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      ‘The Duke’ Review: Suspect’s 61

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      This film from the director Roger Michell has a compelling art-thief protagonist, but is weighed down by soggy family drama.A Robin Hood figure polarizes England in “The Duke,” an ambling, sentimental account of the 1961 heist of Francisco de Goya’s portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery in London. The police assume that the thief is a criminal mastermind. The public imagines the villain from Dr. No (1963), who displayed the purloined painting in his lair. But the man standing trial is a more unusual suspect: a 61-year-old cabdriver, Kempton Bunton (Jim Broadbent), who claims that he swiped the art over frustration that the British government would rather spend money lionizing the dead than lifting up its working class. His ransom notes demand a charitable donation. (The real painting was returned in 1965; Bunton turned himself in.)An anti-establishment autodidact with a quick stride and a fast mouth — “I feel about 23,” he says, and for a moment Broadbent’s gleaming eyes make you believe it — Bunton is a rabble-rouser and a compelling hero for this film by the director Roger Michell, who died in September after a career of humanist charmers including “Notting Hill” and “Venus.” It is a pity that Richard Bean and Clive Coleman’s script mires Bunton in a soggy family drama about an unresolved death; an elder son (Jack Bandeira) who flirts with crime; and a wife, Dorothy (Helen Mirren, so sheepish as to be near invisible), who is humiliated that her husband prefers prison to a stable home. These rather generic subplots diffuse the movie’s vibrant blue-collar crusade, which gets a boost from a tizzy jazz score. Thankfully, a barrister Jeremy Hutchinson (Matthew Goode) steps in to reward Bunton’s principles with a rousing defense. Though the climatic court battle feels a tad too inspirational, even Goya might admit that’s just what a flattering portrait does.The DukeRated R for swearing and a brief sexual scene. Running time: 1 hour 26 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Marvelous and the Black Hole’ Review: Finding Magic Amid Rage

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      A teenager reeling from the loss of her mother discovers an unlikely companion in an older magician.Sammy Ko (Miya Cech), the protagonist of this dark coming-of-age comedy, ticks all the boxes of adolescent angst. She smokes and acts out at school; secretly gives herself tattoos with a rudimentary rig in her bedroom; and lashes out at her father, Angus (Leonardo Nam), for dating so soon after the death of her mother.When Angus reaches his wit’s end with Sammy, he gives her an ultimatum: commit to a community-college class or go to a camp for troubled kids. During a smoke break in the college bathroom, Sammy meets Margot (Rhea Perlman), a whimsical magician who turns Sammy into her reluctant apprentice.That’s the setup for “Marvelous and the Black Hole,” the writer-director Kate Tsang’s debut feature, which combines folklore, sketch art and sleight-of-hand magic to explore grief, family ties and how to channel rage.Cech is believable as a troubled teenager, and it’s refreshing to see an Asian American girl as a protagonist, but the film has a limited emotional range, jumping among several plot elements without fully fleshing them out. Missing are scenes that show how this death affected Sammy’s relationship with her sister, Patricia, or what the family’s dynamic was before the tragedy. The film focuses instead on Sammy’s all-consuming rage and self-destruction, making it feel one-note, with too few moments of redemption or connection.Marvelous and the Black HoleNot rated. Running time 1 hour 21 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Sexual Drive’ Review: Best Served Hot and Heavy

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      Natto, mapo tofu and fatty ramen become objects of titillation in this intriguing Japanese triptych that centers on sex without ever depicting it.A sexless husband queries his wife’s lover over a package of natto. A nervous driver on her way to buy mapo sauce finds her panic attack transform into a paroxysm of passion when she collides with an old schoolmate. And a married man obeys enigmatic instructions to rescue his paramour after she’s kidnapped from a ramen shop.These three encounters form the wry Japanese triptych “Sexual Drive,” directed by Kota Yoshida. Consistently intriguing and occasionally hilarious, the movie does not depict sex itself. Instead, the characters eat food items that become objects of titillation, lust and pleasure: the sticky goo around soybeans, chili oil sizzling in a wok.A man named Kurita (Tateto Serizawa) appears in each vignette as a mysterious raconteur spinning tales of lechery that — however disturbing and perhaps untrue — succeed