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      ‘Good Luck to You, Leo Grande’ Review: Pleasure Principles

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      Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack bring knowing vulnerability to this amusing story of a foxy prostitute and the woman who hires him.If “Good Luck to You, Leo Grande” were a book, it might make a fine choice for a tipsy book club evening. And although the film about an older woman hiring a male prostitute feels ever so briefly like an updated tease of romance-novel fantasies, as directed by Sophie Hyde and written by Katy Brand, “Leo Grande” proves to be a tart and tender probe into sex and intimacy, power dynamics and human connection.The actors Emma Thompson and Daryl McCormack find and then build steadily on the appealing and complex chemistry of their characters as this two-hander unfolds in a mildly posh, yet nondescript hotel room. The film starts with the satiny handsome Leo walking down a street with greet-the-day ease; he’s a professional getting into character. He knocks on the door of a hotel room where Nancy Stokes awaits. She has secured his services, but is still nervous about that decision. Upon Leo’s arrival, Nancy begins nattering — a lot. She has cause to: She’s a retired schoolteacher and widow; and she’s never done anything remotely like this. And by “this” we mean take her own pleasure seriously.Leo is a sex-positive, 20-something from Ireland. His familial ties are frayed, and Nancy tugs on those threads out of interest, out of guilt, but also to reassert control when she feels exposed. Issues of class figure into her judgments; but the movie feels oddly mum about race. (McCormack is biracial.)While Nancy might not be limber enough for every sexual position on her check list (for which she dons reading glasses to consult), Thompson is terrifically agile with the script’s zingers and revelations. A relative newcomer, McCormack moves between wit, compassion and vulnerability with grace. In the most transactional sense, Nancy gets even better than what she paid for. Thanks to Thompson and McCormack’s delicate dance, so will audiences.Good Luck to You, Leo GrandeRated R for sexual content, nudity and some blue language. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Hulu. More

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      in Television

      Amber Heard: I ‘Stand by Every Word’ of Testimony in Defamation Trial

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      In her first public interview since losing a defamation case brought against her by Johnny Depp, her ex-husband, Ms. Heard said she had told the truth when she accused him of abuse.Almost two weeks after losing a high-profile defamation trial, Amber Heard said in a television interview on Tuesday that she had told the truth on the stand about her accusations of abuse against her ex-husband, Johnny Depp. She also took issue with the judge’s handling of evidence that she said helps prove her account of the relationship.Ms. Heard told NBC’s “Today” show that she will “stand by every word” of her testimony to her “dying day.” She alleged repeated physical abuse by Mr. Depp, as well as several instances of sexual abuse, all of which Mr. Depp denied.In her first public interview since the jury verdict in Fairfax, Va., Ms. Heard acknowledged that she was responsible for “horrible, regrettable” behavior toward Mr. Depp, including demeaning insults that were aired in court, but maintained that any physical violence on her part was in response to his own. Mr. Depp testified that Ms. Heard was violent toward him, and not the other way around.“I behaved in horrible — almost unrecognizable to myself — ways,” Ms. Heard said. “It was very, very toxic. We were awful to each other.”But, she asserted, “I’ve always told the truth.”Ms. Heard, 36, lost the defamation case that Mr. Depp filed against her, alleging that she had “devastated” his career after The Washington Post published an op-ed in which she called herself a “public figure representing domestic abuse.” The article did not mention Mr. Depp by name, but he and his lawyers argued that it was clearly referring to a time in 2016 in which Ms. Heard told a court that Mr. Depp was physically abusive toward her.Our Coverage of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard TrialA trial between the formerly married actors became a fierce battleground over the truth about their relationship. What to Know: Johnny Depp and Amber Heard sued each other with competing defamation claims, amid mutual accusations of domestic abuse.The Verdict: The jury ruled that Mr. Depp was defamed by Ms. Heard in her op-ed, but also that she had been defamed by one of his lawyers. Possible Effects: Lawyers say that the outcome of the trial could embolden others accused of sexual abuse to try their luck with juries, marking a new era for the #MeToo movement.The Media’s Role: As the trial demonstrates, by sharing claims of sexual abuse the press assumes the risks that come with antagonizing the rich, powerful and litigious.The $10.35 million award to Mr. Depp was offset by a $2 million award for Ms. Heard. The jury found that Mr. Depp had defamed Ms. Heard in one instance, when a lawyer who had previously represented him during the defamation proceedings made a statement to a British tabloid accusing her of damaging the couple’s penthouse and blaming it on Mr. Depp.A lawyer for Ms. Heard, Elaine Charlson Bredehoft, has said she plans to appeal the verdict.The six-week trial turned into an internet obsession fueled by courtroom sound bites made accessible by a pair of cameras filming the proceedings for livestreams and television broadcasts. Ms. Heard was on the receiving end of much of the online vitriol, with Depp fans mocking her testimony and calling her a liar.“Even if you think that I’m lying, you still couldn’t tell me — look me in the eye and tell me — that you think on social media there’s been a fair representation,” Ms. Heard said in the NBC interview, more of which will air later this week. She added that she had “never felt more removed from my own humanity.”In the days after the verdict, Ms. Heard’s legal team has argued that it would have been impossible for the jury, which was unsequestered, to completely shield themselves from the social media bias against their client.Ms. Heard said there had been “really important pieces of evidence” that a judge kept out of the Virginia trial, some of which were allowed in a separate trial in London. In that case, Mr. Depp sued when The Sun newspaper called him a “wife beater” in a headline. Mr. Depp lost that case, and the British judge was persuaded that Mr. Depp had physically abused Ms. Heard repeatedly throughout their relationship.Johnny Depp’s Libel Case Against Amber HeardCard 1 of 7In the courtroom. More

