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      ‘Fire in the Mountains’ Review: The Mother of All Struggles

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      Vinamrata Rai plays a rural Indian woman driven to the edge by family pressures in Ajitpal Singh’s tough and generous first feature.Pauline Kael once described “Shoeshine,” Vittorio De Sica’s neorealist heartbreaker, as “a social-protest film that rises above its purpose.” De Sica may have been motivated to expose the economic injustice and official cruelty of postwar Italy, but the movie, grounded in the hard circumstances of two impoverished Roman boys, finds an incandescent core of poetry and tragedy in the story of their friendship.What Kael observed about “Shoeshine” is also true of “Fire in the Mountains,” Ajitpal Singh’s tough-minded, openhearted debut feature. Its criticisms of patriarchal authority, bureaucratic corruption and superstition in rural India are sharp and unsparing, but its political themes are embedded in a humanism that is at once expansive and specific. The characters don’t deliver a message; their lives are the message.That is especially true of Chandra (Vinamrata Rai), Singh’s beleaguered heroine. The title seems to promise an explosion of rage, but for most of the film Chandra smolders and sputters. Her daily routine is an endless cycle of chores, errands and demands. She lives in the Indian state of Uttarakhand, near Tibet and Nepal. Her house clings to a hillside overlooking a spectacular Himalayan valley, and the camera follows her up and down the same steep, narrow paths to the village in what seems like an endless loop.She is never empty-handed. If she isn’t lugging well water, groceries, freshly harvested tea or the suitcases of tourists who have come for the mountain scenery, she is carrying her preadolescent son, Prakash (Mayank Singh), who otherwise uses a wheelchair. At home, more burdens await, piled onto her by an independent-minded teenage daughter (Harshita Tewari), a resentful, widowed sister-in-law (Sonal Jha) and a husband (Chandan Bisht) whose kindness only occasionally peeks out from behind clouds of alcohol and frustration.Chandra is expected to manage all of their needs and moods, without much help or sympathy from anyone. She saves money for expensive medical treatments for Prakash, even though the doctors (and the audience) know that the boy’s legs work just fine. Dharam, her husband, whose halfhearted business ventures always end in failure, wants to use the cash for a religious ritual. Meanwhile, Chandra petitions the creepy, dishonest leader of the village to build a long-promised road. As indignities accumulate, her exhaustion does battle with rage, and suspense builds around the question of whether she will collapse or explode.But Chandra is neither a martyr nor a superhero, and “Fire in the Mountains” is more than a catalog of her miseries or a hymn to her indomitability. The beauty of her surroundings doesn’t make her life any easier, but Singh uses the sublimity of the landscape as a reminder that aesthetic delight is ineradicably woven into the fabric of life, no matter how grim or oppressive life may otherwise be.And family life, however strained or dysfunctional, is never without an element of comedy. Much of the time, Dharam is more foolish than menacing. “You’re so lovable when you’re sober,” their daughter says, and Chandra sees that, too, even as she bears the brunt of his sullenness and his outbursts of temper. As the daughter, Kanchan, a prizewinning student who posts flirty, PG videos on social media, Tewari brings a hint of salty teen-comedy energy. The household, with its shifting allegiances and frequent misunderstandings, teeters between melodrama and sitcom. (There’s also an element of satire. Radio and television broadcasts frequently trumpet the modernizing achievements of an unnamed prime minister, rhetoric that is mocked by conditions in the village, where nothing ever changes.)Chandra is everyone’s scapegoat and foil, as well as the engine that keeps it all running. Rai’s performance is a marvel — blunt and subtle at the same time, as committed to the character’s failings as to her virtues. The unfairness of her situation is overwhelming, but she doesn’t always treat the people around her fairly, either. This is especially true of Kanchan, whose academic success and curiosity about the world bother Chandra in ways she can’t explain, or even acknowledge.It’s a complicated family, and yet “Fire in the Mountains” observes its potential fracturing with impressive clarity. Singh, who came to filmmaking late — he wrote his first (as yet unproduced) screenplay in 2012, at 33 — has a storytelling knack that feels both hard-won and intuitive. There is an elegant simplicity to this movie, but nothing about it feels easy.Fire in the MountainsNot rated. In Hindi, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 22 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Cordelia’ Review: Going Underground

