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      ‘You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah’ Review: She’s Growing Up

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      Sandler family members (plus Idina Menzel) lean on each other in this Netflix comedy about growing up.The comedy “You Are So Not Invited to My Bat Mitzvah” follows the debut of Stacy Friedman (Sunny Sandler), a preteen who is obsessed with the parties that accompany her Hebrew school cohort’s coming-of-age ceremonies.This joyride to adulthood is a real-life family affair: Sunny stars, and her father, Adam Sandler, amiably rides in the back seat as Stacy’s bewildered dad, Danny. But despite the support Stacy gets from her family (including Idina Menzel as Stacy’s mother, Bree, and Sadie Sandler as her sister, Ronnie), the friendship between Stacy and her best friend, Lydia (Samantha Lorraine), is the film’s emotional core.Stacy and Lydia have planned their parties and their lives around each other, but their friendship is tested by the most challenging trials of middle school: cute boys, cool girls and menstruation. When Stacy walks in on Lydia kissing their mutual crush, she can’t bring herself to consider her friend’s happiness with the mitzvah season’s rabbi-encouraged maturity. Instead, Stacy disinvites Lydia from her bat mitzvah, and she sets out to redefine what her first steps into womanhood should look like now that she intends to take those steps solo.The young cast proves deft with the film’s clever script, by Alison Peck (based on the 2005 novel by Fiona Rosenbloom), and the director Sammi Cohen indulges the virgin-mojito passions of preteens while avoiding nostalgia, thankfully. In one of the film’s best jokes, a partygoer requests a dusty mothball on the dance floor: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” For a split second, the movie’s easygoing, contemporary appeal hangs in the balance. And then with delightful rudeness, the film’s middle-aged, disco-ball-helmeted disc jockey, DJ Schmuley (Ido Mosseri), rejects the song, spitting out, “Let Schmuley handle the vibe around here!” A Selena Gomez song fills out the score, and this goofy charmer of a movie bounces on.You Are So Not Invited to My Bat MitzvahRated PG-13 for language and middle-school bathroom humor. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      Before Gran Turismo Inspired a Movie, It Drove Jann Mardenborough to Greatness

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      The PlayStation video game’s realistic cars and racetracks helped Jann Mardenborough find his calling as a professional driver.Jann Mardenborough can vividly recount the first time he ever played Gran Turismo, the popular racing video game that would completely alter his life.While seeking refuge on Bonfire Night, a British holiday full of firework celebrations, an 8-year-old Mardenborough stumbled upon the game at his neighbors’ house. He selected a violet Mitsubishi 3000GT and began racing on the Autumn Ring track. Mardenborough went on to play the game all night, and then every day after that, showing up at his neighbors’ door immediately after school.“They got so fed up with me turning up at their house, one day the wife came across the street, knocked on our door and had in hand the PlayStation and GT 1, and gave it to my parents,” the 31-year-old racecar driver recently recalled during an video interview.It’s the origin story to the other origin story: the true, improbable one depicted in the film “Gran Turismo,” which was directed by Neill Blomkamp and opens on Friday. The movie dramatizes Mardenborough’s journey, from gaming in his bedroom to winning the 2011 GT Academy — an annual competition that, from 2008 to 2016, put the game’s best players in real vehicles — to driving formula cars professionally.The eight main games in the Gran Turismo franchise, which debuted in Europe and North America in 1998, are known for their scrupulously reproduced cars and exacting racing simulations. In the months before he attended GT Academy, Mardenborough upgraded from a plastic PlayStation controller to a homemade wooden racing frame along with a steering wheel and pedal that he bought with money his parents gave him for good grades.The competition was a godsend for Mardenborough, who was trying to sell car parts on eBay after losing a retail job; he had dropped out of college after realizing that studying motor sport engineering did not mean he could actually drive the cars.Even so, Mardenborough said he was skeptical of his chances. He had played Gran Turismo no more than an average teenage gamer after his initial fixation, had never competed in a tournament and had barely any experience driving a normal car. The first time he brought his rickety 1991 laser blue BMW E30 onto a highway was on his way to the competition.Mardenborough’s perspective took a visceral turn when he qualified for racing camp — a stretch depicted in the film that follows the finalists training in actual cars — and was given his first taste of the track.“After my first few laps, when I got out the car, I remember thinking, ‘I don’t want to go through life never experiencing that again,’” said Mardenborough, who served as a producer on “Gran Turismo” and as the stunt double for his own character.The director Neill Blomkamp, center, and Mardenborough, right, on the set of “Gran Turismo.” Mardenborough was the stunt driver for his own character.Gordon Timpen/Columbia Pictures/Sony Entertainment, via Associated PressMardenborough can eagerly describe the technicalities that distinguish game from reality — the sensation, for instance, of the vibration through the car seat — but said that much of the real-world feeling and reactions mirrored Gran Turismo.“When you race against real people,” he said, “everything is real.”Mardenborough, who is played by Archie Madekwe in “Gran Turismo,” went line by line with Sony over early drafts of the script, which he noted is mostly true to his life. The characters played by David Harbour and Orlando Bloom are both fictionalized but loosely based on real people. And a crash involving Mardenborough in Germany that left a spectator dead really happened, although detractors have complained about how the tragic event was translated to the screen.In the film, the crash occurs right before Mardenborough returns to the track for a podium finish at Le Mans, the famous endurance race in France — back-to-back events that form an emotional arc of setback and triumph. In reality, Mardenborough’s crash in Germany came two years after that podium finish, leading to criticism that the film’s timeline was edited to serve a narratively pat movie ending.“The order is the order, but those events happened in my life,” Mardenborough, who avoided serious injuries, said in response. “This isn’t a documentary.” He did race in Le Mans one year after the crash, and Mardenborough said the emotional battle the film constructed was consistent with his feelings.“When you believe the reason why you’re put on earth is to race a racing car, and then you’re asking yourself, ‘Do I still want to do this?’” he said. “It’s not a pleasant question to ask.”Mardenborough last competed in May and is talking to teams about potentially racing in the United States next year. And occasionally, the driver who fidgeted with a gaming steering wheel during our interview will still play Gran Turismo.If he were to race against his 19-year-old self in the game right now, who would win? Mardenborough thought for a moment.“Me,” he said with a competitive smirk. “If I put in the amount of hours I did back then, considering my experience in real life, I would be quicker. But all it is is hours.” More

