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      ‘Sorry, Baby’ Review: Life and Nothing but, Beautifully

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      In her tender, funny feature directing debut, Eva Victor tells the story of a woman, the trauma that changed her and the life she kept on living.In its intimacy and naked truth-telling, “Sorry, Baby” is the kind of independent movie that can seem like a gift. It’s an outwardly unassuming story of a woman, Agnes, grappling with the aftermath of an assault that has rearranged both her head and her world without destroying either. The movie has moments that can make you wince, but it’s often wryly and tartly funny because life is absurd and complicated, and people are, too. Something horrible happened to Agnes, and that horrible thing remains in her, body and soul. It changed how she lives, has sex and sleeps. Yet every morning it’s still Agnes who gets up; she’s still here.“Sorry, Baby” is the striking feature directorial debut of Eva Victor, who also wrote and stars as Agnes. Quick-witted and sharp-tongued, Agnes is a tenured English lit professor when the movie opens, teaching in a university in a New England town. She seems relatively happy or at least settled, though also unsettled. With her cat, she lives in a pleasantly ordinary, two-story house with white clapboards that could use a paint job. It’s cozy inside, with comfortable chairs and stacks of books. Sometimes, when the wind blows, the house’s bones creak, prompting Agnes to see what’s outside. And then she locks the door.Arranged nonchronologically in titled sections, “Sorry, Baby” opens in the present with Agnes eagerly expecting a visit from her close friend Lydie (an excellent Naomi Ackie). The two used to live together in the house when they were grad students at the same school where Agnes now teaches. Nothing particularly eventful occurs during Lydie’s visit, although everything that these two women say and do — their unforced ease, how they readily laugh together and exchange loving, knowing looks — adds detail and texture to the emerging story, as does the unexplained sight of them both tucked into Agnes’s bed when they’re sleeping.It’s easy to like Agnes and Lydie, and want to fall into their little circle and, by extension, the movie. The performances are natural and nuanced; the characters attractive, with bright smiles, sharp minds and a tender, easy way of sharing space and quiet, a feeling of comfort that comes from a deep, shared history. Victor slips exposition into the realistic dialogue, but for the most part she doesn’t overexplain. Instead, she uses everyday chatter, glances, pauses and intonations to flesh out the characters and their relationships. When at one point Lydie asks — her face now still and serious, her voice briefly coloring with discreet emotion — if Agnes ever leaves the house, this seemingly simple question takes on great weight.The heaviness of Lydie’s question, what’s behind it and why she’s posed it, emerges gradually. Not long after Lydie returns home — don’t leave, Agnes says, jokingly but not — the movie shifts back several years to when they were both in grad school. Rearranging time, deploying flashbacks and flash-forwards, can be a lazy filmmaking tic, but it’s integral here. The assault separated Agnes’s life into distinct periods: a before and an after. Real life may not be a series of tidy chapters that’s framed by a once upon a time and a happily every after, but shaping time into stories that we share, revisit, revise and keep reworking is how we make sense of life. And, as Victor gently insists throughout, this is a story about a life, not its trauma.American independent film is rife with tragedies and characters suffering nobly or messily, with cascades of tears and snot and sometimes splashes of blood. Such stories can be obviously moving and at times a relief, especially when compared with mainstream cinema’s stubborn, Hollywood-style insistence on happy, heroic and triumphant endings. Shoulders will invariably be squared, eyes thoroughly dried. Characters will move on so that the audience can make it to the exit in one reassuring piece (and come back for more entertainment). Our movies are filled with extraordinary violence that grievously victimizes characters. Yet nobody, filmmakers very much included, likes a victim. It carries a taint, like loser.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Dune’ Director Denis Villeneuve to Take On Next James Bond Film

