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      ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ Review: Forrest Gump in India

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      This Indian adaptation of “Forrest Gump” doubles down on its Pollyanna hero, substituting different historical touchstones.“Forrest Gump” has been called many things: a feel-good crowd-pleaser, a maddening piece of pap, and America’s version of Voltaire’s “Candide” (per the film scholar Dave Kehr). “Laal Singh Chaddha” offers up a fresh look: a luxuriantly produced Indian adaptation that doubles down on the story’s simpleton hero, with new historical touchstones.In the film’s framing device, Laal (Aamir Khan, the star of the 2001 crossover hit “Lagaan”) recounts his life story to passengers on a train. He grows up bullied because of his leg braces, despite his protective mother (Mona Singh), but he befriends a classmate, Rupa (Kareena Kapoor Khan), and later pines for her.The Gumpian formula of comical serendipity plays out as Laal accidentally becomes a track-and-field star, inspires a signature dance, rescues friend and foe during a mountain skirmish, and earns millions manufacturing underwear. The famous box of chocolates is reimagined, sweetly so: life is now like a golgappa (a crisp fried treat).In Advait Chandan’s film, traumatic national history gets a therapeutic recap: the military conflict in which Laal shows the power of compassion is the Kargil war, while the assassination of Indira Gandhi and sectarian riots also figure into the plot. (Laal is Sikh but only barely grasps these violent events.)Though treated as noble, Laal’s naïve optimism doesn’t rise to much more than the notion of having a good attitude. Khan’s portrayal suggests a cross between a lesser Farrelly Brothers comedy and “Being There,” and seems ill-suited to Rupa’s grim later experiences married to an abusive producer. The movie’s charms are limited by what comes to feel like a coddling conceit.Laal Singh ChaddhaRated PG-13 for some violent content, thematic elements and suggestive material. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 39 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Free Puppies!’ Review: A Fight to Save a Dog’s Life

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      This documentary focuses on volunteer animal rescue groups in the rural United States.Animal lovers will find a bittersweet watch in “Free Puppies!,” a documentary on volunteer rescue groups working to adopt dogs in areas of the United States that are high in strays and, subsequently, high in euthanasia rates.The directors Samantha Wishman and Christina Thomas narrow their scope to Dade County, a rural area in northwest Georgia, where locals like the small-business owner Monda Wooten have stepped up to rescue stray animals and push for spay-and-neuter services in the absence of an operating animal shelter. Despite being on the local board of commissioners, Wooten has been unable to secure funding for a shelter or a comprehensive animal control unit for the county since she first started rescuing animals more than a decade ago. As Wishman and Thomas explain, the issue of shelter funding is a pervasive one across the Southeast that, coupled with the year-round warm climate and high rates of poverty, has created an environment with too many stray dogs and not enough kennels or homes to keep them in.The focus of “Free Puppies!” can feel a bit limited at times. It would have been nice to perhaps see how other counties in the South are responding to these widespread animal welfare concerns, or to examine more closely how poverty and the lack of social services in the region has had a trickle-down effect on nonhuman lives. Nevertheless, the film achieves its goal in raising awareness for these volunteer efforts, casting a spotlight on a chronically overlooked crisis.Free Puppies!Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas. More

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      ‘The Princess’ Review: An Unsparing Look at Princess Diana

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      The director Ed Perkins uses only found footage to create a harrowing account of Diana’s life and death.The first clue that “The Princess” will not be your standard-issue Diana Spencer documentary is that the director is Ed Perkins. Perkins’s last film, “Tell Me Who I Am” (2019), which was also his first feature, told a painful true story of identical twins whose lives were upended by abuse and memory loss. While its perspective was compassionate, its revelations were presented in a way that could best be called unsparing.There are few revelations in this picture, which chronicles Diana’s life from right before the announcement of her engagement to Prince Charles up until her death in a car accident in Paris in 1997. Actually, the movie, made up entirely of archival footage, begins with careening video taken while she and her companion, the businessman Dodi Fayed, were fleeing paparazzi on the evening of her death.This is a harrowing movie that depends on our collective hindsight to underscore its manifold and particular ironies. For instance, in joint interviews with Prince Charles shortly after the marriage, Princess Diana seems maybe very reserved — or maybe depressed. As it turns out, it was depression. Viewing this now makes one shudder.Perkins doesn’t editorialize overtly; the movie’s editing and a tense music score by Martin Phipps (with additional music by Rutger Hoedemaekers) do that work, a subtle but ultimately indignant skewering of celebrity culture.One of the picture’s final images is of a young Prince Harry at his mother’s funeral; the pain in his eyes is moving. But it indirectly reminds us that Diana’s life and death have taught the world precisely nothing.The PrincessNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Watch on HBO and HBO Max. More

