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      ‘They Say Nothing Stays the Same’ Review: Crossing a Modern River

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      Two events disturb the placid surfaces of a boatman’s world: the building of a nearby bridge, and his discovery of a young woman floating in the water.Directed by the actor Joe Odagiri, “They Say Nothing Stays the Same” is a postcard-pretty film about a boatman in Meiji-era Japan. For years, Toichi (Akira Emoto) has ferried people back and forth on a river amid unspoiled beauty. A large part of the film’s appeal comes from that natural splendor and the lives Toichi glimpses while making one trip after another.Two events disturb the placid surfaces of Toichi’s world: the construction of a nearby bridge, and his discovery of a young woman (Ririka Kawashima) floating in the water. One development underlines Toichi’s haplessness, the other his decency, when the woman turns out to be alive and in need of care. Otherwise, the movie floats along pleasantly enough for much of its 137 minutes, with nice period detail, such as a scene with a colorful band of troubadours.But monotony sets in, beyond Toichi’s routine. Too often Odagiri can’t resist adding one more shot to a montage, or one more vignette. He doesn’t quite reduce Toichi to being a noble mascot for the film’s nostalgic setting (shot by Christopher Doyle), but anyone to do with the bridge (or modernity in general) tends to be portrayed as vulgar or destructive.The landscape can go only so far in expressing Toichi’s mind-set, and the movie turns hokey when it dramatizes Toichi’s inner thoughts: a repeated voice-over of insults that torment him, for example, or two hectic sequences that resemble something out of a zombie movie. When he finally, awkwardly, voices his insecurities at length, his particular twist on humility defies expectations but comes too late.They Say Nothing Stays the SameNot rated. In Japanese, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 17 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas, and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      ‘Uppercase Print’ Review: Between the Lines

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      Radu Jude’s rousing, form-bending new feature rails at the power of propaganda to suffocate people’s freedoms.“Uppercase Print” opens with a fragment of a quote from the philosopher Michel Foucault: “the resonance I feel when I happen to encounter these small lives reduced to ashes in the few sentences that struck them down.” The film, a rousing, form-bending new feature by the Romanian auteur Radu Jude, rails at the tyrannical potential of language — particularly when backed by government power — to suffocate people’s freedoms.The movie braids together two accounts of life under the dictatorial regime of Nicolae Ceausescu: a filmed play about the 1981 investigation of a teenager who graffitied slogans about democracy and workers’ rights in the city of Botosani; and advertisements, educational programs and newsreel footage from state-sanctioned Romanian television of the same era.A queasy sense of party-line artifice haunts both the theatrical performance and the TV footage, which the film’s archival opening telegraphs strikingly. Three well-dressed presenters praise Ceausescu’s Romania enthusiastically, until a teleprompter malfunction renders them awkward and speechless. Without its scripted cues, they have no idea what to say.The play, originally written for the stage in 2013 by Gianina Carbunariu, repurposes text from the files of Romania’s Communist-era secret police. Actors read these lines with deadpan intonation, making vivid the dehumanizing effects of bureaucratic jargon. “Reforming the objective” is a dry euphemism for the repression of dissidents; “youth protection” is code for surveillance.Jude’s genius lies in his ability to turn these words against themselves — to render them absurd through canny juxtapositions of text and image, documentary and fiction. And if the film draws on the past, it’s as a warning for the present: A closing exchange about Ceausescu-era phone-tapping slyly references Cambridge Analytica.Uppercase PrintNot rated. In Romanian, with subtitles. Running time: 2 hours 8 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Love Is Love Is Love’ Review:Aging Too Gracefully

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      The characters in this idle drama, directed by Eleanor Coppola, seem mostly content. That’s the problem.One of the great comforts in life is the assurance that misery can be interesting. Contentment doesn’t necessarily provide onlookers (or audiences) with the pleasure of great gossip, drama or insight, and the characters in the idle drama “Love Is Love Is Love,” directed by Eleanor Coppola, mostly seem like content, happy people.The film is a collection of three largely unrelated short stories, which are each marked with their own title cards. First there is “Two For Dinner,” in which a filmmaker (Chris Messina) who is on location in Montana meets his wife (Joanne Whalley) for a remote date over video chat. In “Sailing Lesson,” Kathy Baker and Marshall Bell play a long-married couple who rekindle the fantasy of romance by playacting as the kind of people who might set sail for a daytime tryst.The final short story in this modest collection is “Late Lunch,” which is also the longest sequence of the film. In it, Caroline (Maya Kazan) holds a dinner in remembrance of her late mother, attended by all of her mother’s nearest and dearest friends.Coppola, 85, focuses her camera on characters as they reminisce in long monologues, which are clearly relished by the film’s accomplished cast, including dinner guests Cybill Shepherd, Rosanna Arquette and Rita Wilson. The tone and pace of the movie corresponds to these sedentary conversations among people who acknowledge their age, and who have had time to find peace.But the cumulative effect of so much enlightened sitting around is that the movie doesn’t move. There is a lack of action, both visually and emotionally. The characters are never unseated by a revelation. When they speak, it feels like they have waited their turn.Love Is Love Is LoveNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 31 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘7 Prisoners’ Review: Survival at Any Cost

