-eye bags), is literally stalked by the ticktock of a clock.Having stripped out the questionable or merely dubious themes, he and his co-writer, Toby Halbrooks, are left with many minutes to fill. In addition to including a traumatic back story for Captain Hook, they add two lovely reveries on aging: a montage in which Wendy savors her youth and another where she’s tantalized by the prospect of growing up.The girl-powering of the plot means scrapping the catty mermaids, the glimmer of a love triangle with Tiger Lily (here played by Cree actress Alyssa Wapanatahk) and pretty much everything interesting that Tinkerbell (Yara Shahidi) once got to do, including her multiple attempts to murder Wendy. The fairy is now merely given a camera trick — Tinkervision — a blurred, jittery point of view that has its best moment when she flies through blood spatter.Lowery clearly adores the look of the cartoon. He and the cinematographer Bojan Bazelli pay it tribute with their use of moody skies, striking shadows, unexpected camera angles and a darkly beautiful color palette that shimmers like jewels in a cave. Still, these well-meaning choices struggle to cohere into a satisfying picture. Peter Pan comes across as a pest, and when Wendy belts the movie’s thesis — “This magic belongs to no boy!” — it hits the ear like a distracting clang.By the time the woolly pirates burst into their second rousing sea shanty (kudos to the song composer Curtis Glenn Heath), our minds begin to liken the Jolly Roger to the philosophical paradox of Theseus’s ship: How many planks can you swap out while still claiming it’s the real deal?Peter Pan & WendyRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 46 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      ‘Four Quartets’ Review: Virtuosi in Verse

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      Ralph Fiennes delivers an animated performance of the T.S. Eliot works, but the film doesn’t quite succeed in bringing the stage into the cinema.The English poet T.S. Eliot composed the poems that make up the work eventually published as “Four Quartets” over the course of six years, and at the end of his literary career. The four elegiac, epic poems total more than 1,000 lines, and are devoted to time and divinity. To perform them in a single staged performance is an exercise of memory and sheer will. In 2021, Ralph Fiennes accomplished the feat, acting out Eliot’s “Four Quartets” in a lauded solo production that toured in the United Kingdom, including a run at London’s Pinter Theater. His sister Sophie Fiennes filmed an adaptation of the production after the actor’s live performances ended.Her filmed version uses the original theatrical stage, with towering walls and minimal set decorations. Her camera occasionally sneaks glimpses of existence outside the theater — shots that conjure the views of Eliot’s England, a world of moss-covered stone and fields of grass-fed cows. But there is no visible audience, no sign of a human presence beyond Ralph Fiennes himself.As an actor, Fiennes contorts, stomps and dances — he delivers an animation of Eliot’s language, a forceful performance that treats the accumulation of verse into poetry like the strenuous, mathematical raising of walls in a cathedral. He speaks slowly, granting viewers time to grasp Eliot’s words. Yet for all of the actor’s efforts, the film around him does not match his mellifluousness.The camera remains at a distance, and the editing is prosaic, refusing opportunities to add a cinematic interpretation to complement Fiennes’s central performance. The static images recall the views from live theater, where the eyes of the audience are limited by the proscenium and the angle of a particular seat to the stage. Fiennes brings the fire, yet the air around him remains unmoved, even by his embers.Four QuartetsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The End of Sex’ Review: When Domesticity Kills the Mood