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      Amazon MGM Studios announced earlier this year that it had gained creative control over the Bond franchise after a family had held those duties for more than 60 years.Four months after Amazon MGM Studios announced that it had gained control over the James Bond franchise, the movie studio said on Wednesday that Denis Villeneuve, the director behind the current “Dune” series, will direct the next Bond film.“Some of my earliest moviegoing memories are connected to 007,” Villeneuve said in a statement. “I grew up watching James Bond films with my father, ever since ‘Dr. No’ with Sean Connery.”Villeneuve, who also directed the action thriller “Blade Runner 2049,” admitted that the fictional superspy who has spawned 25 movies and earned billions of dollars at the box office was “sacred territory.”“I intend to honor the tradition and open the path for many new missions to come,” he said. “This is a massive responsibility, but also incredibly exciting for me and a huge honor.”The next Bond film, for which no lead actor has been announced, will be executive produced by Tanya Lapointe. Amy Pascal and David Heyman will serve as producers.The announcement may not be a total surprise. Villeneuve said in an interview with The Playlist in 2017 that he had conversations about directing a Bond film but the timing was an issue.Villeneuve, who is from Quebec, has emerged as one of Hollywood’s leading directors, particularly with the critical and commercial success of the “Dune” series. “Dune: Part One,” released in 2021, earned six Academy Awards and Villeneuve was nominated for best adapted screenplay. Last year’s “Dune: Part Two,” which returned stars Timothée Chalamet and Zendaya, won two Oscars and more than $700 million in worldwide box-office sales. The third installment in the series, also directed by Villeneuve, is set to be released in December 2026.Amazon’s director announcement marks an incremental, but crucial step to getting Bond back onscreen. “No Time to Die,” the last Bond film, was released in 2021. It marked the end of a five-film series with Daniel Craig in the lead role.In February, it was announced that the family that had cautiously steered the Bond franchise for more than 60 years had agreed to relinquish control to Amazon. And this spring, the studio announced that a new video game featuring Bond, 007 First Light, would be released next year.The deal came after a standoff between Barbara Broccoli, who inherited control of Bond from her father, and Amazon, which gained a significant ownership stake in the franchise in 2021 as part of its $8.5 billion purchase of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Before the deal, Broccoli and her brother, Michael G. Wilson, another Bond producer, had held a tight grip over creative control, including when new films would be made and other important casting decisions. More

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      ‘Afternoons of Solitude’ Review: Man Versus Bull

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      Albert Serra’s mesmerizing documentary about a bullfighter faithfully depicts a violent tradition and the specter of death that suffuses it.Albert Serra’s first documentary feature, “Afternoons of Solitude,” shows the Peruvian-born torero Andrés Roca Rey as he battles bulls in the ring and psychs himself up offstage. The film’s faithful depiction of the bloody Spanish tradition could serve as an argument against the much-protested practice, but Serra’s vision is mesmeric not polemic. He records spangled ceremonies marinated in the fear of death, producing an X-ray of the male ego and its costly upkeep.Serra doesn’t frontload the spectacle: He likes to observe Roca Rey at rest, driven in a crowded car and facing a fixed camera. The fresh-faced bullfighter obsesses over his matches and masculinity, and his cuadrilla (team of assistants) big him up like a boxer before a fight. Serra’s mastery of mood in the film builds on an iconoclastic career spanning from the Don Quixote deconstruction “Honor of Knights” to the atomic tropicalia of “Pacifiction.”In the ring, Roca Rey and the bull are often tensely composed in medium shots and close-ups. The face-offs are hypnotic, like those between a mongoose and python; Roca Rey grimaces as he risks being gored in his angling and attacks. But notions of courage are complicated by the preparatory rituals of the “picadors,” who stab the bulls until they are weakened by muscle injury and blood loss.If this review sounds conflicted, that reflects the power of a nonfiction film that might also escape its director’s loftier intentions. This flop-sweat portrait suggests that a toreador is never as brave as the bull and maybe knows it.Afternoons of SolitudeNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Stealing Pulp Fiction’ Review: A Lowbrow Homage

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      A couple of loser cinephiles concoct a dumb heist plan, and hilarity is the last thing that ensues.Quentin Tarantino’s first two films, “Reservoir Dogs” and “Pulp Fiction,” had a galvanic effect not just on American independent film but movies the world over. From 1995 on, you couldn’t go to a film festival without tripping over several “Dogs” or “Pulp” impersonations, none of them a patch on the real thing. To be fair, one or two of the perpetrators of such items, Joe Carnahan to name a noteworthy example, grew into makers of more distinctive and enjoyable work. But the counterfeiters were, and mostly remained, a drag.“Stealing Pulp Fiction” is an overt Tarantino homage. Written and directed by Danny Turkiewicz, it concerns a few Tarantino-obsessed cinephiles who believe they can make a fortune by kidnapping the director’s personal print of his film and holding it for ransom. A witless duo, played by Jon Rudnitsky and Karan Soni, enlist a snarky female pal who objects to Tarantino on misogyny and thievery grounds; they also reel in the therapist of Rudnitsky’s character. These two are played by Cazzie David and Jason Alexander, but their high-octane comedic talents elevate the proceedings not a whit.Said proceedings eventually involve Tarantino himself, played by a gentleman named Seager Tennis, who, to paraphrase James Thurber, looks as much like Quentin Tarantino as Calvin Coolidge does the MGM lion.Turkiewicz apes Tarantino’s great film by giving chapter titles to its sections and setting multiple scenes in a diner. These sequences don’t resemble “Pulp Fiction” so much as they do television ads for Chili’s — a locale where you’ll have a better time than watching this utterly misbegotten movie.Stealing Pulp FictionNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Ponyboi’ Review: The Cost of Living Authentically