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      Alexandre Moratto plunges into the psychological traumas of human trafficking in this gripping Brazilian drama on Netflix.Deep into “7 Prisoners,” the protagonist stares up at the labyrinthine electrical cables of the transformers that power the city of São Paulo. He is Mateus (Christian Malheiros), a human trafficking victim from the Brazilian countryside. He works in a filthy junkyard for long hours without pay, stripping cables for the copper that helps these very towers run. A wave of wounded anguish percolates under Mateus’s eyes, as his boss, Mr. Luca (Rodrigo Santoro) says, “Your work powers the whole city.” The camera shifts to electric train lines next to slums and the glittering skyline of the city lit up at night. Mateus’s exploitation is so profound, an entire metropolis vibrates with complicity.It is moments like these that reveal the strengths of Alexandre Moratto’s social thriller “7 Prisoners”: Rather than being a simple examination of a social problem, the film excels at excavating the deep-rooted, sprawling violence that affects everyone living under hierarchies of power.Mateus arrives in São Paulo with a few others from his village, in search of a better life. But they quickly realize they are cogs in a trickle-down machine of exploitation that includes Mr. Luca, the police and politicians.Santoro and Malheiros deliver excellent performances, their initially sparse interactions and facial contortions raising the stakes at every turn. At first, Mateus and the crew battle to escape, but Mateus soon realizes that obedience and collusion with Luca may be the only path to freedom. That sense of moral ambiguity propels this gripping drama, plunging us into the psychic depths of the traumas that accompany survival.7 PrisonersRated R for language and violence. In Portuguese, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Netflix. More

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      ‘Belfast’ Review: A Boy’s Life

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      In this charming memoir, Kenneth Branagh recalls his childhood in Northern Ireland through a rose-tinted lens.Romanticism reigns in “Belfast,” Kenneth Branagh’s cinematic memoir of his childhood in a turbulent Northern Ireland. From the lustrous, mainly black-and-white photography to the cozy camaraderie of its working-class setting, the movie softens edges and hearts alike. The family at its center might have health issues, money worries and an outdoor toilet, but this is no Ken Loach-style deprivation: In these streets, grit and glamour stroll hand-in-hand.So when Ma (Catríona Balfe) sits in her doorway to peel potatoes for dinner, what we notice is the soft afternoon light dancing on her luminous skin and brunette curls. And when Pa (Jamie Dornan), square of jaw and shoulder, strides toward home after a spell working in England, the camera shoots him like a returning hero. Which, of course, he is, at least to his younger son, Buddy (a wonderful Jude Hill), a smart, cheery 9-year-old and a fictional version of Branagh himself.Viewed largely through Buddy’s eyes, “Belfast,” which opens in August, 1969 (after a brief, colorful montage of the present-day city), is about the destruction of an idyll. Mere minutes into the film, a hail of Molotov cocktails ignites the friendly neighborhood where Catholics and Protestants live amicably side-by-side. A swirling camera conveys Buddy’s confusion and terror; yet, even as the barricades go up and the local bully-boy (Colin Morgan) tries to draw Buddy’s Protestant family into his campaign to “cleanse the community” of its Catholic residents, the movie refuses to get bogged down in militancy.Instead, we watch Buddy play ball with his cousins; moon over a pretty classmate; watch “Star Trek” and Westerns on television; and spend time with his loving grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds). Drawing from his own experiences, Branagh crafts nostalgic, sentimental scenes suffused with some of Van Morrison’s warmest songs. Family visits to movies like “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” (1968) add wonder and fantasy to Buddy’s life and a clue to his future career. They also offer an escape from a conflict he doesn’t understand and his director refuses to elucidate. Snippets of television news play in the background, but the growing Troubles that would tear the country apart are not the story that Branagh (whose family moved to England when he was nine) wants to tell.So while “Belfast” is, in one sense, a deeply personal coming-of-age tale, it’s also a more universal story of displacement and detachment, located most powerfully in Balfe’s fierce, shining performance. Her authenticity steadies the heartbeat of a film whose cuteness can sometimes grate, and whose telescoped view offers little sense of life beyond Buddy’s block. Branagh’s remembrances may be idealized, but with “Belfast” he has written a charming, rose-tinted thank-you note to the city that sparked his dreams and the parents whose sacrifices helped them come true.BelfastRated PG-13 for loud bangs and angry bullies. Running time: 1 hour 38 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Home Sweet Home Alone’ Review: A Winter With Plenty of Falls