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      ‘Halftime’ Review: Let’s Get Loud

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      In the Netflix documentary about Jennifer Lopez’s life and career by the director Amanda Micheli, the political moments are brief, and then it’s back to rehearsal.A film about Jennifer Lopez and her performance at the Super Bowl in 2020 was bound to generate headlines, but the Netflix documentary “Halftime” makes sure it happens. The multihyphenate’s accomplishments can stand on their own without, for instance, a single publicity baiting remark from her boyfriend, the actor Ben Affleck.His cameo is only a small part of the brand management at play here as the director Amanda Micheli does her best to effectively tell a full-bodied story that reaches beyond what it seems Lopez wants you to know.A political moment — like when Lopez calls President Trump an expletive for his remarks connecting Mexican immigrants and crime — is only a political moment for so long, and then it’s back to rehearsal or the makeup chair. Complex topics like being a woman in a male-dominated movie industry and Hollywood double standards are explored briefly; more often, Lopez comments on fan-service subjects like the tabloids and that iconic Versace dress from the 2000 Grammys.The most captivating arc is how and why Lopez became so outspoken during the Trump era. She says that worrying about her children’s futures, and “living in a United States she didn’t recognize,” galvanized her. But even those scenes build tediously to what should feel like a more triumphant ending, when she shares why she couldn’t, in good conscience, agree to take the Super Bowl halftime stage without standing against anti-immigration measures. By the end, Lopez wins her fight with the National Football League to include children in cages as a human rights statement.In “Halftime,” she is seen in top J. Lo form, an empowering Hollywood icon with an inspirational story to share. Is that reason enough to watch this scattershot portrait? It depends on if she had your love to begin with.HalftimeNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 35 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      How Elvis Measured His Success: With Watches