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      In this gritty film by River Gallo, an intersex character has to navigate New Jersey gangsters and double crosses.Classic neo-noir motifs are upended by a rare antihero in “Ponyboi,” thanks to its titular character: an intersex sex worker.Ponyboi’s job servicing regular clients is a dangerous necessity that offers him access to hormones to maintain his male identity. They’re supplied by Vinnie (Dylan O’Brien, perfectly smarmy), a pimp running a prostitution ring out of a laundromat in New Jersey. Predictably, a high-stakes death occurs, leaving Ponyboi (River Gallo, who wrote the screenplay) to confront the cost of living authentically.A fractured relationship with his father haunts him from the start. In a flashback, Ponyboi jolts awake after remembering his dad placing a cowboy hat on his head and promising he’d grow into a “big, strong man.” Amid this macho posturing is Bruce (Murray Bartlett). Seemingly conjured from Ponyboi’s imagination, Bruce is a drifting embodiment of human decency, moving through the film like a cool breath against the heat. Their scenes together are welcome dreamlike escapes.Directed by Esteban Arango, “Ponyboi” mimics the visual style and thematic tropes of pulpy crime noir (think “Blood Simple” and “Drive”), from double crosses to a past that torments its gritty protagonist. What better distillation of old-school manliness than sleazy swagger and neon-lit vendettas? Yet Gallo’s star-making turn pushes back against this version of hypermasculinity, reshaping genre conventions that have privileged rigid gender binaries. Watching Gallo carve out space for Ponyboi is its own kind of powerful assertion.PonyboiRated R for explicit drug use, graphic sexual content, nudity, strong language and scenes of violent abuse. Running time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘My Mom Jayne’ Review: An Exceptional Family Tale

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      Mariska Hargitay sets out to learn about her mother, the Hollywood actress Jayne Mansfield, through intimate conversations with her siblings.When Mariska Hargitay was three years old, her mother, the Hollywood star Jayne Mansfield, was killed in a car accident. Hargitay was seated beside her brothers in the back of the vehicle, and was lodged under a seat during the crash. She was almost left behind by rescuers, until her brother asked about her. In her moving documentary “My Mom Jayne,” Hargitay relays this past trauma with a mixture of sorrow and gratitude.Best known for starring as Olivia Benson, the dogged detective in “Law & Order: SVU,” Hargitay begins the film — her feature directorial debut — by explaining that she set out to learn about Mansfield, the mother she hardly knew. But instead of the typical biographical approach of interviewing historians and writers, Hargitay sits down for intimate conversations with her three elder siblings, whose testimonies she pairs with archival material depicting Mansfield’s life in the public eye.As Hargitay shows, the grainy footage tells one story while the family’s recollections tell another. Over her career, Mansfield curated an image of a ditsy coquette. She affected a Minnie Mouse speaking voice and received leering men with a genial giggle. This performance of vacuity belied Mansfield’s profound intellect and talents as a classically trained violinist, but it was an easier sell in Hollywood, and so she used the persona as a stepladder to climb to the top.For much of her life, Hargitay judged her mother for these acts, and although she doesn’t draw a line from Mansfield’s work as an actress to her own, it’s tempting to wonder whether Hargitay’s powerhouse role in “SVU” was a disavowal of the blonde bimbo archetype. It’s this tension that makes “My Mom Jayne” as much an experiment in autobiography as in biography, closer in kind to Sarah Polley’s “Stories We Tell” than the polished or salacious celebrity profiles clogging up streaming platforms.Like that predecessor, “My Mom Jayne” eventually builds to a brave personal disclosure where Hargitay shows how the mysteries encircling her mother’s life complicated her own identity as a daughter and sister. She makes the revelation with gentle courage, in a spirit of honesty and appreciation for the small ring of people who loved her family enough to avoid sharing the information.Folded into the project are questions about what defines a person’s legacy. Is it the face one puts on for the world or the private one shared with kin? Since Hargitay has little memory of Mansfield, how does she reconcile her mother’s many selves? Hargitay explores these ideas in voice-over, and settles on a generous understanding of Mansfield that centers on her talent for music. These efforts offer a clean conclusion, but it is the exquisitely relatable messiness of this exceptional family tale that lingers.My Mom JayneNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Max. More

