Movies

In the wake of a breakup, a woman squats in her ex-lover’s lake house and becomes enamored of a mysterious teenager. This trite premise is stretched glacially over 90 minutes in “Clementine,” an erotic thriller that runs low on both erotics and thrills.We meet Karen (Otmara Marrero) in the cryptic, nearly wordless opening scenes as she watches old videos of her and her ex, tries to rescue a dog from someone’s home, and leaves Los Angeles, only to then break into an elegant lake house in the Pacific Northwest. The house, we eventually learn, belongs to Karen’s ex-girlfriend — an older artist named D. (Sonya Walger), whom we hear on some angry phone calls but don’t see for most of the film.Soon, Karen meets Lana (Sydney Sweeney), an enigmatic young local, and the film’s intersecting themes of age, power and desire come into focus. “You’re only old when you know what you want and that you’ll never have it,” Karen says to Lana. The questions of who wants whom and whether or not they can have them become the central, shifting source of tension.[embedded content]But this push-and-pull of attraction is explored rather superficially in “Clementine,” written and directed by Lara Jean Gallagher. Lana, as the Lolita-esque temptress who dreams of Hollywood, feels particularly flat: The character’s affected drawl and cutesy antics (which include chucking a peeled clementine insouciantly into the water) are far too caricatured to be believable even as adolescent posturing. And although the camera’s attention to faces and gazes, coupled with an eerie soundtrack, conjures a vague mood of suspense and seduction, the plot fizzles out quickly without any real provocations.ClementineNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 30 minutes. Watch in select virtual theaters. More

Like the vibrator that facilitates a turning point for its owner in “A Good Woman Is Hard to Find,” this remorseless revenge story is a particularly blunt implement. Yet the director, Abner Pastoll, finds a measure of delicacy and nuance in the telling: Working from a script (by Ronan Blaney) that’s a minor miracle of austerity and pacing, he layers gangland grift, domestic drama and female fury into a satisfying lasagna of mounting violence.Set in an unnamed city in Northern Ireland against a painstakingly drawn backdrop of low-income strife, the movie focuses on Sarah (a fantastic Sarah Bolger), a frayed mother of two. Pale and delicate, Sarah carries the twin burdens of a recently deceased husband and a son who mysteriously refuses to speak. We don’t learn immediately how her husband died; but, given that we meet her covered in blood before the movie backtracks to fill in the blanks, we suspect that it may not have been from natural causes.[embedded content]“Best let sleeping dogs lie,” a disinterested police officer advises when Sarah inquires about the investigation into the death. They have already written him off as a bad lot; so when Tito (Andrew Simpson), an opportunistic thief, breaks into her home to stash his latest drug haul, the terrified Sarah sees little point in seeking help from the authorities. To protect her little ones from Tito — and, later, the gangland big shot who owns the drugs — she will have to act alone.While the movie barrels toward a final act that’s more feminist fantasy than credible conclusion, Bolger’s phenomenal performance locks us tightly on Sarah’s side. If good women are hard to find here, good men are impossible: In hardware store and supermarket, men regard her with contempt and condescension. Police officers and social workers alike assess her appearance and parenting with barely veiled disapproval. And by wrapping the character in a miasma of sexism, the filmmakers excuse her operatic violence as more than simply a mother’s need to defend her offspring: It’s a long-suppressed rage against every demeaning look and insinuating comment.At the same time, this potent little thriller (photographed by Richard Bell using Grand Guignol bursts of sticky red and impenetrable black) is careful to remind us regularly of Sarah’s tender side.“You’re too soft, Sarah,” her judgmental mother (a fine Jane Brennan) snaps, watching her with the children. If she only knew.A Good Woman is Hard to FindNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Film Movement’s Virtual Cinema or rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