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      This comedy follows the misadventures of a bored 40-something married couple who are attempting to spice up their sex life.Lust and laughter run thin in “The End of Sex,” a weirdly traditional comedy in which a bored married couple attempt to revitalize their sex life.Directed by Sean Garrity, the film looks at a common dilemma — how to keep things spicy in the bedroom when years of cozy domesticity have killed the mood?It’s hard to switch gears and throw yourself into passionate lovemaking, Garrity posits, when you’re in pajamas cleaning up your children’s scattered toys. True, but in “The End of Sex,” parenthood appears to turn adults into babbling adolescents who blush and freeze up in the face of sexual opportunity. This dynamic is supposed to be cringe-funny, but over the course of an hour and a half, this staid farce proves otherwise.Emma (Emily Hampshire) and Josh (Jonas Chernick), two painfully square 40-somethings, are granted a weeklong reprieve from their child-rearing duties when their daughters head to sleepaway camp. Emma, in particular, is desperate to rekindle the flame; she is in love with her husband, but sleeping with Marlon (Gray Powell), an old art-school buddy not known for his subtlety, proves increasingly tempting.“My Awkward Sexual Adventure,” the title of an earlier film by Garrity, describes the events of this one, too: Emma and Josh attempt to have a threesome with Emma’s colleague Wendy (Melanie Scrofano), join a swinger’s club where geriatric men stroll around in bondage gear and animal masks, and take party drugs to fuel their libidos. All fail, of course, because Emma and Josh are astoundingly immature, a quality accentuated by the film’s bubbly, motor-mouthed comedy style.Lily Gao, who plays Kelly, Josh’s younger, more sexually experienced co-worker — as well as his confidante — deals with sexual hangups of her own that prove more captivating than that of her married counterparts. This speaks to what makes the central conflict feel so vapid and vanilla, as if the challenges of monogamy had only to do with the unavoidable friction between love and good sex.The End of SexRated R for clothed sex scenes and party drugs. Running time: 1 hour 27 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Restless’ Review: The Painful Cycles of Mental Illness

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      Joachim Lafosse’s film is an intimate but flawed portrayal of the effect a man’s bipolar disorder has on his family.Joachim Lafosse’s latest film, “The Restless,” makes a valiant effort to depict the toll that bipolar disorder can take on people and their loved ones. We’re introduced to Damien (Damien Bonnard), a painter, in the middle of a manic episode on vacation with his family; while gently teaching his young son, Amine (Gabriel Merz Chammah), how to steer a motorboat, Damien suddenly leaps into the water for a swim, telling Amine to take over driving. From there, it’s one incident after another as Damien behaves erratically at best and dangerously at worst, testing the patience of his wife, Leïla (Leïla Bekhti), as she struggles to find a suitable treatment for his illness.Bonnard and Bekhti both ground their performances in a knowing realism. Together with Lafosse’s intimate direction and the film’s lack of a score, this helps “The Restless” avoid any mawkishness that might have come from its premise. The problem, unfortunately, lies in the same circular patterns of behavior that the film aims to shed light on. We hardly get a glimpse of Damien outside of his mania, making it difficult to characterize the person underneath the disorder. While those familiar with the condition may relate to the repetitive destructiveness of his actions, it ultimately makes for a paper-thin narrative, one that has to fill out its two-hour running time with predictable shouting matches and dramatic beats. Lafosse’s empathy as a director is admirable, but “The Restless” falls short of putting a compelling story to film.The RestlessNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Watch on Film Movement Plus. More

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      ‘Freaks vs. the Reich’ Review: Band of Others

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      This big-hearted, blithely odd adventure pits a troupe of superpowered circus folk against a psychic Nazi pianist.Gabriele Mainetti’s “Freaks vs. the Reich” is a kind of historical superhero movie, but it has to be the only one with a psychic twelve-fingered Nazi pianist and circus performers with nifty powers. Its splashy, curiously filter-free adventures unfold in Italy and Germany during World War II, to sometimes awkward effect.In this period fantasy, a Jewish magician named Israel (Giorgio Tirabassi) leads a multitalented troupe: a furry strongman, Fulvio (Claudio Santamaria); a man who commands hordes of bugs, Cencio (Pietro Castellitto); the magnetic Mario (Giancarlo Martini); and the electrically charged Matilde (Aurora Giovinazzo).When Israel goes missing, Matilde ends up with the Italian resistance, while her friends seek Israel in Berlin. There, they run into the previously mentioned Nazi piano player, Franz (Franz Rogowski), who has visions of Germany’s defeat and beyond. A star attraction at the circus, Franz plays songs from the future (“Sweet Child of Mine,” “Creep”), but he’s most intent on finding a “fantastic four” to save the Nazi regime.The story’s basic tension becomes apparent from the opening sequence: A sweet performance by Israel’s troupe, which gives the movie a chance to showcase some enchanting special effects, segues into a Nazi bombardment. From there on out, the film’s conventional, Hollywood-friendly quest aims to please with a childlike sense of mission, but it’s jarring as it leans on the grim stakes and sights of World War II. (Case in point: There’s a battle to liberate a train carrying human cargo.)That leaning may not trouble all viewers. For its part, the movie is definitely not self-conscious about its violent bits, its Nazi regalia or a particularly joyful sex scene. As for Mainetti, the director, it wouldn’t be surprising to see him apply his zeal to another universe at some point.Freaks vs. the ReichNot rated. In Italian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 21 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Those Who Remained’ Review: Managing Unimaginable Grief