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      ‘M3gan 2.0’ Review: Back to Slay Another Day

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      Everyone’s favorite campy killer doll returns in a movie that has some thoughts about artificial intelligence.The “M3gan” franchise — look, we all know there’s going to be a “3.0” — is the opposite of serious. In 2022, the first film played on the time-tested horror trope of the killer doll, adding an artificial intelligence twist. It became an instant camp classic, owing largely to clips from the trailer that were meme-ified all over the internet, especially its queer corners. Critics even loved it, probably because it clearly knew what kind of flamboyant nonsense it was aiming for and leaned all the way in.“M3gan 2.0” is no more serious than the original, but occasionally feels like it’s trying to be. When we last saw Gemma (Allison Williams, still sincere and excellent) and her tween niece Cady (Violet McGraw), they were picking up the pieces of their lives after M3gan, the A.I.-powered android that Gemma programmed to protect Cady, followed her prime directive so single-mindedly that she wreaked total havoc on their lives. Now, two years later, Gemma has become an author and an advocate for legislation and safeguards in A.I. development, and she carefully monitors Cady’s tech usage.This is an interesting turn of events for a movie like this, because it seems to take Gemma’s concerns seriously, laying out convincing arguments for not leaving all the A.I. development to profit-obsessed tech bros. Watching “M3gan 2.0,” I got the sense someone had done their homework, thinking about the ways that rhetoric about enhancing mankind’s future and creating a better world can, and do, function as a smoke screen for less altruistic ends. Once in a while, I caught myself thinking this movie was more grounded in the reality of A.I. in our world than films like the “Mission: Impossible” series.But it’s still a killer doll movie. With her labmates (Brian Jordan Alvarez and Jen Van Epps), Gemma is still developing products designed to help humans live in this brave new world, like a kind of exoskeleton that increases human stamina and strength. She’s also struck up an ambiguously warm relationship with the tech ethicist Christian (Aristotle Athari). But when a mysterious weapon named Amelia (Ivanna Sakhno) turns up abroad, and a billionaire (Jemaine Clement) starts sniffing around Gemma’s lab, it’s clear things are going go to sideways.In returning to M3gan’s world, the screenwriter and director Gerard Johnstone repeats some of the same formula, most notably the reappearance of the deranged A.I. doll (once again performed by Amie Donald and voiced by Jenna Davis). It’s still camp galore, with lines designed to be meme-ified again, and a lot of elaborate silliness. There’s acrobatic fighting; there’s a dance scene; there’s a hilarious nod to an A.I. product that notoriously flopped in the real world.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Hot Milk’ Review: Mommy Issues

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      Emma Mackey and Fiona Shaw star in this drama about a young woman in a codependent relationship with her disabled mother.Under a forgiving light, “Hot Milk” plays like a surrealist comedy about a 25-year-old British woman who is too depressed to finish her thesis. Sofia (Emma Mackey) lives with her mother, Rose (Fiona Shaw), in southern Spain. Groups of girls practice flamenco near the rocky beach where Sofia broods in solitude, and the neighbor’s dog, which is chained up to the roof, never stops barking.And one day Ingrid (Vicky Krieps), a bisexual manic-pixie-horse-girl from Germany, enters Sofia’s life and quickly breaks down her defenses with an annoyingly whimsical flirtation style. How are we supposed to react when, for instance, the two women enjoy a moody moonlit tryst and Ingrid breathily declares that she once killed someone?Baffling choices like these make “Hot Milk,” the directorial debut of the playwright and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, hard to take seriously. The film, adapted from the novel by Deborah Levy of the same name, is a tonal scramble, which makes the story’s intended throughline — Sofia’s toxic, codependent relationship with Rose — feel unexpected once it finally takes control of the narrative.The mother and daughter are in Spain indefinitely to meet with the renowned Doctor Gómez (Vincent Perez). Mysteriously, Rose is unable to walk, but as her treatment with the doctor continues, her disability seems to be linked to stranger psychological issues — and, perhaps, a desire to control Sofia.Shaw, at the very least, is a hypnotizing and treacherous presence, her seemingly guileless prattle masking deep trauma and cruelty. Mackey, despite flashes of ferocity, feels miscast. Beautiful and angsty, her Sofia doesn’t carry the story’s psychological layers about manipulation and masochism. The film eventually finds its footing, but the journey there might convince you not to care.Hot MilkRated R for sex, nudity, and psychological trauma. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. In theaters. More