in rousing his counterparts to their own desires. In two of the stories, Kurita is in conversation with men, and because of this, the movie lends disproportionate attention to the male libido. One can only take so many instances of male characters bragging about a sexual conquest or groaning in shame over being cuckolded.But in the best of the three parts, called “Mapo Tofu,” a woman takes center stage. Driving to the grocery store, the anxious Akane (Honami Sato) bumps into Kurita, whom she used to bully in elementary school, and his memories of that time reawaken her taste for spice. Running a brief 70 minutes, “Sexual Drive” might have benefited from more women owning their appetites, especially since its erotica is such a fascinating new flavor.Sexual DriveNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes. Rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘The Runaways,’ ‘Brigsby Bear’ and More Streaming Gems

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      This month’s outside-the-box streaming recommendations include quirky comedies, an uncommonly rich music biopic and genre movies that are a cut above.‘The Runaways’ (2010)Stream it on Hulu.Floria Sigismondi’s chronicle of this all-female 1970s rock band is not immune to the clichés of the period music biopic. But it amounts to far more — a celebration of the punk scene and D.I.Y. spirit, along with the expected (though generous) helpings of sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll. Dakota Fanning is terrific as the lead singer Cherie Currie, a role that proves an ideal vehicle for her hypnotic brittleness, while Kristen Stewart is in fierce form as Joan Jett, and Michael Shannon nearly steals the show as their sleazy manager and producer, Kim Fowley. Best of all, Sigismondi’s throwback aesthetic and Super-16 mm photography keenly evoke the look and feel of the era; it plays less like a period piece than a contemporaneous coming-of-age movie that was locked away for a few decades.‘Only Lovers Left Alive’ (2014)Stream it on HBO Max.Plenty of authors and filmmakers have explored the day-to-day logistics of living one’s life as a vampire, but perhaps only Jim Jarmusch could’ve looked at the undead and marveled at how much more time they’d have to read great books, watch wonderful movies and listen to cool albums. There is, to be clear, an actual plot in “Only Lovers,” in which the chic bloodsuckers Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston find their elegant existence erupted by her wild-child sister (a potent Mia Wasikowska). But it’s mostly a vibe, a mood, a breezy hangout movie that also spills gallons of blood.‘A Walk Among the Tombstones’ (2014)Stream it on Netflix.A scene from the film.Universal PicturesIt’s a real shame that Liam Neeson had already burned off the good will of his third-act man-of-action career resurgence with too many “Taken” sequels and retreads by the time this taut thriller hit theaters — because it’s far superior to any of his other pictures of the time. That’s partly thanks to the personnel; it’s based on one of a series of crackerjack novels by Lawrence Block, and adapted and directed by Scott Frank (who would later perform the same duties on “The Queen’s Gambit”). But Neeson is also at his best, imbuing cop-turned-private-eye Matthew Scudder with a mixture of soulful regret, unwavering faith and righteous indignation.‘Compliance’ (2012)Stream it on Amazon.Craig Zobel, the writer and director of “Compliance,” narrates a scene from his film.Magnolia PicturesThis Sundance sensation from the writer and director Craig Zobel tells a story so unbelievable, it had to be true: a man calls a fast-food restaurant, claiming to be a police officer, and instructs the manager to interrogate an employee on suspicion of theft. With the caller’s explicit instructions, the manager proceeds to humiliate and assault the young woman, because that’s what a (supposed) person of authority said to do. Zobel crafts his film as both a morality play and a steadily tightening noose, its escalating discomfort complemented by the credible performances of Ann Dowd as the manager, Dreama Walker as the victim and Pat Healy as the caller.‘The Personal History of David Copperfield’ (2020)Stream it on HBO Max.The director and co-writer Armando Iannucci exhibits a light touch — even when dealing in matters of misery, poverty and death — with this merry adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic novel, in which he juices up the jokes, speeds up the pace and cheerfully indulges in colorblind casting. The result is a delightful mash-up of Dickens’s style and Iannucci’s own. Dev Patel is charming and charismatic in the title role, Hugh Laurie and Tilda Swinton shine in their juicy supporting roles and Peter Capaldi is a pitch-perfect Micawber. It’s all refreshingly silly, delightfully high-spirited and gently layered with just enough pathos.