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      ‘What We Do Next’ Review: A Political Morality Play

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      In this three-person chamber drama, an ex-convict, a politician and a white-collar defense engage in tense conversations while pursuing their individual goals.“What We Do Next” is a three-person chamber drama that takes the scheming and blackmailing of political thrillers like “House of Cards” and shapes them into something like a morality play.In seven acts, the film tracks the relationship between Elsa (Michelle Veintimilla), an ex-convict; Sandy (Karen Pittman), a New York City politician; and Paul (Corey Stoll), a white-collar defense attorney. Years ago, when Sandy was running for office, she gave Elsa some cash to presumably flee her family home, where her father was sexually abusing her. Instead, Elsa bought a gun and shot him dead.Her lengthy prison sentence is an injustice in and of itself, the film makes clear. Like many women, Elsa is the victim of a criminal justice system that too often fails to take into account the context of abuse and survival in which such crimes take root. After being released, Elsa is left with a criminal record that has largely condemned her to low-paying work.Elsa refuses to settle for this, challenging the authenticity of Sandy’s progressive platform in the process. She threatens to publicly reveal Sandy’s connection to the killing in exchange for a decent job, while Paul, desperate to rebrand himself and transition to anti-corruption law, inserts himself into the women’s negotiations for the sake of good public relations.These talks unfold in various small and nondescript locations — the film was shot during quarantine — but the drama’s stripped-down, dialogue-heavy approach isn’t entirely an extension of the minimalism that defined many sets at the height of the pandemic. The writer and director Stephen Belber is best known as a playwright, which explains many of the film’s strengths and weaknesses. Elegantly composed if ultimately visually bland for the big screen, “What We Do Next” is essentially a series of debates powered by the performers and Belber’s intelligent script, an intricately drawn microcosm of the country’s dynamics of power. The result doesn’t make the best use of the medium’s powers, but the chatty ride does make for good food for thought.What We Do NextNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Gods of Mexico’ Review: A Portrait of Indigenous Residents

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      This abstract-leaning nonfiction film consists of a series of vignettes and tableaus of communities in Mexico.Onscreen, “Gods of Mexico” is subtitled “a portrait of a nation through its land and peoples,” although its human subjects rarely speak and aren’t identified by name until the end. The director, Helmut Dosantos, making his first feature, eschews context. This abstract-leaning nonfiction film, made from 2013 to 2022, consists of a series of vignettes and tableaus featuring Indigenous residents of Mexico. Chapters are labeled by geographic region and, more obliquely, with the names of Aztec gods.Some of the movie shows life in motion. The camera observes salt harvesters sloshing water in rhythmic synchronization. A shot descends into a crater until all that’s visible is the crater’s floor, which resembles a giant eye.Other stretches of “Gods of Mexico,” which shifts between black-and-white and color, are built from shots that contain barely any motion. A fisherman who has his catch strung from a bamboo trunk carries the beam behind his neck, as the wind ripples across his clothes. A cow-drawn cart and its driver remain surreally in place on a beach as waves lap the shore. Women balance baskets on their heads while standing frozen against a spare, desert-like backdrop.Viewed as still photographs, these images have a raw power, and sound contributes to that effect. But the temporal element of cinema makes the compositions feel mannered and overly posed. (“Just one more second,” you picture the camera operator signaling to the women with baskets.) When, late in the film, miners playing a dice game converse, it only calls attention to how artfully — and perhaps artificially — withholding the preceding scenes have been. This nominal portrait of people isn’t interested in what they have to say.Gods of MexicoNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Forger’ Review: Hiding in Plain Sight

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      This German drama follows a young Jewish man in early 1940s Berlin who survives by falsifying passports and concealing his identity in public.Before the opening credits in “The Forger,” a brief flash-forward scene shows a young man scampering into a lost and found office. Barging toward the desk, he is promptly reprimanded and ordered to wait his turn. This bathetic prelude is perhaps meant to communicate the man’s impudence, but it also readies the audience for a film of modest ambitions. Set in Berlin in 1942-43, the German period drama is less interested in wartime crises than the daily imbroglios of a life of hiding in plain sight.The film, directed by Maggie Peren, follows the Jewish 21-year-old Cioma Schönhaus (Louis Hofmann), a documents forger sustaining himself on ration coupons, chutzpah and sheer daring alongside his friend, Det (Jonathan Berlin). For a span, the pair reside in Cioma’s family home — their relatives have already been deported — and find that they can enjoy extravagant outings to restaurants and dance clubs by posing as naval officers.The screenplay, which Peren adapted from Schönhaus’s 2008 memoir, unspools with a certain complacency, and often seems to lack an emotional engine. Fleeting moments of suspense or melancholy are undermined by Cioma’s unremitting insouciance — no matter the situation, he wears a smirk — and a series of underwritten relationships muck up the narrative rather than enrich it. Peren is clever to favor mischief against a backdrop of gloom, but in doing so she draws a frustrating distance between her subject and the audience.The ForgerNot rated. In German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 56 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Split at the Root’ Review: A Powerful Lens on Immigrant Families Split Apart