In the depressed town of Orridge, deep in the American Rust Belt, New Liberty Plastics is the last factory standing. This heartfelt if occasionally maudlin drama, “Working Man,” begins on the plant’s closing day, and the story follows a company old-timer, Allery Parkes (Peter Gerety).For Allery, the muscle memory of factory labor seems to have settled into a trance: Without his job, he seems lost. He’s ill-suited to retirement, unable to sit still despite the nervous accommodations of his wife, Iola (a very welcome Talia Shire). As if under an enchantment, Allery wanders back to the plant, where he jimmies the lock and completes a day of work alone. Soon Allery’s outspoken co-worker, Walter (Billy Brown), joins his daily pilgrimage, and Walter recruits all of the factory floor workers to return with them. An unconventional labor story, the movie doesn’t bask in the triumph of rebellion; instead, it’s an introspective portrait of men for whom working is a replacement for living.[embedded content]It’s also a coming-of-age film about the second adolescence of men at retirement age who must find a way to define themselves when the structure of work has been stripped away. The writer-director, Robert Jury, pairs Allery’s crumbling sense of self with images from the town’s decaying infrastructure, lingering on rusted fences and the boxy utilitarian homes of laborers without work. If the writing is sometimes sentimental, the simple familiarity of the visuals strikes an honest note. Allery must evolve, lest he become as obsolete as his surroundings.Working ManNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. Rent or buy on FandangoNOW, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

In “Intrigo: Samaria,” a short-haired brunette teams up with an older man to revisit an unsolved murder from years ago. That may sound like the premise of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” and, coincidentally, this film shares a director with the second and third installments of the original Swedish trilogy. Perhaps that’s why Daniel Alfredson’s filmmaking feels most confident in this, the final entry of his thematically connected “Intrigo” series (now available on digital and on demand). The films take place in the fictional European town of Maardam, but the setting feels most fully realized here, with cameras panning the seemingly idyllic pastoral scenery of Samaria, the farm where the movie’s mystery is centered.[embedded content]The brunette would be Paula (Phoebe Fox), a documentarian making a film about the case of her former classmate Vera, who was presumed dead. The man is Henry (Andrew Buchan), once her teacher, whose help she enlists after a chance encounter. By the time Henry joins her, Paula has already made progress with talking-head footage, including an interview with Vera’s abusive father, in prison for killing her.Fox is riveting as a stubborn go-getter who often employs morally questionable methods for the sake of truth and art. But her screen presence isn’t enough to fill out this lean thriller, which hits so many cliché beats along the way. “Samaria” is not, however, completely without intrigue, and the ending at least eschews a completely predictable twist.Intrigo: SamariaRated R for language. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Talia Balsam is a paragon of acting talent who doesn’t get nearly as many opportunities to fully stand out as she ought. So it’s probable that “South Mountain,” a relatively rare starring vehicle for Balsam, would be worth seeing even if it were not so sharply observed and well-constructed. Fortunately, we are not obliged to split any differences here.The episodic film, written and directed by Hilary Brougher, begins on a near-idyllic summer day in the modest but cozy Catskills home Lila (Balsam) shares with her partner, Edgar (Scott Cohen), and sundry kids, almost all of whom are ready to leave the nest. Burgers are grilled, beers are consumed (surreptitiously by a couple of the teenagers), jobs groused about. Edgar is a screenwriter of sorts, and he leaves his chef duties to take a “business” call inside the house. The business is watching, on his phone, the other woman in his life give birth to his child.As expected, this development upends Edgar and Lila’s domestic arrangement. Like the good New York liberals they are, they at first talk things out calmly — Cohen resourcefully makes Edgar’s insistence on equanimity his most snakelike quality — but the betrayal, for Lila, turns over a massive “I’ve wasted my life” rock.[embedded content]At first this manifests itself in brisk, acerbic self-loathing. A hunky male friend of her stepdaughter remarks “So Sam says that you’re an artist” and Lila shoots back, “I teach.” Lila’s mounting rage then finds her acting out with said hunky male. She also makes an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to get back at Edgar in an extreme way.Balsam is marvelous throughout, precisely measured in portraying a state often teetering on abjection. Balsam’s Lila can turn from luminescent to hangdog in a flash. The character’s inner worlds register with exceptional vividness.South MountainNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