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      The legend’s hips weren’t the only things keeping time, says Catherine Martin, the production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s new biopic.Of all the swagger and style that defined Elvis Presley — the gyrating hips, the clothes, the cars, the smirk of all smirks, that hair! — his collection of watches probably didn’t elicit giddy screaming across teen-dom in the late 1950s.But “Elvis,” a new biopic of the singer’s life, celebrates it all. Directed by Baz Luhrmann (with, one assumes, the same panache that all but turned the music and the dancing into characters in films like “Moulin Rouge!” and “Strictly Ballroom”), the movie is said to be a homage to a humble man whose love of collecting and trading watches was often overlooked during his all-too-brief 42 years.Elvis Presley in 1968. “He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired,” said Catherine Martin, the costume and production designer for Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” biopic.Getty Images“Watches were a symbol of his success and a big part of his story, and he gathered more valuable watches as his career developed,” said Catherine Martin, the four-time-Oscar-winning costume and production designer for the film, in a phone interview from her home in her native Australia. “They were a status symbol, and yet Elvis traded and gave watches away. He would swap watches with strangers whose watches he admired. It was crazy.”Ms. Martin, who also is a producer on the film and is married to Mr. Luhrmann, said she saw Presley’s love of watches as essential to telling his story: The way he wore and collected and traded watches reflects the image he created for himself as “the King,” but blended with his folksy roots.“Elvis was an absolutely iconoclastic dresser, and he was always accessorizing watches,” Ms. Martin said. “He reinvented himself constantly throughout his career. We don’t think of him as shocking now, but in the ’50s it was like he was a member of the Sex Pistols.”That radical transformation of Presley, played by Austin Butler in the film, provides much of the story line for “Elvis,” including his tumultuous relationship with his manager, Col. Tom Parker (Tom Hanks), who discovered the singer in 1955.Watches are an ever-present, if not obvious, element in many of the film’s scenes, Ms. Martin said, particularly because Presley always put a great deal of thought into how he wore and accessorized timepieces.“Even in the 1968 TV special, in his black leather outfit, he had a custom leather wristband made for a Bulova Accutron Astronaut,” she said, referring to Presley’s famous televised comeback concert. “A lot of the watches he wore were about technological style advances. He was always interested in what the latest watches were.”The watch that started it all was one he owned just as he was hitting it big: the triangular Hamilton Ventura, created by the American industrial designer Robert Arbib and known as the world’s first battery-powered watch. It became a signature for Presley — showing up in a gold version in his 1961 film “Blue Hawaii” — and for the watch company, which reintroduced the “Elvis watch” in 2015 to mark what would have been his 80th birthday. (It also was seen in all four “Men in Black” movies.)The “Elvis” director Baz Luhrmann with the Oscar-winning costume and production designer Catherine Martin, who is his wife, at the Met Gala in May. Angela Weiss/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images“It just happened that we didn’t end up with the ‘Elvis watch’ because it’s such an iconic watch and so well known that we didn’t want it to be a main part of the story,” Ms. Martin said. “There is so much more to tell over 40 years. I don’t want to deny that this watch was super important in the Elvis story, but watches were in general.”One example would be the Omega Constellation he wore while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army from 1958 to 1960. Made of pink gold with a black “sniper” dial, it was one of the originals in the Constellation line. Presley later gave it to Charlie Hodge, a friend and fellow musician.Antiquorum auctioned the timepiece in June 2012, expecting it to fetch $10,000 to $20,000; it sold for $52,500.And there was a second Omega Constellation, given to Presley in 1961 by his record company, RCA. The 33-millimeter white gold watch has a silver dial, with 44 round diamonds accenting the bezel, and a case back that is engraved, “To Elvis, 75 Million Records, RCA Victor, 12-25-60.” Lettering beneath the Omega logo shows that RCA purchased the watch from Tiffany & Company.Legend has it that Presley swapped it for a fan’s watch, and the fan’s nephew put the watch up for auction with Phillips in 2018. It sold for 1.8 million Swiss francs (about $1.87 million today), making it at the time the most expensive Omega ever sold. The highest bidder: Omega itself, which added the watch to its museum collection in Bienne, Switzerland.“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” said Ms. Martin, who oversaw Mr. Butler’s watches in the new film. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.”Warner Bros.One watch that was prominent late in Elvis’s career was the Rolex King Midas, which has an asymmetrical case with a wide integrated bracelet and was designed by Gerald Genta, the name behind such legendary watches as the Royal Oak and the Nautilus. Concert promoters gave the Midas to Presley in 1970 for performing six days of sold-out concerts, and it is now on permanent display at Graceland, Presley’s home in Memphis, where he died in 1977.“The King Midas is a very unusual shape, and Baz happens to own one, so Austin Butler wore that in the movie,” Ms. Martin said. “Some watches were borrowed or purchased online. Some were so valuable that it was impossible to have them on set, so we had duplicates made.”The subject of the film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last month, certainly falls into the larger-than-life category that Mr. Luhrmann and Ms. Martin seem drawn to in filmmaking (like their 2013 version of “The Great Gatsby”).“The character arc of Elvis is fascinating, as is the fact that he was an extraordinary stylist who created his own look,” Ms. Martin said. “He became super famous super fast, and watches were important to him to show that he had made it.” More

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      You Need a Horror Movie Friend for a More Frightening, Less Lonely Life