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      This documentary shows the plight of one woman as she tries to reunite with her sons and make a permanent home in the United States.When news of the Department of Justice’s zero-tolerance policy for unauthorized entry into the United States came out in mid-2018, a group of moms in Queens sprang into action. They created an organization called Immigrant Families Together, aimed at reuniting mothers held at Eloy Detention Center in Arizona with the children taken from them by the government. “Split at the Root” follows one of these women: Rosayra, an asylum seeker from Guatemala who had crossed into the U.S. with her two sons. The documentary, directed by Linda Goldstein Knowlton, is a heartbreaking reminder of the cruelty of these separations, showing that reunification is often only the beginning of a long journey for the families torn apart.Rosayra’s path toward gaining asylum shows the Catch 22 many face: One must be in imminent danger to be admitted as a refugee but must also remember to get a police report from the country they were leaving; immigrants must prove they will not be a burden to the country but are not allowed to work. The emotional toll on the families is acute, including inhumane conditions, bureaucratic hurdles and personal trauma. Before Rosayra meets up with her boys in New York City, her teenage son, Yordy, takes charge of his younger brother, Fernando Jose, and in an interview expresses the challenges of becoming a de facto parent at age 15.“Split at the Root” is a powerful lens into the emotional plight of the thousands of immigrants who cross the border into the United States, the danger they are fleeing and the people trying to help them.Split at the RootNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘The Year Between’ Review: An Easygoing Breakdown

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      In this warm dramedy, a family works together to create a stable routine after their college-age daughter is diagnosed with bipolar disorder.An emerging performer and filmmaker, Alex Heller wrote, directed and stars in “The Year Between” as Clemence Miller, a college sophomore whose erratic behavior gets her booted from school. As a dropout, Clemence returns to her family home in suburban Illinois, under the care of her exasperated but loving parents, Sherri and Don (played endearingly by J. Smith-Cameron and Steve Buscemi.)Sherri drags her daughter to psychiatric consultations, and there, Clemence is diagnosed with bipolar disorder. From this moment of clarity, the film develops into a semi-autobiographical and engaging view of what it’s like for a bellicose youth to adjust to a new mental health diagnosis.Clemence begins new medication, fine-tuning her dosage through trial and error. Her new routine means abstaining from drugs and alcohol, as well as learning new exercise and mindfulness practices. Clemence also has to adapt to moving back in with her family, and she wrestles with the financial reality of working rather than attending university. With so much unappealing change on her plate, Clemence isn’t interested in being a model patient. Her adjustment period includes an impromptu head-shaving, sibling feuds and a fling with an introverted drug dealer.Yet the film is sympathetic to Clemence’s two-steps-forward, one-step-back approach to stability. Heller uses color and production design to establish a warm tone around her occasionally manic protagonist. She creates frames packed with texture, incorporating plush and unpretentious furniture into rooms already cluttered with knickknacks and discarded dishes. Her film’s palette is saturated, lending a glow to characters’ faces even in moments of dysfunction.This lived-in quality to the filmmaking supports equally relaxed performances from both veteran and emerging actors, making for an even-keeled and easy viewing experience.The Year BetweenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Sansón and Me’ Review: Retracing a Path to Prison

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      The filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes examines immigration and incarceration through the story of a young undocumented man caught up in gang violence.To support himself and his family while pursuing a filmmaking career, the Mexican American director Rodrigo Reyes has worked as a court interpreter. It was in this capacity that he met Sansón Noe Andrade, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who landed in California’s Merced County as a boy — and who, in 2012, at the age of 19, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for serving as a driver in a gang-related shooting.The sentence infuriated Reyes, who would later refer to it as a life “being thrown away.” He became determined to make a documentary about Andrade’s case, but was thwarted by carceral bureaucracy. Denied permission to conduct on-camera interviews with Andrade, he conceived a meta-documentary of sorts; “Sansón and Me” is the result.Traveling to the town of Tecomán, where Andrade’s alcoholic father was a fisherman until he died in a car accident very early in his son’s life, Reyes meets members of Andrade’s extended family and “casts” them to re-enact scenes from the young man’s life.The film is an unusually layered look at how the combination of privation, misplaced familial loyalty and just plain rotten luck can make the immigrant experience in America a nightmare. As Andrade’s letters to Reyes reiterate his aversion to gangs, both outside and inside prison, the viewer’s curiosity about how the young man got into this fix is stretched almost to the point of exasperation. This is perhaps part of Reyes’s point: How much do you need to know before you decide to extend compassion to his subject?Be that as it may, it makes for a lopsided viewing experience at times. Ultimately, though, discomfort turns to outrage, and Reyes makes the case that an appalling, albeit commonplace, injustice has been done here.Sansón and MeNot rated. In Spanish and English, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Blueback’ Review: A Heart for the Ocean