The original title of this French film, “Chambre 212,” is also the hotel room its lead character, Maria, checks into after an argument with her husband, who’s discovered profanely erotic texts from a student with whom she’s been carrying on. Maria, played with exemplary candor and feistiness by Chiara Mastroianni, is a woman who, in early middle age, clearly feels like stirring the pot.In the film’s opening scene, she’s caught in flagrante delicto with that student, by the guy’s fiancée. After initially shielding herself with a flimsy dorm-room curtain, she emerges, fully nude, and explains, with an air of superiority, that she simply could not resist taking on a lover with the name Asdrubal Electorat.[embedded content]So Maria is feeling liberated and pretty cavalier about her infidelity. She could probably compel her vexed husband, Richard (Benjamin Biolay, who is Mastroianni’s real-life ex-husband), to vacate their apartment. But she leaves instead.The English-language title of this comedy, written and directed by Christophe Honoré, tips its fantasy-aspect hand a little too much. Once checked in at the hotel, Maria is visited by the 20-something-year-old incarnation of Richard (Vincent Lacoste). He’s fresher, smoother, more sexed up than today’s Richard — and also, in his way, a bit priggish. But at least Maria can enjoy some acrobatic lovemaking with him in between his pouty protestations.Also visiting the hotel room will be Richard’s boyhood piano teacher, who seduced the fellow when he was younger. Then there’s Maria’s mother. And every guy with whom Maria cheated on Richard during their marriage. Not to mention the apparent ghost of the beloved French singer Charles Aznavour (Stéphane Roger), who introduces himself as Maria’s “will.”This sounds like more of a romp than it actually is. Honoré, whose last picture was the superb, moving romantic drama “Sorry Angel,” certainly does right by Mastroianni, a frequent collaborator. The character they’ve constructed is funny, engaging and a bit maddening. But despite the fantastic premise and the ostensibly comedic bits of business Honoré strews throughout (pay attention to the changing marquee of the cinema on the street where both Maria’s apartment and the hotel are), the movie’s treatment of its themes still too often lists toward a near-ponderous solemnity. When Carole Bouquet turns up during the final half-hour, though, her mere presence palpably lifts the movie’s mood. It’s most welcome.On a Magical NightNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Mossville, a small, predominantly black community in Southwestern Louisiana, was founded by a freed slave in 1790. It endured through the Civil War, Jim Crow and industrialization to become a self-sustaining town of a few thousand residents in the 20th century. But in Alexander John Glustrom’s infuriating documentary, “Mossville: When Great Trees Fall,” it looks more like a ghost town.Glustrom focuses on a single Mossville resident, a sort of accidental activist named Stacey Ryan. Ryan is first seen in somewhat straitened circumstances, looking less than healthy. It’s a shock when the movie flashes back a few years earlier to show a hardy-looking Ryan helping his son play tee ball.What happened to him and his neighbors? That would be the energy and chemical company Sasol. Its local plant releases contaminants that over decades have made the surrounding environment toxic. And as Sasol’s facilities expanded, the company has tried to buy out town residents. But Ryan, a descendant of one of Mossville’s founders, won’t go.[embedded content]Is this a case of environmental racism — that is, the disproportionate exposure of communities of color to pollutants as a consequence of structural inequality? As it turns out, Sasol is based in South Africa. Its very reason for being was to serve apartheid — creating one’s own fuels can be handy under other countries’ sanctions.The movie travels to that country, where another black community is a sitting duck for Sasol’s emissions. This deepens the film’s argument, but too much of the movie remains insufficiently filled in. One wants to hear the higher-ups from Sasol try to justify themselves. The sub-90-minute run time isn’t an emblem of concision; the movie simply ends too soon.Mossville: When Great Trees FallNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 16 minutes. Watch on Maysles Documentary Center’s virtual cinema. More

In Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel of the same name, two men meet by chance and discuss an exchange of murders: They would kill each other’s targets and evade suspicion because there would be no link between killer and victim. In the second entry of Daniel Alfredson’s thematic “Intrigo” trilogy, from a book by the Swedish author Hakan Nesser, the friends refer to this Hitchcock movie while hatching their own plan, inviting not only an unfair cinematic comparison to a masterpiece, but also scrutiny over a simple but flawed plot.[embedded content]“Intrigo: Dear Agnes,” now out on digital and on demand, features not strangers with homicidal schemes, but long-lost friends. Henny (Gemma Chan) reunites with Agnes (Carla Juri) after the funeral of the latter’s husband. Trapped in an unhappy marriage with a rich man, Henny expresses open envy at Agnes’s freedom. Henny realizes she can eliminate her husband, Peter, if she can persuade Agnes to kill him. In exchange, she’ll pay Agnes the money she needs to keep her house. Henny’s rationale is that she suspects Peter of infidelity, and Agnes gives voice to a question sure to occur to viewers: Why not just leave him? Henny doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction, she says.Through flashbacks, the film traces the falling out that led to the women’s current iciness. Their own connections, revealed bit by bit, make their plan even more ludicrous. A plot turn helps clarify why Henny reaches out to Agnes, but their motives remain muddled.Intrigo: Dear AgnesRated R for murderous, adulterous behavior. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More