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      ‘We Might as Well Be Dead’ Review: Housing by Neighborhood Watch

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      A single mother fights for her place in a dystopian high rise in this unfocused satire.A housing board rules over a dystopia in the off-kilter satire “We Might as Well Be Dead.” The film follows Anna (Ioana Iacob), a single mother and security guard whose role in her high rise home is to interview and introduce candidates for new housing. The film doesn’t specify what kind of apocalypse has made residency in the high rise so prestigious, but new applicants treat their adjudication as a life or death matter, begging on their hands and knees for sanctuary.Anna wasn’t born in the community she now calls both home and employer. She isn’t a perfect citizen by the board’s standards. She’s a single mother and her daughter, Iris (Pola Geiger), has started to show signs of buckling under the closed society’s pressure, hiding full time in the apartment bathroom. Anna’s tenuous position in the building is threatened further when a neighbor’s dog goes missing, and an atmosphere of paranoia settles over the community. Anna tries to convince her neighbors that the dog’s absence is an accident rather than a conspiracy, but her efforts are met with increasing frenzy, and the mob soon begins to turn on her.The director, Natalia Sinelnikova, draws out a sense of dread through canted angles and harsh lighting. The camera is often placed below the faces of the actors, peering up at them from perspectives that seem off-kilter. When the camera pulls back, the inhabitants of the high rise seem crowded into doorways and long dwindling halls. The images are artfully crafted, but the narrative lacks momentum. The film flirts with themes of surveillance and immigrant anxieties, but its allegoric ambitions are continually thwarted by yet another neighborly grievance.We Might as Well Be DeadNot rated. In German, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp’ Review: A Prince Throws Off His Privilege

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      Or, at least, he kinda-sorta tries to rebel in this romantic, futuristic fable from the Portuguese director João Pedro Rodrigues.“Will-o’-the-Wisp,” an off-balance provocation from the Portuguese titillater João Pedro Rodrigues, is a prank in fancy dress, a plastic boutonniere that squirts battery acid. The joke is on everyone, particularly the powerful and those holding out hope that the powerful will save the planet.Portugal booted its monarchy in 1910, but in this alternate timeline, the royals still reign. When the do-gooder prince, Alfredo (Mauro Costa), shocks his family by becoming a firefighter, Rodrigues drops him into an eroticized firehouse for a beefcake feast, concocting a calendar shoot to bend the fighters into, um, suggestive poses. Later, the director assembles a slide show of genitalia which the waify blond prince and his working-class Black lover, Afonso (André Cabral), liken to various climates. (Petrified forest, barren grassland — you won’t have to strain your imagination to see the resemblance.)The movie, co-written by Rodrigues, João Rui Guerra da Mata and Paulo Lopes Graça, opens with Alfredo on his deathbed in 2069 — the film’s most subtle sexual reference. Then it flashes back to the prince’s youth, where he’s escorted through ancient pines by the king (Miguel Loureiro). Some viewers might recognize the woods as the Leiria Pine Forest whose timber and sap built the ships that built the Portuguese empire. The Leiria was decimated by wildfires in 2017, and the interstitial titles — “Slash and Burn,” “Charred,” and so on — make it clear that a blaze is coming for everyone. Smoke wafts through the palace while the conservative queen (Margarida Vila-Nova) putters around anxiously snuffing candles.The symbolism is blunt, and the film’s style, striking and severe. Scenes are staged as precisely as painted tableaus, with handsome shadows and gratuitous whippets. At one point, the prince stands at the dinner table and delivers Greta Thunberg’s U.N. Climate Action Summit address straight to the camera — “The eyes of all future generations are upon you” — as though to convince the audience he kinda-sorta tried to get his parents to do something. Unmoved, his mother instead fusses over a more politically correct title for the family’s 18th-century oil portrait, a mocking depiction of eight Black and Indigenous dwarfs who were collected by Queen Maria I of Portugal (and of Brazil, where she was called Maria the Mad).We already know that the prince won’t grow up to fix much. (Ingeniously, the cinematographer Rui Poças and the sound editor Nuno Carvalho evoke a desolate, airship-patrolled future using only a shadow and a loudspeaker.) But he keeps that portrait, which inspires reveries of his affair with Afonso. Their fleeting moments of joy make up the bulk of the running time. Rodrigues’s mind is on social upheaval, but his heart is with Afonso’s lavishly lit abdomen and the parts just below.Rodrigues blows past good taste with an explicit tête-à-tête in the scorched forest where his brave leading men pant racial slurs into each other’s nether regions. It’s a rough watch, but Rodrigues balances this shocker with a scene of shocking loveliness: a dance number where the pair’s slight stiffness makes their burst of emotional expression feel tender and sincere.Will-o’-the-WispNot rated. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 7 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Unclenching the Fists’ Review: A Moody Russian Drama