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      Mia Wasikowska stars in this mournful, stodgy drama about the emotional cost of protecting the planet from its most rapacious predator: the land developer.Consider the western blue groper the St. Bernard of Australia’s southern coast, a heavy, friendly fish game to frolic with swimmers if fed the right treats. “Blueback” gets its title from the pet name a young diver gives her aquatic playmate. Directed by Robert Connolly, it’s a mournful, stodgy, girl-meets-fish drama about the emotional cost of protecting the planet from its most rapacious predator: the land developer.The screenplay, which Connolly adapted from Tim Winton’s 1997 children’s novel, unspools in flashback. Abby (Mia Wasikowska) is a marine biology professor paddling frantically to prevent the collapse of a coral reef when she learns that her mother, Dora (Radha Mitchell), is dying. Returning home, Abby recalls a childhood steeped in environmental activism. She chooses to fight with science; her mother fearlessly screams at greedy fishermen and chains herself to a construction truck. (Abby’s father, a pearl diver, was eaten by a tiger shark.)Mitchell’s earthy, mercurial performance — plus a supporting bit from Eric Bana as a bonfire-dancing bohemian — loosen up memories that feel too tightly welded together. You can feel barnacles on the dialogue, like when a corporate bully (Erik Thomson) growls, “You and your mom really think you can stop this, don’t you?”While Nigel Westlake’s violin flurries froth up suspense whenever possible, the film has more impact simply letting the women pause to soak in the beauty of the ocean. The one exception is a wrenching moment when the teen version of Abby (Ilsa Fogg), in desperation, punches her beloved Blueback to scare him away from spear hunters. We’ve seen variations on that musty but effective “shoo, boy!” scene, starring everything from dogs and wolves to a giant ant and Sasquatch. Your eyes get just as wet with a fish.BluebackRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre’ Review: The Getaway Car Is Stuck on Cruise

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      Guy Ritchie’s latest action-comedy puts Jason Statham and Aubrey Plaza in the middle of a rote heist story.The running joke of Jason Statham’s remarkably sturdy stardom — his bankability as an action lead has been running for over two decades — is that he always plays the same character: a stoic, unbreakable enforcer who offers the occasional gravel-toned wisecrack. The director Guy Ritchie’s own trademark, the stylized British crime comedy, has found its most frequent muse in this archetype, which Ritchie has helped shape in Statham ever since they both broke out with “Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels” (1999).They’ve paired up time and time again, but in “Operation Fortune: Ruse de Guerre,” it seems as if Ritchie, and in turn Statham, has rested too casually into the routine. The distinguishing quality of Statham’s character in this one? Orson Fortune is the best mission man out there, but he grates his employers with bougie requests: for the best wines, and for “rehabilitation vacations” to assuage his neuroticism. It’s an odd character trait thrown on top of Statham’s typically hardened exterior, and, despite the best efforts of a handful of weak jokes, feels thrown in as an afterthought.Much of the movie operates this way, as a perfunctory heist film just going through the motions. Ritchie seems impatient to get things over with, jumping straight into the mission: A mysterious briefcase has been stolen, and the British government hires a private contractor (Cary Elwes) and his team (Statham, Aubrey Plaza and company) to retrieve it. Soon enough, we’re introduced to the twist: To court the billionaire arms dealer involved in the theft (played by Hugh Grant), Orson decides to kidnap the world’s biggest movie star, Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett), whom he plans to use as bait.The silly premise is one that a better Ritchie film could, with some charm, style and wit, have turned into a workable romp. But everything here is stuck on autopilot. Statham is underutilized, and the movie doesn’t convincingly establish him as the gritty badass it wants him to be. That is fine enough for a film that intends to rely on the breezy touch of a crime-crew comedy, but the ensemble is similarly turned into background noise. It’s not so much that the cast members lack chemistry, but rather that the film doesn’t bother to establish any legible dynamic between their characters, leaving the halfhearted banter without a place to land. Hartnett doesn’t quite have the star power to really make the meta-humor of his character work, rendering his arc a pointless narrative gimmick.Plaza, though, is the most woefully wasted piece of it all. On paper, there’s real potential between her and Statham — Plaza’s unfazed snark meeting the unamused and immovable object that is Statham — and we see it in pockets. But she’s mostly left as a side player in a film that doesn’t know how to capitalize on their chemistry or to just hand the reins to Plaza to shoot more guns and make more jokes. We’re left instead with brief moments of her devilish charm and fleeting, thrilling seconds of her shooting out a car window in slow motion with Hartnett cowering in the driver’s seat.Operation Fortune: Ruse de GuerreRated R for language and violence. Running time: 1 hour 54 minutes. In theaters. More