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      A traumatized young woman and a strange musician form an unsettling connection in this disquieting psychodrama.Some films settle on your skin and are difficult to shake off. Such is the case with Adrian Shergold’s “Cordelia,” a capricious psychodrama that, despite clear reminders of Roman Polanski’s “Repulsion” (1965), is very much its own thing.Cordelia (an excellent Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who shares the writing credit with Shergold), is an anxious young actor whose career was stalled by a traumatic incident on the London underground. Now she lives in a faded basement flat with her twin sister, Caroline (also played by Campbell-Hughes), whose flinty demeanor suggests a growing frustration with her sister’s ongoing mental issues. Then Caroline disappears for a weekend trip with her boyfriend, and the flat that was once sheltering now seems sinister, the ringing landline and flickering light bulbs exacerbating Cordelia’s disquieting dreams.The possibility of romance with Frank (Johnny Flynn), a cello-playing neighbor, brightens the movie and softens Cordelia’s prickly personality. But Frank, too, seems off, his phone concealing creepy pictures of the sisters, whom he had thought were the same person. Venturing upstairs to Frank’s apartment, Cordelia finds it strangely decrepit, as if she inhabits the only livable space in a building that, like her sanity, is slowly decomposing.Enigmatic and imperfect, but nonetheless absorbing and consistently unsettling, “Cordelia” offers a haunting visualization of a breaking-apart psyche. The bruised, green-washed elegance of Tony Slater Ling’s interior shots, rain sheeting against the flat’s windows, fashions an unreliable space where people and events could be real or imagined, alive or dead.“I don’t know who I am,” Cordelia tells Frank. The wise viewer won’t expect her to find out.CordeliaNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Google Play, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘A New Old Play’ Review: Even the Clown Show Must Go On

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      Qiu Jiongjiong’s absurdist epic of 20th century China is both a movie and a play, both tragedy and farce.Per the title, Qiu Jiongjiong’s magnificently layered historical epic, “A New Old Play,” draws as much from Brecht and Beckett as from cinematic traditions. At once tragedy and farce, it breathes new life into a story as old as civilization.The opening scene is disorienting at first, not least for the film’s protagonist, Qiu Fu (Yi Sicheng), a well-known actor from a Sichuan opera troupe. We meet him when he is old and stooping, in a crumbling mountain village enshrouded by fog. It is China in the 1980s, and the Japanese, the nationalists and the communists have wreaked their havoc in turn. Now two raggedy demons have arrived in a broken-down bicycle rickshaw to cart Qiu off to the underworld.Still, something feels uncanny, demons notwithstanding. The entire mise-en-scène of the film, we discover, is artificial, an assembly of stage props and hand-painted scenery. Qiu has always played the clown, shuffling from scene to scene, a hapless pauper harassed by need and political fashion. Even his wife (Guan Nan) may not miss him when he’s gone. Somehow he, like the film, maintains a sense of humor. Such is life for a poor player.Qiu isn’t keen to leave, but his time is up — as the demons remind him, it’s no use trying to outrun fate. Also, the King of Hell is a fan, and Qiu’s failure to appear would make them look bad.But first, let’s drink and play mahjong in purgatory, where Qiu awaits final passage to oblivion. Absurdities and indignities mount as he reminisces about a life spanning wars and famine, revolution and betrayal. The director’s cleverest trick is having also found joy there.A New Old PlayNot rated. In Mandarin, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 59 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Downton Abbey: A New Era’ Review: Gilded, Aged