‘Brigsby Bear’ (2017)Stream it on Hulu.The “Saturday Night Live” regular Kyle Mooney co-wrote and starred in this funny, strange and sad comedy-drama as a young man whose idyllic but isolated world is punctured dramatically when his parents are arrested — and he discovers that they kidnapped him as an infant and raised him in captivity. Most shockingly, he discovers that the title character, star of a children’s show that was the center of his little universe, was produced by his “parents” for his own entertainment and education, so he makes a Brigsby Bear movie to tie up its loose ends. It sounds insufferably twee, but the director Dave McCary finds an approach that works, indulging in flights of fancy and peculiarity that are grounded by reality and sincerity.‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’ (2022)Stream it on Netflix.The director Rory Kennedy explores the crashes of two brand-new Boeing 737 Max airliners in late 2018 and early 2019, which killed hundreds and cast a harsh light on the company’s factory conditions and safety procedures. With the help of the Wall Street Journal reporter Andy Pasztor, Kennedy brilliantly breaks down the specific mechanical failures that caused the tragedies, rendering those investigative aspects in a way that is clear and upsetting. But she also dives deep into the company’s history, and how a giant merger and shift in corporate culture, favoring speed and stock price over safety, led to what Pasztor calls “a widespread pattern inside Boeing of deceitful behavior.” The evidence is damning and the story is infuriating; this is a piercing commentary on much more than just these two plane crashes.‘Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine’ (2015)Stream it on Amazon.When the Apple mastermind Steve Jobs died in 2011, the documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney observed “the grief of millions of people who didn’t know him,” and wondered why. So he sought to make a movie about who Jobs was, what he did and why it meant so much to so many. Eschewing the customary cradle-to-grave approach for a “Citizen Kane”-style thematic exploration, Gibney ends up with a corrective to the common Jobs hagiography — from personal missteps to sketchy business practices — and a thoughtful indictment of the personal moral choices we all make in the name of convenience. More

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      Father Doesn’t Know Best at New Directors/New Films

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      Returning to an in-person event, this year’s adventurous festival is filled with discoveries that use families to explore contemporary life.In a springy sign of optimism — illusionary or otherwise! — this year’s New Directors/New Films is returning to theaters full throttle. New York’s Covid numbers are creeping up again, but the festival, a joint venture of Film at Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, has ditched the virtual for the physical. So, if you would like to check out the selections at the 51st edition, which runs through May 1, you will need to do so in person. And while masks are not required, they are recommended by the organizers.From its inception, New Directors has focused on younger or at least less-established filmmakers, many grappling with social and political issues. In a bad year, that means the event is little more than a grab bag of nice tries and misses. In a good year, though — and this is one — the event can feel like the unrulier, at times more adventurous younger sibling of the New York Film Festival. The strength of this year’s lineup is heralded by the strong opening-night selection, Audrey Diwan’s “Happening,” a gutsy, smart, involving French drama about a college student’s agonizing effort to secure an abortion in 1963, when the procedure was illegal. I’ll have more to say about the movie when it opens May 6.As usual, most of the slate has been culled from other festivals, including a half-dozen standouts from Sundance. Among these is Nikyatu Jusu’s “Nanny,” about a young Senegalese woman working for a white Manhattan family with an adorable daughter and the kind of nice, agonizingly polite, broadly smiling parents who, if they were any weirder, could have featured roles in a sequel to “Get Out.” With firm directorial control, an expressionistic palette and a transfixing lead turn from Anna Diop, “Nanny” shrewdly draws from African folklore and old-school Hollywood horror freak-outs to tell an emotionally engaging, up-to-the-second story of class, gender and race — which means it’s also about power.A scene from “Nanny,” which borrows from African folklore and Hollywood horror alike.Blumhouse ProductionsUnlike “Nanny,” most of the selections lack American distribution. That may change, of course, though it’s doubtful that most will secure a theatrical release given the fragile condition of foreign-language distribution in the United States. That makes