Movies

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 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

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

Adapted from the writer John Brandon’s eponymous 2008 novel, “Arkansas” intercuts the escapades of a pair of low-level drug couriers with the back story of their mysterious mafia boss. Less a mob thriller than a ruminative drama about a life built around orders and betrayals, the movie takes an unusual perspective on a familiar genre but is weighed down by its dull, uneven pace.The problems begin right from the film’s verbose opening, in which Kyle (Liam Hemsworth), a drug runner, delivers a voice-over monologue about lacking a “philosophy of life.” There’s a lot more talk after this, as Kyle is dispatched on an interstate errand with a fellow cog-in-the-machine, Swin (the movie’s director, Clark Duke). They’re stopped on the way and taken underwing by John Malkovich’s Ranger Bright — a loathsome minion of the big boss, Frog, whose identity remains a mystery well into the film.[embedded content]It takes a while for the plot to kick into action, and, once it does, the film weaves back and forth between Frog’s duplicitous rise to the top of a modest Southern drug ring and the mostly foolish antics of Kyle and Swin. There’s a laid-back, mumblecore vibe to the film that might have worked had there been more irony or humor in the script, or more personality in the lead performances. As it stands, “Arkansas” is a drag, and it feels dated, too: Swin’s courtship of a local nurse (Eden Brolin) starts with her calling him out for being persistent and creepy. His response: “Do you like creepy?” Are we really still doing this in 2020?ArkansasRated R for sudden bursts of graphic violence. Running time: 1 hour 57 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

Slow and sweet and unassuming, “Driveways,” the second feature from the Korean-American director Andrew Ahn, tackles major themes in a minor key. And with little to mark its quiet accumulation of life-changing events, this small-town character study is perpetually in danger of drifting past without pulling you in.Which would be a shame, as its performances are among the most affecting I’ve seen in quite a while. Shot in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., the film gathers together three people in various stages of transition. There’s Del (the great Brian Dennehy, who died last month), a widower and retired Korean War veteran who spends solitary days on his porch and chummy evenings playing bingo at the V.F.W. hall. The arrival next door of Kathy (Hong Chau), an Asian-American single mother, and her eight-year-old son, Cody (the delightful Lucas Jaye), doesn’t so much disrupt Del’s long-held routine as expand it in ways that will offer unexpected gifts to all three.[embedded content]Kathy has come to clean out the home of her dead sister, and is shocked to discover that she has inherited a filthy hoard that includes an expired cat. While she prepares the home for sale — and processes her guilt over neglecting her estranged sibling — Cody, smart and sensitive, reads manga and avoids the rowdy neighborhood boys. With seemingly little access to his father, Cody is drawn to the gruff yet kind old man next door, and soon he and Del are forming a low-key connection.Suffused with a sense of decline and loss, regret and letting go, “Driveways” is discreet to a fault. Devoid of anything resembling drama, the script (by Hannah Bos and Paul Thureen) is slight and allusive. No obvious political points jar the movie’s gentle rhythms, just casual reminders of all-too-common realities: the devastation caused by the 2008 financial downturn, the strain of single parenting, the feeling of not quite fitting in. Only a cast this strong could give the film weight, and both Christine Ebersole, as a racially insensitive neighbor, and Jerry Adler, as Del’s increasingly forgetful friend, make small moments memorable.What we might remember most, perhaps appropriately, are Dennehy’s warm, weary features and rich line readings. In a lovely final monologue, Del advises Cody to avoid rushing past the experiences in life that matter, as they pass so quickly on their own. Much like the careers of beloved actors.DrivewaysNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. Rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More