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      In Wes Anderson’s World, It’s All About the Details

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      When Wes Anderson was just starting out and wanted to reshoot some scenes for his 1996 debut “Bottle Rocket,” the rookie director got a shock. Columbia Pictures had sent all the movie’s props off to a store, which had then sold them for next to nothing.So when he made his next movie, “Rushmore” (1998), Anderson decided the same thing would never happen again. He put everything into an S.U.V. when the shoot was over, then drove the hoard away to look after it himself.That decision ended up helping not just Anderson himself. Over the past two-and-a-half years, curators at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris and the Design Museum in London trawled Anderson’s storage facility in Kent, England — which contains thousands of items from his movies — to compile a museum retrospective of the director’s work.The show opened at the Cinémathèque Française this week, where it runs though July 27. It will transfer, expanded, to the Design Museum in the fall.Max Fischer’s Academy uniform from “Rushmore.”The fur coat worn by Margot Tenenbaum in “The Royal Tenenbaums.”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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      How ‘Severance’ Uses Old Tricks to Make Its Office Hell

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      Contains spoilers about past episodes but not the Season 2 finale.In “Severance,” the Apple TV+ series about a shadowy company where some employees have their consciousness split into two parts, with the “innie” doing all the work and the “outie” remembering none of it, the office is sparse and lifeless.The show reinforces that theme with its cinematography and production design. Here are some of the ways “Severance” invokes and inverts classic film tricks to create its corporate hell.IsolationRepetition Removes IndividualityFrom the earliest days of moving images, filmmakers have used the rigid geometry of desks and cubicles and dense repetition to create images of people together, yet isolated, trapped and stripped of identity by corporate bosses.Films like “The Apartment,” from 1960 (below, top left), and even Pixar’s 2004 animated movie “The Incredibles” (top right) use these repetitive shots to suggest a corporate mass that takes away individual identities to instead create “company men,” said Jill Levinson, a professor at Babson College and the author of “The American Success Myth on Film.”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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      ‘Misericordia’ Review: Danger Always Hides in the Bushes

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      The French director Alain Guiraudie’s latest film, a bent kind of murder mystery, presents life at its basest and gamiest.In “Misericordia,” a rakish youngish guy named Jérémie drives back to a French village for the funeral of his old boss, a baker, who has kicked the bucket at 62. And the instant the widow lets Jérémie (Félix Kysyl) into the living room, he and the baker’s adult son, Vincent (Jean-Baptiste Durand), a mushroom forager, share the sort of charged eye contact that tells you “Yup, these two definitely did it.” We don’t know when or how far things went. Something happened, though. But because “Misericordia” (Latin for “mercy”) has wafted from the cauldron of the writer and director Alain Guiraudie, it’s possible I’m wrong.Ambiguity? Mixed motives? Casual lawlessness? These are his considerable strengths. “Misericordia” culminates in kink, killing and some gloriously literal deus ex machina. So maybe what I’m experiencing as an erotic charge is caution. But again: it’s Guiraudie, the man who brought us the 2014 murder-at-the-gay-nude-beach sensation “Stranger by the Lake” and a bedroom farce (“Nobody’s Hero,” 2023) whose component parts included racism, terrorism, sex work, domestic violence, paranoia, jogging and vaping. The caution is erotic.His movies, meanwhile, prove absorbingly absurdist, this new one especially. It’s got its own rhythm. If Guiraudie isn’t mocking the way we’ve been trained to receive stories, films, people, then he’s at least disrupting the usual patterns. Retraining us to see anew, to suspend expectation and abandon comfort, the way that John Waters and Mike Leigh, Aki Kaurismaki, Hal Hartley and the other oddball live-action cartoonists have. It’s risky, but something thrilling and often true usually comes of it.Guiraudie presents life at its basest and gamiest. So I trust my instincts about Jérémie and Vincent. I know hunger when I see it. And “Misericordia” is dotted with hungry eyes. Jérémie stays the night at the widow’s. The room she offers is the one Vincent grew up in, maybe the room where It Happened. Jérémie and Vincent even make the bed together. But rekindling’s not on the program. Regression, maybe. The bed all made, Vincent — who’s pushing 40, is bald, and has a lisp and a cleft lip — suggests playing some Yahtzee, like they used to. Jérémie declines.From there, reunion curdles into disunion. And the homecoming movie you might have been wanting becomes the funkier tale of a sociopath who opts to overstay his welcome. Jérémie doesn’t get up to much: the occasional drive around town, a walk in the forest, some horseplay with Vincent on the forest floor where he should be foraging for mushrooms. What does he want? The late baker’s clothes, for one thing; his shoes, too. The widow, Martine (Catherine Frot), seems super OK with that. She doesn’t even appear to mind the probability that Jérémie’s list of infatuations likely included her husband. They flip through a photo album together and admire how good the dead man looked in a Speedo. (They’re not wrong.)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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      ‘O’Dessa’ Review: One Song to Save Them All