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      The latest entry in the “Downton Abbey” franchise is amiable enough — though despite its subtitle, it rests most of its extravagant weight on cozy familiarity.The title of “Downton Abbey: A New Era” pledges that change has arrived at the Grantham family’s mansion after six seasons of television, a previous film and a zeitgeist shift that has caused a chunk of the show’s original audience to start regarding its characters’ generational wealth with disgust and relish, as though it were a wheel of rotten Stilton. The stately series that began its story with the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 has now arrived at the tail end of the 1920s. The choppy waters of modernity are materializing on the horizon. To stay afloat, this amiable sequel decides to ever so slightly democratize itself: The upstairs-downstairs division that has long separated the estate’s masters from their servants begins to leak.So does Downton Abbey’s roof, which motivates Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) to rent the cash-poor estate to a team shooting a silent film — makers of “kin-ema,” as Lady Mary’s father, Robert (Hugh Bonneville), calls it, disdainfully mispronouncing the name of the art form. (The moviemaking plot point may have been inspired by real life: The franchise’s shooting location, Highclere Castle, which resembles a vampire bat’s underbite, opened its doors to the show after Geordie Herbert, the Eighth Earl of Carnarvon and Queen Elizabeth II’s godson, realized that dozens of its rooms were rotting.)Simon Curtis, the director, and Julian Fellowes, the “Downton Abbey” creator who also wrote “A New Era,” proceed to have their own actors compete to see who can land the best meta-zingers about the profession. “I’d rather earn my living down at the mine,” Maggie Smith’s sniffy Dowager Countess quips. The obvious rebuttal is that her bloodline hasn’t earned its living at all — a dig that Fellowes is finally comfortable alluding to, if not saying outright, as when two newlyweds, Tom and Lucy (Allen Leech and Tuppence Middleton), vow to prevent their children from turning into the idle rich.Actors are just the people to upset the centuries-old social order. Two fictional movie stars, Myrna Dalgleish (Laura Haddock) and Guy Dexter (Dominic West), dress splendidly and command deference, even though she was born to a fruit seller and he pops down to the servants quarters to hit on the butler (Robert James-Collier), albeit with such sexless decorum that the target of his affection barely notices. While the lower classes flirt with upward mobility, the Dowager Countess inherits a villa from a Frenchman she briefly knew in 1864. What did she do to earn it? The grande dame is irked by the innuendo those around her express (tactfully, with widened eyes and bitten lips) — though she’s more aggrieved that everybody seems to reach for their funeral hats whenever she yawns. “I feel like Andromeda chained to a rock with you hovering,” she groans.Fellowes’s screenplay seems antsy to usher its characters to either the morgue or the wedding chapel, lest they start rotting, too. Four couples partner off, their rushed romances giving a jerky momentum to a pace that otherwise bobs along like a canal ride at an amusement park, gliding past pleasant scenes of children playing croquet, cooks readying feasts and women beaming graciously in glittering dresses. The sequel still rests most of its extravagant weight on cozy familiarity. Not only does the film copy-paste an entire subplot from “Singin’ in the Rain,” its opening aerial shot of pennant-bedecked white tents could have been lifted from “The Great British Baking Show,” that other pinnacle of British comfort-food entertainment. Yet, Fellowes manages to navigate “Downton Abbey” to charm both reactionaries and revolutionaries, finagling a sequence that allows the staff to usurp the formal dining room while the rich serve themselves at a buffet. The inversion gently rocks the boat, with no threat of tipping it over.Downton Abbey: A New EraRated PG for genteel allusions to adult situations. Running time: 2 hours 5 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Digger’ Review: A Man Defends the Land Against Development

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      The Greek filmmaker Georgis Grigorakis takes an elemental theme and layers it with family conflict.“Digger,” the debut feature by the Greek writer and director Georgis Grigorakis, is the familiar story of a local eccentric facing off against mercenary industrialists desperate to acquire and tear down his property.Nikitas (Vangelis Mourikis) is an aging farmer living alone in a mountain cabin in northern Greece, where the trees block out the sunlight and the air drips with moisture. Along with his drinking buddy neighbors, he resists the encroaching mining company, but his struggle is disrupted when his estranged adult son, Johnny (Argyris Panadazaras), appears, demanding compensation for his share of the land.This standard setup, in which an individual contends with the forces of modernization that wreak havoc on the environment and phase out traditional ways of life, also plays out in films like “Aquarius” (2016) and “Dead Pigs” (2018). Against those inventive and formidable dramas, “Digger” doesn’t exactly stand out — perhaps because its terse David and Goliath conflict doesn’t yield satisfyingly punchy results.Grigorakis describes the film as a “western,” with motorbikes replacing horses and muddy forestlands instead of empty plains. The brooding masculine showdown between father and son, however, is its greatest claim to that label, with the intergenerational rift also complicating the film’s anticapitalist stance.Years ago, Johnny’s mother left Nikitas, their rural abode and their unconventional lifestyle to raise Johnny in what she considered a normal environment. Abandoned, Nikitas dedicates himself entirely to preserving the land. When Johnny returns penniless decades later, after his mother’s death, he considers such devotion a testament to the ignorance and callousness of a crazy old man.These views are upended over the course of the film, which sees the two men laboring side by side, gradually revealing their unique skills and dilemmas. This makes for a predictably redemptive outcome, yes, but it also goes to show that choosing the right course of resistance — like escaping a pool of quicksand — might be counterintuitive.DiggerNot rated. In Greek, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers’ Review: Remember Them? (No?)