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      Kira Kovalenko’s moody drama centers on a young woman trapped under her father’s thumb in the North Caucasus region of Russia.The Russian director Kira Kovalenko’s moody, miserablist drama “Unclenching the Fists” captures a turning point in the life of Ada (Milana Aguzarova), a young woman trapped under her father’s thumb.The chilly mountain region where they reside is in a mining town in North Ossetia, a Russian republic in the North Caucasus, an area still raw with the memories of civil warfare and extremist violence.Zaur (Alik Karaev) is a possessive and domineering single parent, forbidding Ada from wearing perfume should it attract male attention, and — most alarmingly — locking his daughter and youngest son into their shared apartment in the evenings, only allowing them to exit when he sees fit. Distrustful of institutions, Zaur refuses to allow Ada to get the treatment she needs for injuries sustained during a terrorist attack, forcing the young woman to wear adult diapers.Ada rebels as best she can, meeting up with her dimwitted pseudo-boyfriend, Tamik (Arsen Khetagurov), between shifts at a local grocery store. An opportunity for liberation emerges when her big brother Akim (Soslan Khugaev), who left to find work in a city, pays the family a visit.With its steely color palette and brooding, tight-lipped performances, the film often trades in art-house cinema clichés — and its relentless atmosphere of doom and gloom reduces the characters to mere victims of implacable forces. Ada’s psychological tumult is captured in intimate close-ups and fluttering camera movements, while the absence of a score complements the film’s uneasy mood of pent-up rage and stifling despair.That said, a final act pivot renders this fraught family portrait into something much gentler and empathetic than the first half of the film would suggest, even if Ada’s quest for freedom ultimately feels more impossible than ever.Unclenching the FistsNot rated. In Ossetian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      ‘The Wrath of Becky’ Review: Teenage Riot

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      The traumatized teen is back to finalize even more fascists in this comically bloody sequel.Continuing the vigilante adventures of its teen-drifter namesake (Lulu Wilson), “The Wrath of Becky” (a sequel to “Becky” in 2020) finds her once again doing battle with far-right knuckle-draggers.It has been two years since neo-Nazis killed her father, and Becky and her canine companion, Diego, have burned through several foster families before washing up in the home of the kindly Elena (Denise Burse). Now 16, Becky works as a diner waitress, plays Scrabble with Elena and fantasizes about slicing the throat of a sexist customer. All she needs is an inciting incident, and here, on cue, come the Noble Men, a clump of white supremacists and would-be insurrectionists, who violently attack Elena and make off with Diego. If “John Wick” taught us anything, it’s never, ever harm the dog.Directed by Matt Angel and Suzanne Coote, “The Wrath of Becky” follows the rote rhythms of the revenge thriller as Becky, done up in red boiler suit and blue nails, follows the men to a cozy farmhouse and eavesdrops on their racist plans. The subsequent slaughters are inventive, the pacing lively and the cat-and-mouse structure entertaining; but the rodents themselves are — aside from their suave leader, played by Seann William Scott — such misogynistic morons that Becky’s predominance is never in doubt.Considering the current swarming of groups like this, “The Wrath of Becky” should at least have given us chills. But the movie’s almost jokey treatment of its slobbering incels, combined with Becky’s comic posturings, hemorrhage the tension. Wilson, however, is consistently terrific, and deserves more thoughtful material. If there is to be a third film, the ending of this one suggests she might get it.The Wrath of BeckyRated R for disgusting dialogue and dripping brain matter. Running time: 1 hour 23 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Kandahar’ Review: Marooned in a Dull Movie

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      Gerard Butler plays an undercover C.I.A. agent hunted by various foes in an underwhelming action film devoid of any suspense or, well, action.Everybody wants to find the undercover C.I.A. agent Tom Harris (Gerard Butler), who is marooned while on a mission in Afghanistan: the Taliban, an Iranian hound, ISIS, a Pakistani secret operative. The only people who won’t be on his tail are those looking for a good action film — the stupefyingly sluggish “Kandahar” isn’t it.For his third collaboration with the director Ric Roman Waugh after “Greenland” (by far the best of the three, from 2021) and “Angel Has Fallen” (2019), Butler has picked a rather ineffective vehicle, just like when Tom and his translator, Mo, steal a car that promptly gets a flat as they rush to catch a flight out of Kandahar.Not only is the pace tepid at best, but Tom is a bore, with at least three characters more intriguing than he is. Chief among them is Mo, portrayed by the excellent Navid Negahban (“Homeland,” “Aladdin”). An Afghan exile, he has returned home to try to locate his sister-in-law — a more compelling quest than Butler’s, whose prime motivation is … what exactly? Not being late to his daughter’s graduation in London? The nominal star is constantly overshadowed by his co-stars, who also include Ali Fazal as the dashing, motorcycle-riding Pakistani agent and Bahador Foladi as Iran’s answer to Inspector Javert.More aggravating is the way “Kandahar” keeps bringing up girls and women — on a large scale, the Taliban oppresses them; on a more intimate one, Tom is an absentee husband and father — without actually giving any of them decent screen time. The lip service only makes that absence more noticeable.KandaharRated R for language and ridiculous roughness. Running time: 2 hours. In theaters. More

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      ‘About My Father’ Review: Robert De Niro in Dad Mode Again