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      Sadie Sink (“Stranger Things”) rules this postapocalyptic musical with a guitar and an attitude.The director Geremy Jasper begins his new musical in such a bombastic manner, complete with a mock-spaghetti western score, that it’s hard not to be at least intrigued. What is this cinematic U.F.O.?We are, we quickly learn, in a postapocalyptic future in which a certain Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett, from “The White Lotus”) rules the airwaves and people’s minds with a reality competition beamed from his Onederworld lair in Satylite City — think “America’s Got Talent” at Thunderdome.Despite the goofy names, these are scary times. A fresh-faced farm girl named O’Dessa Galloway (Sadie Sink, of “Stranger Things”) is informed that “It ain’t safe for a 19-year-old gal with stars in her eyes.” It’s actually even less safe for her parents, who are both summarily dispatched from the story within a few minutes. O’Dessa’s daddy (the singer Pokey LaFarge) was a rambler, so off she goes rambling as well, armed with his guitar. She ends up, naturally, in Satylite City, where she falls for the sweet Euri Dervish (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), a sex worker and cabaret singer whose funky-cool abode has a heart-shaped tub.As he did for his previous film, “Patti Cake$” (2017), which was about an aspiring rapper in New Jersey, Jasper wrote the score with Jason Binnick. Their songs tend to be either emo Americana or power ballads; sometimes the first style builds into the second, as in “Yer Tha One.” And because O’Dessa has a mysterious prophecy to fulfill, she gets one song to rule them all, simply titled “The Song (Love Is All).” It’s worth noting that everyone sings well, sometimes surprisingly so. Sink, in particular, has an unforced elegance that carries even the by-the-numbers numbers.While you might assume Plutonovich is the antagonist, he is overshadowed by the enforcer and pimp Neon Dion (Regina Hall, having a ball), whose severe bangs, dramatic outfits and even more dramatic expressions position her as a villain retrofitted from a 1980s music 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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      ‘Locked’ Review: Cramped Quarters

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      This gimmicky thriller starring Bill Skarsgard and Anthony Hopkins sees a petty criminal fall victim to a vigilante’s trap.When we first meet Eddie (Bill Skarsgard), a recently divorced father, he’s begging a mechanic to give him a few more days to pay the bill. No catch. And no car. Desperate, Eddie, breaks into a snazzy sport utility vehicle hoping to pawn whatever valuables he finds.It’s here, inside the vehicle, that most of “Locked” takes place.Directed by David Yarovesky, this gimmicky thriller is an adaptation of the Argentine film “4×4,” set in a big American city where the class divide is stark and petty crimes are aplenty.The S.U.V. is quickly revealed as a trap staged by William (Anthony Hopkins), a deranged vigilante in the vein of the “Saw” franchise’s Jigsaw, who lashes out against those who he thinks have broken the social contract.Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter credentials — and William’s penchant for classical music — also give him a menacingly refined air that plays off Eddie’s rough exterior, underscoring the film’s clunky rich versus poor through-line.Hopkins spends most of the movie offscreen, speaking to his victim through the car’s speakers and zapping him remotely through devices in the seats. Struggling to find a way out, Eddie at one point shoots a gun at the bulletproof windows, causing a bullet to strike him in the leg. William gleefully observes the younger man deteriorate from the point of view of a surveillance camera, progressively ramping up the sadism.Still, the violent fun and games aren’t quite inventive enough to get past the single setting and its cramped leather seats. The performers hold their ground even if the script simply goes through the motions — the car-as-prison may at first come off like a new jam, and yet you’ve definitely seen it all before.LockedRated R. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Bob Trevino Likes It’ Review: From a Stranger to Found Family