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      ‘We Are Living Things’ Review: The Truth Is Out There

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      Two undocumented immigrants from opposite sides of the world connect in Brooklyn — and over their shared trauma relating to apparent alien abductions.Do you want to believe? Solomon (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) does — he already believes that his own mother was abducted by space aliens — which is probably easier than accepting what may be her truer and grizzlier fate.But such is the type of absurd proposition faced by many undocumented immigrants like Solomon, as Antonio Tibaldi’s cool and atmospheric “We Are Living Things” posits in original if not always fully formed ways: Refugee life is often a choice between competing probabilities, a state of permanent ambiguity.Solomon, who is Mexican, does odd jobs and lives on a recycling lot in Brooklyn, where at night he pursues his passions for magnetic rocks and listening to the stars. When he meets a beautiful Chinese woman, Chuyao (Xingchen Lyu), he senses he has found a fellow believer. He isn’t wrong; indeed, she says she was abducted by aliens herself.He also senses danger. Chuyao is undocumented, too — that’s to say, vulnerable — working days at a nail salon. By night, a charming hustler (Zao Wang) pimps her out in ways that may prompt some angsty Googling. (I’ll save you some awkwardness: It’s called a latex vacuum bed.) Solomon, often a more convincing stalker than hero, has a creepy van and an unexplained facility with chloroform and box cutters. His unsolicited rescue attempt sends the unlikely pair fleeing west.Tibaldi and his co-writer, Àlex Lora, do much with little, and one is likely to finish with more questions than resolutions — fitting for a film about various forms of alien life. If you’re also left wondering whether the central characters and their relationship feel sufficiently grounded, perhaps the answer is out there somewhere.We Are Living ThingsNot rated. In English, Spanish and Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Girl Picture’ Review: Teens on Thin Ice

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      This Finnish comedy about three high school girls grants them a judgment-free sanctuary.“Girl Picture,” directed by Alli Haapasalo, is a giddy, high-strung comedy about three Finnish high schoolers anxious to capitalize on that sliver of teenagedom when life is all possibilities — a period that races by so fast that the film, written by Ilona Ahti and Daniela Hakulinen, is able to cram a smorgasbord of joy and humiliation into just three weekends.Every Friday, the best friends Ronkko (Eleonoora Kauhanen) and Mimmi (Aamu Milonoff) finish their job at a smoothie shop and set out to sample a tasting menu of experiences; from true love to emotionless hookups. They’re in a rush to decide who they are — or aren’t. Ronkko, a curly-headed flirt, is anxious that sex has been, so far, disappointing. Mimmi, a sensitive punk with a sharp tongue, is doubtful she has the maturity to woo an ice skater named Emma (Linnea Leino) who comes with — yuck! — grown-up-size responsibilities, like perfecting her triple Lutz so not to blow her chance at the European Championships. Leino’s physical carriage — from her convincing athleticism to the way the actress plays her fretful wallflower with her eyebrows knitted together like a pair of mittens — captures her character’s determination. When her mother (Cécile Orblin) presses Emma to attend a party, she groans, “Fine, but I’ll be home by 10.”The characters are all much harder on themselves than is the film itself, which grants them a judgment-free sanctuary (even as they make mistakes that may have the audience yelping like at a horror flick). Instead, Haapasalo blesses her trio with a pop soundtrack that crescendos at the peak of a kiss, and climactic crises that are a mite too readily resolved, adamantly gracing this awkward stage of girlhood with forgiveness — not hectoring lessons.Girl PictureNot rated. In Finnish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Mack & Rita’ Review: 70 Is the New 30

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      An influencer emerges from a tanning bed 40 years older in this playful movie starring Diane Keaton.In the Diane Keaton comedy “Mack & Rita,” the 30-year-old Mack (Elizabeth Lail) has always felt like an old soul. Recently, tuckered out by the demands of being a social-media influencer and hurt by not making headway on her second novel, she just wants a rest. At her bestie Carla’s bachelorette jaunt to Palm Springs, Calif., Mack repairs to a retrofitted tanning bed advertised by a seeming charlatan named Luka (Simon Rex) as a life-regression pod.She emerges 40 years older, played by Keaton. (Wiser remains to be seen.) Keaton brings her affection for layered couture and gift for goofiness to the newly arrived Aunt Rita.Lessons will be learned, and there is plenty of slapstick. Although no relation to Buster, this Keaton has grown increasingly game for all manner of pratfall. Bring on the Pilates contraption! Pour the magic mushroom tea!Directed with some unexpected beats by Katie Aselton, the comedy captures a bit of the esprit de girlfriends of HBO’s “Insecure,” but borrows too giddily from the Nancy Meyers rom-com catalog of upscale homes.Keaton’s zaniness is balanced by Taylour Paige’s authenticity as Carla, whose friendship is nearly unflappable, and Dustin Milligan as Mack’s neighbor, dog-sitter and presumptive love interest, Jack. The comedy enjoys teasing Rita and Jack’s chemistry, as do the wine-tippling friends of Carla’s mother, Sharon (Loretta Devine, joined by Wendie Malick, Lois Smith and Amy Hill). The pleasure the klatch take in each other and the advice they offer Rita suggests that the best bridge between youth and growing gray — besides self-acceptance — might be lasting friendships.Mack & RitaRated PG-13 for some drug references, sexual friskiness and language. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Secret Headquarters’ Review: You Know, for Kids