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      You can’t undo what is terrible about the universe, but you can stand against it together.I was in graduate school when I realized the importance of having a Designated Horror Friend. I spent a lot of time in creative-writing workshops, moderating my tone to sound “productive” while offering my peers feedback on their work. We were all careful with one another, but a layer of brutality ran just below the surface, an implicit understanding that sometimes calling a classmate’s story “interesting” meant you actually thought it was trash. Our politeness kept the program from descending into violence, but it sometimes left me craving a more honest, instinctual response.One thing that helped keep me sane was horror cinema. Horror is a natural companion to the experimental fiction that I love — Clarice Lispector, Renata Adler, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce — in the sense of its belief that beneath ordinary reality lies a second and darker layer of existence. In these films, mood is not subservient to message: The mood is the message, working to disperse the sedative haze of the everyday. Not everyone in the program was receptive to this point of view.Horror deniers often claim there’s nothing emotionally valuable in the experience of being frightened. I disagree.So it meant something to me when a classmate named Angie suggested that we meet up to see “Let the Right One In” at the second-run movie theater in town. It wasn’t a natural pick for a friend date: huddling together in the dark and watching the story of a child-size vampire ensnaring a young boy into emotional slavery. Even the theater was strange, its lobby full of humming, buzzing, life-size animatronics you had to walk past to get to the box office.But Angie seemed excited, and I said yes, trying not to let myself hope that this would be more than a one-time thing. After getting our tickets, we settled in with cheap popcorn and soda, and as the lights dimmed in the theater, Angie leaned over and whispered in my ear about a “Twin Peaks”-themed Halloween party they were planning to throw and a classic slasher movie we should watch together soon. I saw the future unspool before me: more frightening, less lonely.A lot of people hate horror movies, but I don’t. In fact, I frequently find myself strong-arming my friends and loved ones into watching something scarier than they would prefer, just for the company. It’s a difference of philosophy as much as a difference in taste. Horror deniers often claim there’s nothing emotionally valuable in the experience of being frightened. I disagree. When I first watched “The Last Unicorn” (a horror movie masquerading as a children’s cartoon) at age 8, the image of a naked harpy devouring a witch was burned into my brain, but so was the realization that the conditions that created the harpy also allowed for the unicorn. The existence of horror is inevitably proximate to the existence of wondrous possibility.Meeting another person who loves horror as much as I do, then, is like meeting a fellow traveler from my home country while stuck somewhere distant and strange. There is a shiver of recognition, a sense of immediate union. Of course, I can watch horror movies by myself — and I frequently do, because my husband doesn’t like them — but choosing to be scared with another person means choosing to be vulnerable together, which creates a bond that can’t be replicated any other way.Angie and I built our friendship on horror cinema of all types and quality, from David Cronenberg to David Lynch to every installment of “The Purge.” We cringed at the body horror in “Goodnight Mommy” (lips sealed with superglue; a cockroach crawling into someone’s mouth) and celebrated when Florence Pugh’s bad boyfriend in “Midsommar” was burned alive inside a bear. But it wasn’t just the movies that we loved. It was the fact that when we watched them together, our mutual appreciation amplified their strength. Horror movies articulate that the world is horrible and that the most horrible thing of all is simply that we are alive and fragile and bound for death. There is no protection from this, no other way out of this life. People you love will get sick — maybe you will. Violence will be done by charismatic strangers and, worse still, by lovers and friends. But sharing that understanding with someone makes the world, perhaps paradoxically, less scary. You can’t undo what is terrible about the universe, but you can stand against it together.Recently I was outside exercising when my dog started barking by the back gate. I looked up and saw a man in a black ski mask standing in my backyard, by my bicycle — an image simultaneously so legible (man, mask) and incomprehensible (stranger; why?) that my mind went blank. The man noticed me staring and gave a casual wave before strolling to the fence and jumping over.There are places in the world where reality bends: dark alleys, calls from unknown numbers, a sudden face where a face should not be. These are tropes in horror fiction for a reason, and one of them had just appeared in my yard. I was vulnerable, and never had this fact been clearer to me. But strange to say, I found it as exhilarating as scary. Perhaps because I’d been preparing for this moment my whole life, and because I knew that I was not alone; because someone had been preparing with me.I ran inside, and after my husband and I called the police, I called Angie.Adrienne Celt is the author of “The Daughters,” “Invitation to a Bonfire” and, most recently, “End of the World House.” More