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      Barbie Ferreira shines as a young woman who befriends a stranger with her father’s name in this indie tear-jerker.There are two Bob Trevinos in “Bob Trevino Likes It.” One of them makes Marianne Jean-Baptiste’s character in “Hard Truths” look like parent of the year. The other starts out as a stranger, and grows into found family.The movie, written and directed by Tracie Laymon and based on her own experiences, centers on Lily Trevino (Barbie Ferreira), a lonely 20-something in Kentucky who friends Bob on Facebook. She was hoping to connect with her father (French Stewart), a deadbeat recently gone AWOL. Instead, she and Bob the introvert (John Leguizamo) develop a tender intergenerational bond.Setting aside the datedness of the technology — Lily often posts 2010s-era Facebook statuses littered with hashtags — “Bob Trevino Likes It” is a middling indie tear-jerker. It suffers from an overwritten script chock-full of tropes and artificial dialogue. “You don’t have any tools,” Bob exclaims to Lily at one point, meaning a literal toolbox, but also, you know, a metaphorical, emotional one.Any genuine feeling emanates from Lily. Ferreira pitches herself into the trite story line with enthusiasm, and her verve breathes life into even the most leaden lines. On a handful of occasions, Laymon has her protagonist gaze into the camera in shallow focus with a swirling effect around her head. The moments viscerally convey a feeling of belonging by making use of a considerable asset: Ferreira’s wide open face.Bob Trevino Likes ItRated PG-13 for family crises. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘The Alto Knights’ Review: A Double Helping of De Niro

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      Robert De Niro plays the crime lords Vito Genovese and Frank Costello in this film about midcentury Mafia moves.“The Alto Knights,” a new mob movie starring Robert De Niro, carries a lot of weight from its very beginning. Not just historical weight about the Mafia — it concentrates on a stretch from the mid-1950s into the early 1970s — but cinematic weight as well.It’s the story of a gangster friendship that turns homicidally sour. The New York City crime lords Vito Genovese and Frank Costello, we’re told here by way of narration from Costello, became best friends in a Little Italy social club called Alto Knights.The criminals develop different styles. Vito stayed downtown, calling shots, literally and figuratively, from a crate-filled back room, while Frank cultivated such a high profile as a, ahem, “professional gambler” that he made the cover of Time magazine. Frank is enjoying his life so thoroughly that he doesn’t register Vito’s irritation until he survives a shooting by one of Vito’s foot soldiers, a hulking brute by the name of Vincent Gigante.Yes, it’s that Vincent Gigante, the one who eventually got the nickname “Chin” (and the actor playing him, Cosmo Jarvis, does his level best to put that facial feature forward in all his scenes). Debra Messing plays Costello’s wife, Bobbie, whose role in the marriage seems to be to smile reassuringly. Other names that will ring bells with Cosa Nostra connoisseurs include Albert Anastasia and the quaint upstate hamlet called Apalachin.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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      ‘The Assessment’ Review: Meticulously Planned Parenthood

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      A couple must endure a punishing evaluation process for permission to become parents in this sleek, hermetic science fiction.A sterile drama about state-controlled procreation, “The Assessment,” the first feature from the French director Fleur Fortuné, is visually stark and emotionally chilling. From the elegant severity of Jan Houllevigue’s production design to Magnus Jonck’s coolly unwelcoming cinematography, the movie repels warmth. By the end, you’ll want nothing so much as a woolly jumper.In a future dystopia, two married scientists, Mia and Aaryan (Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel), live and work in their isolated seaside home. Aaryan designs virtual pets (the state has exterminated the real ones, presumably to conserve resources), while Mia experiments with sustainable methods of food production. Work, however, is not enough, and the couple wants a child — a desire that requires a weeklong assessment of their suitability as parents.Enter Virginia (a brilliantly creepy Alicia Vikander), the assessor who will subject them to an escalating program of mental and physical torment. Prim and impassive, she spies on them having sex and collects their body fluids, and her horrifying role-playing as a bratty toddler would make even the broodiest wife rethink her options. As Virginia’s behavior grows increasingly intrusive and even sinister, dislodging secrets that will shake Mia and Aaryan’s marriage, “The Assessment” builds to a baffling act of pointless destruction.Virginia has her own motivations, but the movie’s last-ditch attempt to absolve the character, and reveal the world beyond her repellent games, proves too little, too late. Prioritizing aesthetics over narrative, the film offers only superficial hints of a society riven by class and authoritarian politics: The wealthy enjoy artificially extended life spans beneath an invisible dome, while the rest inhabit an “old world” of deprivation and disease. Consequently, “The Assessment” — much like a brutally honest centenarian (an awesome Minnie Driver) whom Virginia invites to dinner — is much easier to respect than to love.The AssessmentRated R for forced sex and a frightening dinner party. Running time: 1 hour 49 minutes. In theaters. More