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      This Disney reboot combines animation and live-action comedy with an irreverent, self-referential attitude.As a general rule, movie reboots proceed from a basic assumption about interest and familiarity — that audiences adore some bygone franchise, and will be eager to see it resuscitated.The charming conceit of the director Akiva Schaffer’s “Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers,” an ironic reboot of the short-lived cartoon series for children that aired on the Disney Channel from 1989 to 1990, is that hardly anybody remembers the original “Rescue Rangers,” and that few who do remember it fondly.A wry take on the material that combines animation and live-action comedy, the movie has some of the hip flair and anarchic meta-humor of “Who Framed Roger Rabbit,” as well as an irreverent, self-referential attitude that’s rather appealing.In the universe of this “Rescue Rangers,” cartoons live among humans. Chip (John Mulaney) and Dale (Andy Samberg), decades removed from the fleeting success of their Disney Channel series, are washed up and disconsolate, desperate for another shot at fame. After their former co-star Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) is abducted, they find themselves embroiled in a real-life caper — one that involves not only a helpful human detective (Kiki Layne), but also a variety of familiar cartoon faces, including a middle-aged Peter Pan (Will Arnett) and Ugly Sonic (Tim Robinson), the janky-looking version of Sonic the Hedgehog who was hastily redesigned after online backlash in 2019.These kinds of cross-universe cameos have been done before, notably in the 2012 animated movie “Wreck-It Ralph” and last year’s “Space Jam: A New Legacy.” But this odd “Rescue Rangers” menagerie is surprising and eclectic, with some niche nods and deep-cut references, which is fitting given the conspicuous insignificance of the material and its heroes.If there’s going to be a movie about nobodies like Chip and Dale, it only seems right that it should include such wide-ranging animated allusions as “South Park,” “Rugrats” and “The Polar Express.”Chip ’n Dale: Rescue RangersRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 36 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      ‘Deception’ Review: Verbal Fetishism

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      In Arnaud Desplechin’s sly adaptation of Philip Roth’s 1990 novel, a middle-aged writer draws inspiration for his next book from discussions with his mistress.Leave it to the French to idealize adultery in the name of artistic freedom — which is not to say that “Deception,” the latest feature by Arnaud Desplechin, should be dismissed as only a navel-gazing masculine reverie.True, its hero is a philandering middle-aged novelist; he has an affair with a divine younger woman; and there’s even an imaginary trial where said novelist stands before a jury of women accusing him of misogyny.But, if you can tolerate these passé indulgences, there’s also something slyly compelling about this ethereal, pillow-talk-heavy drama.“Deception” is a fairly faithful adaptation of Philip Roth’s 1990 novel — a book that Desplechin has long desired to commit to screen. No wonder, the two men share a fixation with unsavory intimacies and narcissistic-but-tender protagonists.Divided into 12 chapters, it follows an American expatriate, Philip (Denis Podalydès), who is working on a new book, though we hardly ever see him write. Mostly, he’s wrapped up in discussions with his nameless English mistress (Léa Seydoux). These talks are his writing process, his mistress, his muse.Philip also reconnects with past lovers — like the cancer-ridden Rosalie (a vibrant Emmanuelle Devos). At the same time, his actual wife (Anouk Grinberg) remains in the margins, tucked away at home.At a certain point, one character observes, writers stop “translating reality into fiction” and begin to “impose fiction on reality.” Philip technically travels between New York and London, but the film plays like a chamber drama, with dreamy fade-outs and occasional strokes of fantasy contributing to the idea that what we see is a version of Philip’s novel.At the film’s beginning, Seydoux’s paramour describes Philip’s office in expert detail, and retorts with a challenge: “Now let’s see how well you’ve been paying attention.” It’s an intriguing comment that opens up a question as the film unfolds: attention, yes, but of what kind?DeceptionNot rated. In French, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. Watch on Mubi. More

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      ‘Emergency’ Review: Party Over

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      A celebratory evening takes a turn when college friends find a young woman passed out in their house.If you have a low threshold for bad decision making, “Emergency” might test your patience. But the film smartly navigates the iffy steps its characters take. Those choices cascade when the best friends and college seniors Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) and Sean (RJ Cyler) arrive home to find their front door ajar and a young white woman passed out on the living-room floor. Their housemate Carlos (Sebastian Chacon) hasn’t a clue. The dilemma Emma — that’s her name and she’s played by Maddie Nichols — presents upends their plans to become the first Black men to complete the college’s evening-long party circuit known as the “legendary tour.”Kunle wants to call 911. Sean, who’s been vaping for hours, says no. Carlos could go either way. Sean’s resistance isn’t simply the result of the fog of weed. And this is the spiky point of the director Carey Williams and the writer KD Dávila: What happens when what should be a simple call to the police isn’t?“Emergency” infuses a college comedy with lessons about race and entitlement. In the decision-making department, Emma and her older sister Maddy (Sabrina Carpenter) have some explaining to do — or would, were their sense of privilege not so unquestioned.Thanks to some good filmmaking decisions, “Emergency” is rife with tart observations about campus life. It is evocatively shot by Michael Dallatorre, particularly the montage of how Sean imagined the party night unfolding. Still, the best choice comes in casting Cyler and Watkins. The wise slacker and the guileless nerd couldn’t be more different, which makes the testing of their bond as friends, but also as Black men, rich and resonant.EmergencyRated R for pervasive language, a cloud bank of weed smoke and some sexual references. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters now, streaming on Amazon May 27. More