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      Set in Hungary after World War II, this film concerns a doctor and a teenager seeking to fill the void left by the relatives they lost.Opening in 1948 and closing with Stalin’s death in 1953, “Those Who Remained” unfolds in a Hungary pushing past the end of World War II toward a Communist future. But the trauma of the war and sorrow over the dead lingers for its two main characters, who become part of each other’s lives, more or less as replacements.Aldo (Karoly Hajduk) is a gynecologist. His tattooed arm offers a clue to where he has been. At one point someone overhears him praying in Hebrew, despite his claim that he is no longer religious. As the film begins, he meets a new patient: Klara (Abigel Szoke), who is almost 16 but whose great-aunt, Olgi (Mari Nagy), is concerned that the girl’s puberty is not progressing. When Klara reveals that her mother hasn’t “come home yet,” Aldo deduces that the problem isn’t physical (although Klara’s reluctance to eat surely doesn’t help).Both Klara and Olgi, who found her grandniece in an orphanage while looking for other relatives, know that Olgi isn’t cut out to be a parent, or to help Klara with classes she says she is deliberately trying to fail, even though she’s bright enough to read multiple languages. Also, Aldo reminds Klara of her father. Eventually, the three arrange for Klara to sometimes stay with Aldo. He in effect becomes her foster father, but never in official terms, which raises one teacher’s suspicion.Part of the idea of the film, directed by Barnabas Toth and based on a novel by Zsuzsa F. Varkonyi, is that only survivors could understand the solace that Klara and Aldo find in their tentative parent-daughter bond. “Those Who Remained” leaves much unsaid about their pasts, sometimes at the risk of seeming coy (the word “Jewish” is never spoken). But Hajduk and Szoke are strong performers.Those Who RemainedNot rated. In Hungarian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Winter Boy’ Review: Lost and Found

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      In this French drama about a teenager grappling with grief, a winning cast rises above a heavy-handed script.In “Winter Boy,” a new drama by the French director Christophe Honoré, a father’s sudden death leaves his teenage son adrift in time. Adolescence pulls Lucas (Paul Kircher), a 17-year-old high schooler in a provincial French village, toward the future; grief holds him in the grip of the past. Lucas fumbles through a coming-of-age both rushed and stunted: He tries, like a grown-up, to stoically support his mother (Juliette Binoche) through her bereavement, but when he follows his older brother (Vincent Lacoste) to Paris for a week, he stumbles into juvenile misadventures.Lucas is gay, and one of the strengths of Honoré’s film is how unassumingly the character’s queerness is depicted. Lucas is open about his orientation from the start and supported by his family; his desires and sexual escapades — one of which involves his brother’s roommate, Lilio (Erwan Kepoa Falé), who moonlights as a prostitute — are tortured by confusion and loss but not by shame. It’s a gentle touch in a movie that otherwise can be quite heavy-handed: a cloying piano score underlines every emotion with a saccharine flourish, and, throughout the film, Lucas appears as a talking head, narrating his feelings to the camera.Much like its young protagonist, the movie feels clumsy when trying too hard to provoke: one such sequence alternates rather arbitrarily between Lucas’s conversation with a priest and an anonymous hookup he has in Paris. But “Winter Boy” shines when it allows its actors to quietly play out family dynamics, with Lacoste, Binoche and especially Kircher wearing the many shades of grief with effortless, endearing naturalism.Winter BoyNot Rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 2 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More