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      ‘Our Father, the Devil’ Review: Wash Away Your Sins

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      In this absorbing psychological thriller, a Guinean refugee living in France is rattled by the appearance of a menacing figure from her past.“Our Father, the Devil” centers on Marie (Babetida Sadjo), a Guinean refugee in southern France who possesses the kind of thick armor forged by intense hurt. When a figure from Marie’s past life arrives in the guise of a priest at the upscale retirement home where she works as the head chef, something in her cracks.In the assured hands of the writer-director Ellie Foumbi, Marie’s unraveling yields not only an absorbing psychological thriller, but a profound meditation on the ethics of immigration.Marie’s story begins on a high note. Her culinary mentor, Jeanne (Martine Amisse), has written Marie into her will, giving Marie an idyllic mountainside cottage. Yet Foumbi’s stark, formalist tableaux captures even the glittering French countryside as a space trembling with contained anxiety.Inexplicably, at least at first, Marie fends off the advances of a handsome bartender to whom she is evidently attracted. Sadjo, in a commanding performance, shifts easily from pure venom to bashful uncertainty — as if Marie were constantly playing mental tug of war with herself and her past.Then, Father Patrick appears (Souléymane Sy Savané) — though Marie knows him better as “Sogo,” a warlord responsible for the death of her family in Guinea. Marie reacts instinctively and imprisons Patrick in her cottage outpost, and then unleashes an inner brutality.The first part of the film relies on the ambiguity of whether or not Marie is mistaken about Patrick’s identity, but the answer isn’t simple. Instead, Foumbi’s script provokes questions about our capacity for change and the absolution of past sins — all anchored to the charged political question of an immigrant’s worth. Painfully, and at the risk of losing her new life, Marie discovers that there is no such thing as devils — or angels, for that matter.Our Father, the DevilNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bottoms’ Review: Physical Education