an event like New Directors all the more necessary, and also gives it an air of quiet urgency. To that end, try to see Laurynas Bareisa’s “Pilgrims,” an eerie, impeccably controlled Lithuanian nail-biter about a man and woman revisiting the horrific murder of a beloved. As they retrace the crime, doggedly uprooting the past, exploring darkened cellars and confronting unwelcome bright faces, they exorcise personal demons, and the long shadow of World War II closes in on them.Another must-see is Sierra Pettengill’s “Riotsville, USA,” a mesmerizing documentary essay that tracks American anti-Black racism through a wealth of disturbing, at times super-freaky 1960s archival footage. The title refers to several strange Potemkin-like towns that the United States military constructed in the wake of the civil unrest of the era. There, against rows of cardboard storefronts with generic names, military personnel — some in uniform, others in civilian clothing — engaged in pantomimes of violence, exercises that were observed by local politicians who took lessons from these war games back to the home front. As the Johnson administration publicly grappled with the fires at home, including with the Kerner Commission that investigated the roots of the unrest, it was also stoking future conflagrations.There are predictable letdowns, too, notably “The Innocents,” from Eskil Vogt, who’s best known for the scripts that he’s written with Joachim Trier, including “The Worst Person in the World.” In theme and spooky vibe, “The Innocents” skews closer to one of their earlier collaborations, “Thelma,” about a woman with telekinetic powers. Set in a sinister, isolated housing complex next to one of those forests where the wind always blows ominously through the trees, “The Innocents” — the title seems to nod at the 1961 psychological horror film with Deborah Kerr — tracks the very, very bad things that happen to several children. The results are unnerving, pristinely crafted and altogether unpleasant.The documentary “Riotsville, USA” looks at “towns” the military built in the 1960s to stage exercises in the wake of civil unrest.CineticLike “Nanny,” some of the most memorable selections in New Directors use families to explore a constellation of ideas about contemporary life, its pressures and thorny complexities. In movies as distinct as “Father’s Day” (from Rwanda), “The Cathedral” (the United States) and “Shankar’s Fairies” (India), the family is at once an intimate unit and a microcosm of larger cultural and social relationships. An appreciable number of titles in the program are female-driven and, not coincidentally, patriarchy also looms — openly and otherwise — as a means of domestic control, as an arm of the state, as a virulent presence or as a structuring absence. Whatever the case, father definitely doesn’t know best.One of the most exciting discoveries, Kivu Ruhorahoza’s “Father’s Day” knits together three loosely connected stories that explore the anguished toll of historical and generational traumas. In one story, a hollow-eyed masseuse mourns the abrupt, outwardly random death of her son and the loss of her business to the pandemic as her wastrel husband dreams and schemes. Elsewhere a daughter takes painful stock of her dying father and his hold on her. In the brutal third story, a petty thief cruelly schools his young son (and be warned, some of these scenes can be difficult to watch). An unspoken malignancy, genocide haunts this movie, and while men trouble the present, women — hopefully, movingly — look to the future.Ricky D’Ambrose’s slow-boiling, visually striking drama “The Cathedral” tracks the coming-of-age of a boy — played by separate actors — who grows up in a lower-middle-class family that gradually falls apart year by year, one loss and disappointment at a time. Beginning in the 1980s, the story charts the family’s bleak disintegration through a series of precisely framed and staged chronological scenes in which nothing much seems to happen or everything does. With uninflected acting, explosions of fatherly violence and occasional nods at the outside world (the gulf war, a Kodak commercial), D’Ambrose brings together the personal and the political with lacerating cool and a boldly deployed anti-aesthetic.