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      Kevin Spacey Charged With Sexual Assault in London

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      The actor will appear in a London court on Thursday to start what could be a lengthy trial process over multiple allegations of sexual assault.LONDON — The actor Kevin Spacey was charged with four counts of sexual assault on Monday in London, the city’s police force said in a news release.Mr. Spacey, 62, who was also charged with one count of causing a person to engage in penetrative sexual activity without their consent, is scheduled to appear in court in London on Thursday where he will confirm his identity and that he understands the charges. A date for a full trial has not yet been announced.The offenses, which involve three men, are alleged to have occurred between March 2005 and April 2013, the police said in the news release. Mr. Spacey’s representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The British authorities last month authorized the indictments against Mr. Spacey, which only took effect when Mr. Spacey traveled to England to be formally charged.Mr. Spacey told ABC News’s “Good Morning America” that he denied the charges and would travel to Britain to defend himself. “While I am disappointed with their decision to move forward, I will voluntarily appear in the U.K. as soon as can be arranged and defend myself against these charges, which I am confident will prove my innocence,” he said in a statement to the show.The charges detailed in the news release relate to incidents alleged to have taken place in London and in Gloucestershire, England. They date from the time when Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London, the playhouse he led from 2003 to 2015.The first person to publicly accuse Mr. Spacey, a two-time Academy Award winner, of sexual misconduct was the actor Anthony Rapp, who said in 2017 that Mr. Spacey made unwanted sexual advances toward him at a New York party in 1986, when he was 14 years old.Soon after Mr. Rapp’s allegations appeared in an article published by BuzzFeed, multiple men who worked with Mr. Spacey at the Old Vic also accused him of inappropriate behavior. An independent investigation, commissioned by the theater, said that Mr. Spacey’s “stardom and status” might have stopped people from raising accusations when they occurred. The investigators’ report added that they could not independently verify the allegations, and Mr. Spacey did not participate. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Old Man’ and Juneteenth Specials

