Lousy Carter (Movie)

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    ‘Femme,’ ‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ and More Streaming Gems

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    A handful of low-key but formidable dramas dominate this month’s under-the-radar recommendations on your streaming subscription services.‘Femme’ (2024)Stream it on Hulu.It’s a deceptively simple premise: The drag performer Jules (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett) is badly beaten in a homophobic attack, only to find the main attacker (George MacKay) cruising for companionship months later. Unrecognized out of drag, Jules decides to entrap and humiliate his attacker, and if you think you know where this is going, you’re in for a surprise. Rather than rehashing the tired, simplistic tropes of the revenge thriller, the writing and directing duo Sam H. Freeman and Ng Choon Ping explore the emotional complexities of the trap Jules must set — and in doing so, pose compelling questions about Jules’s own sense of self-worth. Stewart-Jarrett is marvelously understated, carefully choosing when to let his character’s carefully cultivated persona slip, while McKay is chillingly convincing in his tricky characterization of a closeted, self-loathing gay man.‘The Teachers’ Lounge’ (2023)Stream it on Netflix.Carla Nowak (Leonie Benesch) is a new sixth-grade teacher who finds out exactly how fragile her sense of trust and idealism is in this harrowing drama from the director Ilker Catak. An atmosphere of suspicion and paranoia pervades this German school, thanks to a rash of petty thefts that have teachers and students alike side-eyeing each other. Carla entraps the seemingly clear culprit, and immediately regrets it. Catak, who wrote the screenplay with Johannes Duncker, squeezes the classroom and faculty spaces like a vice, expertly building operatic tension and discomfort (Marvin Miller’s gripping score does much of the work) out of everyday stress, seemingly careening toward an inevitable, violent conclusion; “I wish it had all worked out differently,” Carla says near the end, and by that point, you’re likely to agree.‘I Smile Back’ (2015)Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.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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      ‘Lousy Carter’ Review: Blackboard Bungle

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      A college professor gets a grim diagnosis in this comedy from Bob Byington.Death be not tragic in “Lousy Carter,” a repellently watchable curiosity from the Austin cult filmmaker Bob Byington. Carter (David Krumholtz) is a self-involved literature professor with little interest in his students, his family, and his past and present lovers. So when he’s given six months to live, no one cares. Turn the concept of a laugh-out-loud comedy inside-out and you’ll have a feel for Byington’s sense of humor: a sustained cruel hum, the room tone of a crypt.There are no hugs here, no lessons to glean before dying, not even anything as impassioned as despair. Carter fills his final days dully scrolling his phone during cold conversations with his ex-wife (Olivia Thirlby), his mistress (Jocelyn DeBoer) and her husband (Martin Starr), his supposed best friend. Even Carter’s analyst (Stephen Root) is unmoved during one of the rare times Carter opens up about his pressurized childhood and squandered life. “At least you had a father,” the therapist snaps.Between the hammering misanthropy, the herky-jerky editing and almost defiantly crummy sound mix, this exasperating film keeps you enjoyably off-balance. At one point, I could swear Byington had locked us inside a narcissist’s head as a challenge, like a cinematic escape room; later, the movie seems to yearn to be a graphic novel so the audience can soak in the malaise (and catch the visual gags that don’t quite land). Perhaps the point lies with the caustic grad student who Carter attempts to bed as his last great hurrah. Gail (Luxy Banner) has zero respect for his underwhelming pontifications on Vladimir Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald. She’s bored with taking male ennui seriously — and the film feels the same way.Lousy CarterNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More