“Shankar’s Fairies” focuses on the daughter (Shreeja Mishra) of a wealthy family in 1960s India.Asian ShadowsBy vivid contrast, Irfana Majumdar’s quietly piercing drama, “Shankar’s Fairies,” uses beauty to sharp critical effect. Set inside the lush grounds of a sprawling estate in India, the story centers on the daughter of a wealthy family and one of its many servants. As news of the 1962 Sino-Indian war periodically drifts in, the movie charts the bonds and radically unequal lives of this child, with her British school and manners, and of her loyal, exploited caretaker. With scant exposition, flashes of breathtaking cruelty and banal moments bristling with meaning — a servant cuts the crusts off white-bread sandwiches while listening to Prime Minister Nehru on the radio — Majumdar takes measure of colonialism and neocolonialism alike.The tonally and visually distinct “Dos Estaciones” and “Robe of Gems” both take place in a contemporary Mexico consumed by violence. In “Dos Estaciones,” the director Juan Pablo González tethers the travails of the owner of an artisanal tequila factory to the ferocity of global capitalism: Her family’s legacy and her future are existentially imperiled by foreign competitors. In “Robe of Gems,” the director Natalia López Gallardo focuses on women from different classes whose lives are undone by shocks of barbarism, mostly domestic. Gallardo is too indebted to some of her art-cinema influences, Carlos Reygadas included. But she — like a number of this year’s other new and newish directors — is nonetheless a talent to watch.New Directors/New Films runs Wednesday through May 1. Go to newdirectors.org for more information. More

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      ‘See You Then’ Review: The More Things Stay the Same

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      Former lovers reconnect, litigating the past and present, in this drama from Mari Walker.The golden glow that halos around the two former lovers reconnecting in “See You Then” is tinged with melancholy. More than a decade has passed since the sudden breakup of Kris (Pooya Mohsen) and Naomi (Lynn Chen). Some things have changed, some things stayed the same. That such an aphorism is easily applied to any number of “Before Sunrise”-style movies of people reminiscing and litigating what once was sets Mari Walker’s film at a disadvantage. But the chemistry of its stars gives the movie a curious magnetism that is almost enough to forgive its flaws.In the time since the two parted, Kris has transitioned, has a job in network security and is visiting Los Angeles from Phoenix. Naomi is an art professor at their alma mater and is married with two children. After a nervous start, they ease into a familiar rapport. Dinner turns into drinks, small talk gives way into how they really are, becoming a vortex of past and present.The script, co-written by Walker and Kristen Uno, ebbs and flows in the specificity of its central characters’ lives and the rhetorical approach to their conversation topics. But while this screenplay lacks a verve or poetry in its language, Mohsen and Chen are able to work through it and find gestures that make their awkward and erotic energy feel sincere.Chen gives Naomi an easy naturalism, her sense of regret textured and real. Mohsen’s line readings feel, at first, presentational, but her gaze is astonishing in its ability to convey longing and a mask of contentedness. Through their performances, they make it known, with brittle clarity, why the two were together and why they broke apart.See You ThenNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 14 minutes. Rent or buy on Vudu, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘Better Call Saul’ and a Freddie Mercury Tribute

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      AMC’s “Breaking Bad” prequel begins its final season. And a documentary about a 1992 tribute concert for Freddie Mercury airs on the CW.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, April 18-24. Details and times are subject to change.MondayCELEBRITY IOU 9 p.m. on HGTV. The brothers Drew and Jonathan Scott return with the fourth season of their show, in which celebrity guests give the gift of a home renovation to their friends or family members. The new season includes appearances by Tiffany Haddish (who surprises her best friend with a home renovation in the first episode), Howie Mandel and Lisa Kudrow.BETTER CALL SAUL 9 p.m. on AMC. Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn and Jonathan Banks return to small screens this week with the Season 6 premiere of “Better Call Saul,” the “Breaking Bad” prequel series. The new, 13-episode season comes after a two-year break — and after a well-documented health scare for Odenkirk, who had a heart attack on the set last year. Two episodes will air on Monday night. They pick up the story after a tantalizing Season 5 finale, which included a botched assassination attempt. As the timeline in the show gets closer to where “Breaking Bad” began, fans will be on the lookout for more cameos from the original series’s cast — including that show’s stars, Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul, who are set to appear this season.TuesdayAnthony Anderson and Tracee Ellis Ross in “black-ish.”Richard Cartwright/ABCBLACK-ISH 9 p.m. on ABC. After an extremely successful eight-season run, Kenya Barris’s Emmy-winning sitcom will end on Tuesday night. It has gone out with a bang: the final season has included cameos from Michelle Obama, Magic Johnson and Simone Biles, among many others. The show leaves behind a legacy of