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      A group of plucky tweens get in on some superhero action in this kid-friendly action comedy.“Secret Headquarters,” from the directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, is in essence a superhero movie designed for children — a lighthearted, low-stakes action blockbuster in which a coterie of plucky tweens must defend the earth by wielding an array of otherworldly powers. The story is very similar to “Spy Kids” (2001), Robert Rodriguez’s whimsical espionage thriller about preteen siblings who discover that their parents are world-class secret agents. In this film, a boy named Charlie (Walker Scobell, “The Adam Project”) deduces that his absent father (Owen Wilson) has been living a double life as the Iron Man-like hero named the Guard. Charlie discovers this after he and his friends stumble upon an underground lair beneath his home; as in “Spy Kids,” the veteran parent soon finds need for junior backup, which the intrepid little kids are all too eager to provide.A movie like “Secret Headquarters” seems to want to give children an opportunity to see themselves saving the day with superpowers, letting young actors take part in the kinds of C.G.I.-laden fate-of-the-universe battles usually reserved for adults. The effort strikes me as somewhat redundant. When the kids are just doing kid stuff — playing softball, fretting about who to ask to the school dance — “Secret Headquarters” has the playful, mischievous air of something like “The Goonies.” When the kids acquire some of the Guard’s superpowers and start flying around and fighting baddies, it has the air of … well, of just another superhero movie. The similarities offer a credible reminder of an important distinction “Secret Headquarters” missed: most superhero movies are already aimed at children, even if they don’t star any.Secret HeadquartersRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. Watch on Paramount +. More

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      Anne Heche Remains in Critical Condition After Car Crash

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      Ms. Heche, 53, was injured on Friday when the car she was in crashed into a two-story home in Los Angeles, causing severe damage and a fire, the authorities said.The actress Anne Heche remained in a coma, in critical condition and on a ventilator on Wednesday, five days after a car she was in crashed into a home in Los Angeles, a representative said.There had been no change in her condition since Monday, when a different representative, Michael A. McConnell, told Reuters that Ms. Heche had not regained consciousness since shortly after the accident on Friday. “She has a significant pulmonary injury requiring mechanical ventilation and burns that require surgical intervention,” Mr. McConnell said then. Ms. Heche, 53, was critically injured on Friday when the Mini Cooper she was in crashed into a two-story home in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, causing severe damage and a fire that took more than an hour to extinguish, the authorities said.A Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman, Officer Norma Eisenman, confirmed earlier this week that Ms. Heche was involved in the crash. The authorities did not say that Ms. Heche was driving, but they did say that she was the car’s only occupant.Ms. Heche was pulled from the car and taken to a hospital with “severe injuries,” the police said.Anne Heche at the Directors Guild of America Awards in Beverly Hills, Calif., in March.Jordan Strauss/Invision, via APIt took 59 firefighters and more than an hour to extinguish the fire that started after the crash, the Fire Department said.Officer Rosario Cervantes of the Los Angeles Police Department said on Wednesday that the cause of the crash was part of the investigation and that no charges had been filed. She said that after the crash, a warrant was obtained for a blood sample taken on the day of the crash.“The investigation is ongoing pending the blood result,” Officer Cervantes said.Ms. Heche began her career in daytime television, playing good and evil twins on the NBC soap opera “Another World,” for which she won a Daytime Emmy in 1991 for outstanding younger actress in a drama series.In the late 1990s, she appeared in several popular Hollywood films, co-starring with Johnny Depp in “Donnie Brasco,” Robert De Niro and Dustin Hoffman in “Wag the Dog” and Harrison Ford in “Six Days Seven Nights.”She had a three-year relationship with the comedian Ellen DeGeneres that ended in 2000.Ms. Heche had roles in several TV shows, including “Men in Trees” in 2006 and “Hung” in 2009. More recent film credits include “The Best of Enemies” (2019), “The Vanished” (2020) and “13 Minutes” (2021). In 2020, she competed on ABC’s “Dancing With The Stars” and was eliminated after four weeks.Livia Albeck-Ripka More