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      The comedian Sebastian Maniscalco enlists his “Irishman” colleague in this labored comedy, where gags fall flat.The stand-up comedian Sebastian Maniscalco first worked with Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s 2019 crime drama “The Irishman.” Maniscalco played the erratic real-life gangster Joey Gallo; De Niro’s character, Frank Sheeran, kills him in the movie. Scorsese has a near-uncanny knack for effectively using professional funnymen in serious roles — Jerry Lewis in “The King of Comedy” and Don Rickles in “Casino” to cite but two — and Maniscalco acquitted himself well in his small part.The point we are obliged to get to is this: Maniscalco has now enlisted De Niro to act in “About My Father,” a romantic comedy largely derived from the comedian’s own life. How largely? Well, Maniscalco plays a character named Sebastian Maniscalco. He’s engaged to his ideal woman, Ellie (Leslie Bibb, who’s charming here), and has finally been invited to her very rich family’s Fourth of July weekend. In short order, Sebastian’s father, Salvo, is invited too. Salvo is an Italian immigrant from Sicily who runs a beauty salon, has a fierce work ethic, is dead cheap and severely opinionated, and has several other traits that make for engaging stand-up comedy and cinematic character work.De Niro is reliable in his comedic mode. Here, with his hand gestures and the frequent monosyllabic exclamations of exasperation, the actor’s Salvo sometimes resembles a kinder, gentler version of his Jake LaMotta in “Raging Bull.” The supporting players David Rasche and Kim Cattrall as the future in-laws provide good comic foils for De Niro.Alas, in less than an hour and a half of running time (the director Laura Terruso does orchestrate the proceedings with a palpable sense of dispatch), the movie demonstrates how quickly “amiable and inconsequential” can shift to “hackneyed and labored.” A sickly poultry improvisation gag involving a peacock falls flat, and the speed bump to the happy ending is right out of the Hallmark Movie Scriptwriter’s Handbook.About My FatherIn theaters. Rated PG-13 for language, partial nudity, improvised-poultry humor. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Influencer’ Review: Reading Between the Likes

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      This thriller, about a mysterious woman’s obsession with online influencers, treats social media as a breeding ground for fear and obsessionFor better or worse, it’s a bit of a wonder that mainstream horror hasn’t more heavily used the online world as a springboard for stories of obsession and fear. The parts are so clearly apparent — invisible tormentors and stalking catfishers, the tension of a notification chime — especially after watching “Influencer,” a thriller about a mysterious woman who targets online influencers as they post throughout vacation getaways.After Madison (Emily Tennant), an Instagram influencer traveling in Thailand, is left waiting for her boyfriend, Ryan (Rory J. Saper), at a resort, a woman named CW (Cassandra Naud) befriends her and shows her around town. Eventually, things turn awry for Madison as she falls into CW’s creepy online game, and Ryan, arriving in Thailand soon after, becomes wrapped up in the web.There is something in here poking at the unsightly truths about parasocial relationships in the digital age, but the director Kurtis David Harder (who wrote the screenplay alongside Tesh Guttikonda) avoids contorting the film into an overt social thriller, instead prioritizing frights and twists. That’s mostly a wise decision, but the film is left feeling a tad thin — in its explorations of both its larger ideas and its characters and their motivations (most of all, the story leaves too much blank space in CW’s origins).Even so, Harder has made good and entertaining use of a premise that could have become a simple gimmick, and Naud and Saper prove strong leads as their characters try to read each other between the likes.InfluencerNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes. Watch on Shudder. More

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      ‘The Attachment Diaries’ Review: Love, Sick

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      A gynecologist and her patient form a horrifyingly twisted connection in this batty, bloody Argentine melodrama.A trashy treat coated in a high-art gloss, “The Attachment Diaries” gleefully kneads melodrama, noir, horror and sexual perversion into a pathological romance between two deeply damaged women.The setting is 1970s Argentina, where a rain-soaked, apparently destitute Carla (Jimena Anganuzzi) arrives at the home of Irina (Lola Berthet), a severe gynecologist. Carla, claiming to have been gang-raped, is seeking an illegal abortion (her second, as it turns out), but her pregnancy is too far along. Instead, Irina offers to shelter Carla until the birth, then sell the child to a wealthy couple. Irina, it seems, has more than one lucrative side hustle; she also has a Ph.D. in chemistry, which will serve the women well when their pathologies hit the fan and the bodies hit the floor.Defined by a near-tactile tension between the profligacies of the script (by the director, Valentín Javier Diment) and the coolly reserved elegance of Claudio Beiza’s cinematography, “The Attachment Diaries” takes its excesses so seriously that it’s impossible not to laugh. As the women’s twisted histories and sick behaviors are slowly revealed — Carla, for instance, performs dark experiments in decoupage, while Irina excels at dismemberment — Diment flirts with farce. The film’s taproot, however, slurps insistently from a deep reservoir of misandry and rape trauma, commonalities that wrap the women in a cocoon of shared pain.At once lugubrious and nutty, depressing and daring, “The Attachment Diaries” unfolds, for the first hour or so, in the softest black and white. Then, just past the midpoint, the screen floods with a rich, golden light, timed to coincide with Irina’s first experience of sexual release. Psychotic killer and star-crossed lover have just become one and the same.The Attachment DiariesNot rated. In Spanish, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes. In theaters. More