using the sitcom format to address racial issues, including police brutality and the experiences of mixed-race Americans.GREAT EXPECTATIONS (1947) 10:15 p.m. on TCM. John Mills, Valerie Hobson and Tony Wager star in this classic adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, about an orphaned boy who moves to London and becomes a gentleman with the help of a mysterious benefactor. David Lean (“Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai”) directs from a screenplay he wrote with Ronald Neame. In his review for The New York Times, Bosley Crowther praised their work. “A script that is swift and sure in movement, aromatic English settings and costumes and superlatively sensitive direction and acting are conjoined to make a rich and charming job,” Crowther wrote.WednesdayFREDDIE MERCURY: THE FINAL ACT 8 p.m. on the CW. Thirty years after a blowout Freddie Mercury tribute concert was held at Wembley Stadium, the CW will air a documentary about the planning and execution of the event. The show was put together less than a year after Mercury’s death, and was meant to promote awareness of H.I.V. and AIDS. The documentary includes interviews with Brian May and Roger Taylor from Queen, and with Kashmira Bulsara, who is Mercury’s sister. The interviews are paired with archival footage, including performances by Elton John, George Michael and David Bowie.ThursdayChris Evans in “Captain America: The Winter Solider”Zade Rosenthal/Marvel and DisneyCAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) 8:30 p.m. on FX. In the second of three Marvel “Captain America” movies, Chris Evans’s titular hero is ready to fully embrace the modern world. He joins forces with the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to uncover a conspiracy within the spy agency S. H. I. E. L. D. After three movies, Evans seems to be retiring from the role: Mackie is set to pick up the red, white and blue shield for the next movie.THE DAILY SHOW WITH TREVOR NOAH PRESENTS: JORDAN KLEPPER FINGERS THE GLOBE — HUNGARY FOR DEMOCRACY 11:30 p.m. on Comedy Central. In Jordan Klepper’s latest “Daily Show” special (his previous one, “Jordan Klepper Fingers the Pulse — Into the MAGAverse,” was nominated for an Emmy), Klepper travels to Hungary, where he explores why some American conservatives are interested in the right-wing Hungarian government.FridayTHE TRICK 10 p.m. on PBS (check local listings). This film dramatizes the story of Philip Jones, a real-life professor at the University of East Anglia who found himself at the center of the 2009 “Climategate” scandal, in which his emails and research were stolen and leaked by climate-change deniers. Jones is played by Jason Watkins.SaturdayZoe Kravitz and Robert Pattinson in “The Batman.”Jonathan Olley/Warner Bros. Pictures, via Associated PressTHE BATMAN (2022) 8 p.m. on HBO. This new Batman rethink debuted this year, with Robert Pattinson stepping into the sought-after role under the direction of Matt Reeves. The cast also includes Zoë Kravitz, Paul Dano and Colin Farrell. Its soundtrack includes a song by Nirvana — which tells you quite a bit about where Reeves and Pattinson drew inspiration from for the downbeat tone of this Batman story. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott wrote that the problem with the movie was the seriousness that has always shrouded the Batman universe. “I can’t say I had a good time, but I did end up somewhere I didn’t expect to be: looking forward to the next chapter,” he wrote.SundayJulia Roberts in “Gaslit.”StarzGASLIT 8 p.m. on STARZ. This limited series has a lot of familiar faces (including Julia Roberts and Sean Penn) and covers a familiar subject, the Watergate scandal. But it does so from a fresh perspective: The show follows a fictionalized version of Martha Mitchell, the wife of John N. Mitchell, who served as the Attorney General of the United States under President Richard Nixon. Her decision to speak out about Nixon’s involvement in the scandal had profound repercussions in her personal life — a fact that the series explores at length — before her death from bone marrow cancer in 1976.THE BABY 10:30 p.m. on HBO. This new, eight-episode horror-comedy series follows a 38-year-old, Natasha (Michelle de Swarte), who looks upon her friends’ children with envy. Natasha ends up in possession of a baby, which should be a fulfillment of her wishes. But it turns out that the baby might be the one in possession of her. More

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      How ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’ Helps to Heal Generational Trauma