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      In this buddy comedy, senior outcasts played by Rachel Sennott and Ayo Edebiri attempt to woo two cheerleaders through a fight club.Josie and PJ are high school seniors, and they have some pressing unfinished business. “Do you want to be the only girl virgin at Sarah Lawrence?” PJ (Rachel Sennott) asks Josie (Ayo Edebiri) during the dark-night-of-the-soul conversation that begins “Bottoms.” Yes, Emma Seligman’s comedy takes off with tires screeching.It is imperative for our buddies to have sex, stat, but that is a complicated proposition: Not only are they unpopular outcasts — “the ugly, untalented gays,” as opposed to the ones who breezily sashay down the hallways — but they have set their sights on two unapproachably hot cheerleaders. It is obvious that PJ and Josie will need some devious scheming to win over their crushes.Going along with a rumor that they’ve spent time in juvenile detention, the pair acquire an instant reputation as tough girls and the school lets them start a self-defense club in which the most vicious brawls are somehow allowed. Even Josie’s object of desire, Isabel (Havana Rose Liu), is impressed by consciousness-raising through punching, even more so after she learns her quarterback boyfriend (Nicholas Galitzine, of “Red, White & Royal Blue”) is cheating on her.Seligman and Sennott’s first collaboration was the quietly unsettling “Shiva Baby” (2021), which took place almost entirely over the span of one afternoon at the title wake, and progressively ensnared Sennott’s character in a web of deadpan, discomforting humor. For their follow-up, the collaborators (Sennott wrote the movie with Seligman) have gone down a completely different stylistic road, putting a queer spin on teenage sex comedies à la “Superbad” and “American Pie.” They have replaced the death by a thousand cuts of “Shiva Baby” with a gleeful broadness. It ultimately fizzes out, but “Bottoms” confirms that Seligman and Sennott are major new forces in American comedy.A lot does click here, including several delicious supporting performances, most notably the former N.F.L. running back Marshawn Lynch as the fight club’s loopy faculty adviser and Ruby Cruz as Hazel, a cool classmate whom, naturally, PJ does not even see. The script also lands many corkers, as when a student named Annie (Zamani Wilder) complains “this is the second wave all over again” after realizing PJ and Josie were prioritizing self-serving goals over sisterhood.That last aspect is what feels most undernourished and, in the end, unexpectedly timid. Not much is made of the fact that PJ is one of the biggest liars and bullies of the story and uses her gift of gab to cynically deploy empowerment messaging. And while the movie is set in a surreally heightened universe in which football players never leave their uniform and teachers read girlie magazines in class, it is oddly more comfortable goofing off with outrageous violence than elementary sexuality.For most of its tight running time, “Bottoms” hovers on the cusp of greatness. It’s often funny but it also never delivers satisfying set pieces, and stops short of questioning — not to mention subverting — the warped high school stratification that remains one of America’s building blocks.BottomsRated R for typical teen language, fight-club violence and football run amok. Running time: 1 hour 28 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bank of Dave’ Review: A Dave and Goliath Story

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      This sometimes sleepy feel-good drama follows the story of a working-class man’s battle against London’s financial elite.Not only are major global banks as we know them too big to fail, but local, community-oriented ones are sometimes too small and well-intentioned to even exist. It’s the reality of a system that left Dave Fishwick dismayed, and what serves as the premise for “Bank of Dave,” a film loosely based on the true story of Fishwick’s battle with Britain’s financial system to create a community bank meant to help the little guys.A man of the people who has made a modest fortune selling vans, Dave (Rory Kinnear) is a Ted Lasso of sorts within his small English town of Burnley, where he makes a habit of loaning money to local businesses and friends in need. After Dave gets the idea to institutionalize his generous streak with the Bank of Dave, where all profits will go to charities, Hugh (Joel Fry), the stiff London lawyer Dave has hired to help, comes into town expecting to disabuse Dave of his idealism. A new bank has not been approved in 150 years, and the powers that be were set up solely to protect the elite.Yet, after following Dave around for a couple days and catching feelings for his niece, Alexandra (Phoebe Dynevor), Hugh quickly becomes a convert to Dave’s mission.It all makes for an inoffensively pleasant David (or, rather, Dave) and Goliath story. The conflicts involving complex, powerful interests are set up and solved with simplified, clean emotional beats — helped along in particular by Fry and Kinnear, who do the legwork to support a sometimes sleepy feel-good drama from the director Chris Foggin. Even if the movie is about one small win, there’s a sedate pleasure in seeing it play out, especially knowing a version of it happened in real life.Bank of DaveRated PG-13 some strong language. Running time: 1 hour 47 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      ‘Perpetrator’ Review: Campy, Creepy and Buckets of Blood