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      Jeff Bridges stars in a new thriller series on FX. And several networks air programs recognizing Juneteenth.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, June 13 – 19. Details and times are subject to change.MondayDEADLY FRIEND (1986) 6:15 p.m. on TCM. Two years after “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” the filmmaker Wes Craven released this artificial-intelligence fable about a young computer wiz (Michael Sharrett) who implants a microchip into the brain of his injured teenage neighbor (Kristy Swanson). The chip is meant to save her life — and it does, sort of, but it puts others’ lives in danger. (The story is based on a novel by Diana Henstell.) In her 1986 review for The New York Times, Caryn James praised the “unpredictable goofiness” of the film. She called it “a witty ghoul story, a grandson of ‘Frankenstein’ that plays off the conventions of recent teen-age horror movies while paying homage to the classic starring Boris Karloff.”TuesdayBrian Wilson in “Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road.”Barb BialkowskiAMERICAN MASTERS: BRIAN WILSON — LONG PROMISED ROAD 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). A reflection of the depth of influence of the Beach Boys singer-songwriter Brian Wilson, this documentary includes interviews with music figures as disparate as the Foo Fighters drummer Taylor Hawkins (who died in March) and the star classical-music conductor Gustavo Dudamel. Those interviews and many others, including ones with Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Don Was and Al Jardine, accompany an extended conversation between Jason Fine, the editor of Rolling Stone magazine, and Wilson, who drive around Los Angeles together discussing Wilson’s life and career.WednesdayElsie Fisher in “Eighth Grade.”Linda Kallerus/A24EIGHTH GRADE (2018) and LADY BIRD (2017) 5:45 p.m. and 7:25 p.m. on Showtime. Here’s a double feature with enough coming-of-age awkwardness to fill a few college-ruled composition books. “Eighth Grade,” from the comic and filmmaker Bo Burnham, follows a very online adolescent (played by Elsie Fisher) navigating her final week of middle school in suburbia; “Lady Bird,” from the actress and filmmaker Greta Gerwig, follows a high school senior (Saoirse Ronan) balancing school drama (in multiple senses) and a complicated relationship with her mother (Laurie Metcalf) in the suburbs of Sacramento, Calif., in the early 2000s.ThursdayTHE OLD MAN 10 p.m. on FX. Jeff Bridges, long an old soul (see “True Grit,” “The Big Lebowski” and “Crazy Heart”), is a natural fit for the title role of this new series — though he’s not often quite this imposing. He plays Dan Chase, a former C.I.A. operative who abandoned the agency long ago. When we meet him, he’s grizzled and living off the grid. But his past catches up with him, as pasts are wont to do, and he finds himself being hunted by an F.B.I. director (John Lithgow). Amy Brenneman and Alia Shawkat also star alongside Bridges, in his first regular role in a series.FridayQuinn Kelsey and Rosa Feola in “Rigoletto.”Richard Termine for The New York TimesGREAT PERFORMANCES AT THE MET: RIGOLETTO 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). The Tony-winning director Bartlett Sher relocates Verdi’s “Rigoletto” from Renaissance Italy to Weimar Berlin in this version of that dark three-act opera. The production, which opened at the Metropolitan Opera at the beginning of this year, stars the baritone Quinn Kelsey and the soprano Rosa Feola as the jester Rigoletto and his beloved daughter, Gilda, under the conducting of Daniele Rustioni. Anthony Tommasini’s review for The Times was positive, with some caveats. “If shifting the opera’s setting from Renaissance Italy to 1920s Berlin was not entirely convincing, this was still a detailed, dramatic staging, full of insights into the characters,” Tommasini wrote. Rustioni, he added, “led a lean, transparent performance that balanced urgency and lyricism.”WATERGATE: HIGH CRIMES IN THE WHITE HOUSE 9 p.m. on CBS. It was through the mouths of CBS reporters including Walter Cronkite, Lesley Stahl and Dan Rather that many Americans heard of developments in the Watergate scandal — and about the infamous break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, which happened 50 years ago this week. This new feature-length documentary about the events takes advantage of the reams of footage in CBS’s archives. It also features new interviews with Stahl, the reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the F.B.I. investigator Angelo Lano and others, including Hugh W. Sloan Jr., a treasurer of President Nixon’s re-election committee who was a major source of information for Woodward and Bernstein.SaturdayACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2007) 8 p.m. on HBO Signature. Paul McCartney turns 80 on Saturday. Consider tipping your hat (or your mop-top hairdo) to him by revisiting this oddball jukebox musical from Julie Taymor, in which the visually sumptuous love story between a Liverpool bloke (Jim Sturgess) in search of his father and a young American activist (Evan Rachel Wood) is peppered with Beatles songs. It’s a “phantasmagoria,” Stephen Holden wrote in his review for The Times. “Somewhere around its midpoint, ‘Across the Universe’ captured my heart,” Holden wrote, “and I realized that falling in love with a movie is like falling in love with another person. Imperfections, however glaring, become endearing quirks once you’ve tumbled.”SundayEarth, Wind and Fire performing in New York last year. The group is on the lineup for “Juneteenth: A Global Celebration of Freedom,” which will air on CNN on Sunday.Nina Westervelt for The New York TimesJUNETEENTH: A GLOBAL CELEBRATION FOR FREEDOM at 8 p.m. on CNN. Sunday is Juneteenth, and many networks have programming lined up to recognize the holiday. One of the highlights is this blowout concert, which is slated to include the Roots; Earth, Wind and Fire; Mickey Guyton; Robert Glasper; Yolanda Adams; Billy Porter; and many more performers. Questlove and the producer, songwriter and instrumentalist Adam Blackstone are the night’s music directors. Other Juneteenth-related programming throughout the day includes BET SPECIAL: THE RECIPE: JUNETEENTH at 1 p.m. on BET; a Juneteenth episode of the family show YOUNG DYLAN at 7 p.m. on Nick; and the 30TH ANNUAL TRUMPET AWARDS, which honor Black performers and other figures (this year’s honorees include the actor Courtney B. Vance and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia), at 7 p.m. on Bounce TV. More

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      ‘Lost Illusions’ Review: The Sweet Smell of Success