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      For me, it was a scene about two rocks. For the actress Stephanie Hsu, it was taking her mom to the Los Angeles premiere.When I was 13, I asked to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital.I was racked with debilitating Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (O.C.D.), forced to write each individual letter against a straightedge, hellbent on perfection. It was messing with my seventh grade mojo.The perfectionism, in turn, shredded my sleep schedule. I spent countless hours, belly on the floor, struggling with my math homework, pressing mechanical pencil to ruler. Parabolas? Forget about it. O.C.D. combined with sleep deprivation and overmedication led to an angsty, early teenage flavor of nihilism — arguably the worst kind.When my mom came to visit, we sat in her car in the hospital parking lot and I told her about it. Head swirling with brain fog, I tried to explain that nothing mattered and how that was pressing me toward a mental brink. She got it.She told me, for the first time, that when she was 25, close to the age I am now, life was too much for her, too, and she tried to leave it. She saw me, understood me and sat there with me — a golden moment between generations.That incandescent memory surfaced a couple of weeks ago, when my roommate and I went to see “Everything Everywhere All At Once” — a sci-fi action adventure about the emotional implications of the multiverse — at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Manhattan’s Financial District.Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert narrate a sequence from their film starring Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan.Allyson Riggs/A24Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is a Chinese American immigrant who just wants to host a Chinese New Year party at her family’s failing laundromat, but a suave alter ego of her husband, Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), arrives to warn her that the multiverse is in danger. So Evelyn learns to “verse jump” — hop between parallel universes to access skills from other versions of herself — then realizes that the dark force threatening the multiverse is inextricably linked to her estranged daughter, Joy (Stephanie Hsu).Evelyn follows a nihilist alter ego of her daughter through infinite universes, trying to figure out why she’s hurting. Then she’s transported to a cliff. Two rocks — one tan and one dark gray — sit side by side, overlooking a ravine and mountains in the distance. It’s silent for a while. Then captions appear — white for Joy, black for Evelyn. This, apparently, is one of the many universes where the conditions weren’t right for life to form.“It’s nice,” reads Evelyn’s text.“Yeah,” reads Joy’s text. “You can just sit here, and everything feels really … far away.”“Joy,” Evelyn’s rock says, “I’m sorry about ruining everything —”“Shhhh,” Joy’s rock says. “You don’t have to worry about that here. Just be a rock.”Inside the World of ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once’In this mind-expanding, idiosyncratic take on the superhero film, a laundromat owner is the focus of a grand, multiversal showdown. Review: Our film critic called “Everything Everywhere All at Once” an exuberant swirl of genre anarchy. The Protagonist: Over the years, Michelle Yeoh has built her image as a combat expert. For this movie, she drew on her emotional reserves. Lovelorn Romantic: A child star in the 1980s, Ke Huy Quan returns to acting as the husband of Yeoh’s character, a role blanding action and drama. Anatomy of a Scene: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, the film’s directors, discuss an action sequence built around … a fanny pack.“I just feel so stupid — ” Evelyn says.“God!” Joy says. “Please. We’re all stupid! Small, stupid humans. It’s like our whole deal.”Later, Joy asks Evelyn to let her go. Evelyn nods slowly and whispers, “OK.” In our universe, Evelyn lets go of Joy’s waist. In the rock universe, the tan rock slides off the edge of a cliff, rolling down it. But then, in one world, Evelyn turns back to face Joy.Maybe there is, Evelyn says, “something that explains why you still went looking for me through all of this mess. And why no matter what, I still want to be here with you. I will always, always want to be here with you.” The dark gray rock scoots to the edge of the cliff and tips off over it, rolling after her daughter.The scene shattered me, then glued the pieces back together. And it reminded me of the importance of understanding intergenerational trauma — when the effects of trauma are passed down between generations — and addressing it.“Everything Everywhere All At Once,” wrote its directors, Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, on Twitter, “was a dream about reconciling all of the contradictions, making sense of the largest questions, and imbuing meaning onto the dumbest, most profane parts of humanity. We wanted to stretch ourselves in every direction to bridge the generational gap that often crumbles into generational trauma.”When the 31-year-old breakout star Stephanie Hsu took her mom to the L.A. premiere, her mom cried. Then her mom, who is from Taiwan, pointed to the screen and said, “That’s me.” For Hsu, it was an aha moment: Her mom related to Evelyn’s character, who faces her own trauma in her relationship with her father, Joy’s grandfather, or Gong Gong (James Hong).