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      High school horror gets a supernatural twist in this ultragory feature.Blood — viscous and dark, venal and menstrual — soaks all the way through “Perpetrator,” Jennifer Reeder’s hyperbolic stab at the high school slasher movie. Noses seep and floors are awash, the treacly ooze serving as both a coming-of-age symbol and a lubricant for a story whose misandry burns bright and hot.“Girls like you just don’t know what you’ve got till it’s all gone,” a masked sadist breathes, hovering over Jonny Baptiste (Kiah McKirnan), a savvy high school senior. He’s not the only predatory weirdo who threatens the school’s jumpy female students, including a creepy principal (Christopher Lowell) who oversees supposed self-defense classes that warn against biting and screaming. Dating a chiseled alpha male named Kirk (Sasha Kuznetsov) seems especially perilous, given that his crushes rarely reappear in school.Jonny’s home life is scarcely cozier. Lodged with a witchy great-aunt whose love language is snarling (Alicia Silverstone, disappointingly underused), the motherless teenager must navigate the ancestral superpower that her 18th birthday has recently bestowed: a turbocharged empathy that allows her to physically mimic another person. And perhaps catch a killer.Screwy and strange, “Perpetrator” is gleefully unsubtle, but its ensanguinated excess is part of the fun. (As is the casting of actors who appear to be on their 10th repeat of 12th grade.) The tone swivels from campy to menacing, outrageous to comic; but Sevdije Kastrati’s oleaginous photography has the surreal power to nail some of the movie’s dottiest sequences, like the killer siphoning his victims’ blood through a wound that resembles an angry anus.The film’s most enjoyable idea, though, is its positioning of female empathy as armor instead of Achilles’ heel. Gazing into the mirror, Jonny’s face wobbles and shifts; when the perpetrator is revealed, will she be ready?PerpetratorRated R for a disembodied heart and a disgusting dessert. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Piaffe’ Review: A Sound Obsession

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      In this beautiful and beguiling tale of transformation, a young woman’s altered body unlocks her true self.The clicks and whirs of a gigantic, peep show-like contraption known as a zoetrope fill our ears as an enigmatic botanist (Sebastian Rudolph) observes the image of a slowly unfurling fern. Watching him is Eva (Simone Bucio), a timid young woman for whom sound has become something of an obsession.Her nonbinary sibling, Zara, played by Simon(e) Jaikiriuma Paetau, has had a breakdown, and Eva must take over Zara’s job as a Foley artist for a drug company commercial. She must learn to make the sounds of a horse prancing in place, a dressage move known as a piaffe.With “Piaffe,” the filmmaker and visual artist Ann Oren, extrapolating from her 2020 short film “Passage,” has made a silken study of physical and erotic transformation. Like the horse that stars in the commercial, Eva exists in a kind of stasis, restrained from moving forward.Learning to mimic equine behavior emboldens her, and her body responds by sprouting a fleshy appendage that grows rapidly from a penile protuberance to a full-length tail. Timid no longer, Eva pursues a series of erotic encounters with the botanist, who tells her that ferns are hermaphrodites: Like Zara, they embody more than a single gender.Gorgeously shot by Carlos Vasquez using 16-millimeter film (and filmed in part in the famous Warsaw Fotoplastikon), “Piaffe” is ideologically abstract and beguilingly weird. Its experimental style, marked by long, dialogue-free stretches, color flares and pristine sound effects, can seem calculated and off-putting, the narrative slight and dramatically slack. Yet the film’s provocations have a playfulness and generosity that are enormously appealing. In the same way as the fern, Eva has unfurled from a defensive crouch to an open embrace of who she was meant to be.PiaffeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Golda’ Review: Chain-Smoking Through the Guilt

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      Helen Mirren, under heavy prosthetics, channels the Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in this wartime biopic.“Golda” — as in Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister who resigned in 1974 over her administration’s handling of the Yom Kippur War — films its title character in confrontational close-ups of her red-rimmed eyes, nicotine-stained fingers and swollen ankles. Somewhere under the prosthetics is Helen Mirren, formidably shouldering Meir’s suppressed anguish over the war’s death toll.Extreme costuming often feels gimmicky, but here, it humanizes the director Guy Nattiv’s terse accounting of guilt. As one imagines the burden of wearing Meir’s artificial skin, you can practically hear Nattiv hiss: Now imagine putting yourself in the actual woman’s orthopedic shoes. Or as Mirren’s Meir cracks to Henry Kissinger (Liev Schreiber), “Things could be worse. You could have my feet.”Israel has been surprise-attacked by Egypt and Syria, and Kissinger is concerned with keeping the Soviets calm and oil prices low. The script, by Nicholas Martin, doesn’t argue the righteousness of the conflict. Instead, it frets over the body count — and though we’re with Meir and her fractious advisers as they clap for the massacre of Egyptian soldiers, the camera reacts by going all woozy like it’s nauseous.Niv Adiri’s dense sound design and Dascha Dauenhauer’s impactful score turn war into a living nightmare. For good measure, we also go inside Meir’s bad dreams. Awake, however, the polarizing leader is the kind of stoic who chain-smokes through her lymphoma treatments. The film is structured by her cigarettes. Edits cut from one puff to another; the minister of defense, Moshe Dayan (Rami Heuberger), uses packs and lighters to stand-in for military units; ashtrays fill and fill again. We’re left with the sense that the stress of those thousands of lives cut short may have killed her, too.GoldaRated PG-13 for pervasive smoking. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters. More