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      Xavier Giannoli’s headlong adaptation of a Balzac novel paints a timely picture of literary ambition and media corruption in 19th-century France.A young person from the provinces sets out for the big city, seeking fortune and fame and finding temptation, corruption and ruin. It’s a story that never gets old — there’s usually plenty of lust, ambition and greed to keep the narrative engine humming — and variations pop up in the literature of nearly every nation and era. “Lost Illusions,” Honoré de Balzac’s novel of Parisian literary life, stands as a stellar example in its period and now, thanks to Xavier Giannoli’s invigorating screen adaptation, in ours as well.Balzac, writing in the early 1840s, reached back a few decades to the Bourbon Restoration, a post-Napoleonic moment of high decadence and low scruple, but what he uncovered were some of the perennial principles of modern life. Principles, though, are exactly what his moderns lack. The pistons that keep their world humming along are cynicism and hypocrisy, and brazen amorality winds through every institution they inhabit, from politics to publishing to theater.Into this hive of striving and backstabbing comes Lucien Chardon (Benjamin Voisin), a 20-year-old poet we first meet in his hometown, Angoulême, in Southwestern France. There, he scribbles passionate verses in a sun-dappled meadow and earns his living working in a printing shop. Not that his life is defined entirely by pastoral innocence and honest toil. His hobby is vigorous adultery with Mme. de Bargeton (Cécile de France), a married aristocrat who invites him to read his poetry at artistic gatherings in her chateau.Lucien has aristocratic pretensions of his own. He signs his poems — and, later, his scabrous articles in the Parisian press — Lucien de Rubempré, using his highborn mother’s maiden name. (Lucien’s father, M. Chardon, was a pharmacist.) When Madame’s husband discovers the affair, she takes off for Paris with Lucien and another would-be lover, the Baron du Châtelet (André Marcon), who will eventually be caricatured in the newspapers as an impotent turkey.Lucien has pouty good looks and ostensible literary talent. The baron and Mme. de Bargeton have connections to the Marquise d’Espard (Jeanne Balibar), a powerful figure in royalist circles. What seemed like a lark in Angoulême goes sour in a hurry. Cast out of his protectors’ company — his bumbling naïveté, so sexy in the countryside, is embarrassing in the big city — Lucien finds his way onto the staff of an anti-royalist scandal sheet, where he makes a splash writing criticism, using de Rubempré as his byline.As we follow this rake’s progress onscreen — through editorial offices full of hashish smoke, and on to bistros, bawdy houses and music halls — a narrator lays out how it all works. Balzac, one of the fathers of literary realism, was a pioneer of what a later century would call the systems novel, and his explanatory zeal, far from didactic, is almost always delightful.And so it is in Giannoli’s version. “Lost Illusions” is in some ways a very old-fashioned, supremely French movie, full of costumes and quill pens, sex and speechifying, and stylish acting even in the smallest roles. (The Quebecois actor and filmmaker Xavier Dolan, as Lucien’s well-connected rival, is particularly charismatic.) The novel was turned into a mini-series for French television in 1966, but the breathless sprawl of a longish feature film may serve it better. Balzac was a prodigious coffee drinker, and the movie, though its characters run on champagne and schadenfreude, is nothing if not caffeinated.It is also earnest in its portrayal of cynicism, without being overly moralistic. Lucien’s career is launched when he delivers an impromptu takedown of a book he hasn’t read for an audience of scribblers presided over by a powerful publisher (Gérard Depardieu). Reviews, positive and negative, are bought and paid for through a complex circuit of bribery and extortion. Audiences flock to theaters on a street called “the boulevard of crime” for its sensational offerings. Ovations and boos are purchased from an unctuous fixer named Singali (Jean-François Stévenin).Lucien, egged on by his dirtbag editor (Vincent Lacoste), starts making good money. What he doesn’t lose at the gambling tables he spends on an actress named Coralie (the heart-tuggingly sincere Salomé Dewaels), who becomes his muse, his mistress and the film’s emotional center of gravity. Lucien’s love for her is the only pure thing about him — that and the faith in literature that occasionally flickers amid the hackery.The narrator signals early on that the plot is heading toward tragedy, and further summary would no more spoil “Lost Illusions” than a citation of the law of gravity would spoil a roller-coaster ride. The busy, headlong story, in any case, is a whirring machine for the delivery of piquant ideas about human behavior, and about the workings of a society obsessed with reputation, status and appearance as well as money.It’s a familiar enough spectacle, and if there’s any justice this movie will become a touchstone and cult object among the grasping, scheming denizens of the current media jungle. Giannoli illuminates the dank frenzy of the 19th-century attention economy with an eye on our own post-truth era. “Lost Illusions” is sensational. Nobody paid me to say that. Well, actually, The New York Times did, but you should believe me anyway.Lost IllusionsNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 29 minutes. In theaters. More