“Life is so messy, and life is more than a two-and-a-half-hour movie,” Hsu said in a video interview from New York. “Life is a long time, if you’re lucky. We don’t get a script that helps us succinctly metabolize our sadness.”When she first saw the screenplay, Hsu couldn’t believe what she was reading: The mother-daughter relationship was that poignant and relatable. She knew in her bones how complicated and precious that relationship was. And the transference of energy from the screen to the audience, she said, is very real.“When you break open like that, you can’t help but look into yourself and say, ‘OK, that pained me, and I need to look at that,’” Hsu said. “‘Something in me is wanting to heal, and something in me is wanting to take that leap of faith.’”Hsu thinks that’s what art is for: to hold space for trauma and offer catharsis. There’s a generation of women, she thinks, whose idea of strength hinges upon toxic masculinity, bravado and impenetrable toughness.“Our generation and the younger generation is now exploring different types of strength and what it means to be strong when you’re compassionate,” she said. “And how, actually, empathy and radical empathy and radical kindness are also a tool.”Peggy Loo, a licensed psychologist and the director of the Manhattan Therapy Collective, saw the movie on the Upper West Side. She believes that the film can serve as an exercise in imagination for those who have experienced trauma.Trauma can shrink the imagination, she said, if your main reference points for life’s possibilities emerged out of traumatic experiences. To heal, we need to be able to see farther than what we’ve known and been exposed to.“There’s this, ‘We know who we are, we know who we want to be,’” Loo said by phone. “And then the gap between the two. How do we get there?”To Loo, part of the strength of the movie lies in its sci-fi genre, which requires the viewer to suspend reality simply to keep up with the plot. It’s the perfect counterpoint, she said, and a great way to flex the imagination.Rather than neatly tying up loose ends, as movies typically do, “Everything Everywhere” mimics realistically what change can look like, by letting its protagonist make mistake after mistake. Wil Lee, 31, is a software engineer based out of San Francisco. “Not to be reductive,” he tweeted, “but Everything Everywhere All At Once is the generational trauma slam dunk film this season.”The way it fluidly weaves three different languages — Cantonese, Mandarin and English — he continued, is a spot on reflection of how many immigrant households actually communicate.“It shows the linguistic barrier as a core component of this intergenerational misunderstanding,” Lee said in a phone interview, adding, “The divide is so huge that you struggle to even find the right words to explain yourself to your family.”Hsu as Joy with Tallie Medel, who plays her girlfriend, Becky, in the film.Allyson Riggs/A24In one early scene, when Gong Gong arrives at the laundromat, Joy tries to introduce her girlfriend, Becky (Tallie Medel), to him for the first time. Joy fumbles with her Mandarin, and Evelyn jumps in in Cantonese, introducing Becky to Gong Gong as Joy’s “good friend.” Joy’s face falls.When Shirley Chan, a 30-year-old freelance illustrator based in Brooklyn, watched the movie in Kips Bay, it felt like the universe deliberately sent it her way, she wrote in a Letterboxd review, to let her know her own efforts were seen and to give her the courage to live as her most authentic self.A week before she saw the film, Chan came out to her immigrant mother in Cantonese and spoke honestly for the first time about how her upbringing affected her. Some of the Cantonese dialogue, Chan wrote, was uncannily almost word for word what she said to her mom.“But in my actual life, where this verse jumping doesn’t happen,” Chan said in a phone call, “I can see the moments in which she is trying, like asking me if a friend that I’m talking about is my girlfriend or telling me that she’s happy for my career.”The sociologist Nancy Wang Yuen, who specializes in pop culture, sees the universality in the specificities of “Everything Everywhere.” Everybody can relate to a dysfunctional family, regrets, transformation, laundry and taxes.Evelyn is “like our parents, but seen through our lens,” Yuen said by phone. “If our parents could evolve, that’s who Evelyn would be.”I asked my own mom to see the movie, and she did, in Chicago’s West Loop — her first time in a movie theater in two years. She texted me a screenshot of an explainer (I needed an explainer, too) with one line circled in black:“When Evelyn reveals she always wants to be with Joy, no matter where they are, it is the start of a healing process for both characters.” More