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      Dan Mazer’s film, streaming on Disney+, is a painful spiritual sequel to the 1990 hit.Burglars roasting on an open fire. Adults taking a pool ball to the nose. So go the Christmas caterwauls of Dan Mazer’s “Home Sweet Home Alone,” a painful spiritual sequel to the 1990 hit that made a meme of the child star Macaulay Culkin. Culkin’s Kevin McCallister does not appear, though his older brother Buzz (Devin Ratray) cameos to mention that the scamp has matured into a security alarm impresario.Apt timing as now two homes are in peril: the Mercers, who, because of a rideshare mix-up, have jetted to Tokyo sans Max (Archie Yates), their 10-year-old son with a mouth like Don Rickles; and the McKenzies (Ellie Kemper and Rob Delaney), who suspect Max of stealing an heirloom they need to pay off their mortgage.This leveling of the moral stakes reveals that Mikey Day and Streeter Seidell’s script is aimed at nostalgists, not children. It’s hard to imagine any grade schooler chuckling at a runner about the proliferation of alt-milks at the grocery store, even with the desperately whimsical woodwind score. And when the darts (and kettlebells and fishing lures) start flying, it’s the grown-ups who learn a lesson about the meaning of family. Max’s emotional revelation happens mysteriously offscreen midway through the film, minutes after he dresses like Scarface and inhales whipped cream.Who’s the real victim here? The audience — yet Kemper’s no-nonsense pixie who suffers a dozen thumbtacks to the face runs a close second.Home Sweet Home AloneRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. Watch on Disney+. More

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      ‘Clifford the Big Red Dog’ Review: Fetch Me if You Can

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      The beloved cartoon dog gets the live-action treatment in this generic canine caper.These are chaotic times for C.G.I. animals. Digital artisans replaced dog trainers on “Cruella.” The 2019 film version of “The Lion King” did its best impression of a David Attenborough documentary. And when early images from “Sonic the Hedgehog” were coldly received, the creators chose to delay release to refine the movie’s effects.The beloved canine at the heart of “Clifford the Big Red Dog,” directed by Walt Becker, is the most recent addition to this photorealistic litter, and like Sonic’s before him, Clifford’s appearance is jarring. Gone are his floppy Vizsla ears, his sad bloodhound eyes. Here, Clifford resembles a jolting golden retriever dyed vermilion red, and his looming cartoon height translates to a manageable 10 feet — just short enough to squeeze through the brownstone doorways of his new home in Manhattan.Rescued from the streets by a magic animal shelter, Clifford soon meets Emily Elizabeth (Darby Camp), a precocious middle schooler under the temporary care of her ne’er-do-well uncle Casey (Jack Whitehall). From here, the story veers into a generic caper, stacked with evil villains, kindly allies and mischief. Genuine sweetness can be found in Emily’s fidelity to her rowdy new best friend. Still, naturalism is hard to fake, and it’s difficult to divorce Clifford from the lines of code that animate him; indeed, when Clifford yipped loudly onscreen, my very real dog, lying beside me, didn’t even stir.Clifford the Big Red DogRated PG. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters and on Paramount+. More

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      Dean Stockwell, Child Actor Turned ‘Quantum Leap’ Star, Dies at 85

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      He appeared alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly when he was not yet 10. He later had signature roles in movies like “Married to the Mob” and “Blue Velvet.”Dean Stockwell, who began his seven-decade acting career as a child in the 1940s and later had key roles in films including “A Long Day’s Journey Into Night” in 1962 and “Blue Velvet” in 1986, while also making his mark in television, most notably as the cigar-smoking Al Calavicci on the hit science fiction series “Quantum Leap,” died on Sunday. He was 85.His death was confirmed by Jay Schwartz, a family spokesman, who did not say where Mr. Stockwell died or specify a cause.Mr. Stockwell had a hot-and-cold relationship with acting that caused him to leave show business for years at a time. But he nonetheless amassed more than 200 film and television acting credits from 1945 to 2015, as well as occasional stage roles.As a child he appeared alongside some of the biggest stars of the day, including Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra in “Anchors Aweigh” in 1945, when he was not yet 10. But while many child stars don’t make the transition to adult careers, Mr. Stockwell was blessed with angular, rugged good looks as a young man and a distinguished maturity later, attributes that made him suitable for all sorts of roles.Several times Mr. Stockwell lost interest in the profession that he had been all but born into, escaping to work on railroads and in real estate and, in the 1960s, to immerse himself in the counterculture. He also enjoyed several career revivals, notably in the 1980s, when he was cast in career-defining roles in movies like Wim Wenders’s “Paris, Texas,” David Lynch’s “Dune” and “Blue Velvet” (as the menacing and eccentric henchman of a drug dealer played by Dennis Hopper), and Jonathan Demme’s “Married to the Mob,” in which his performance as a mob boss earned him an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actor.Mr. Stockwell as an eccentric criminal in David Lynch’s film “Blue Velvet,” from 1986.De Laurentiis Entertainment GroupAs the son of actors — his father, Harry Stockwell, and his mother, Elizabeth Veronica, appeared onstage and in films together, and Harry Stockwell provided the voice of Prince Charming in Walt Disney’s “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” — Mr. Stockwell had little semblance of a typical childhood before he began acting.He first appeared on Broadway in 1943, at age 7, in “The Innocent Voyage.” (His older brother, the actor Guy Stockwell, who died in 2002, was also in the cast.) He was recruited by a Hollywood talent scout, and his movie career began in 1945, when he appeared in “The Valley of Decision,” with Gregory Peck and Greer Garson, and in “Anchors Aweigh.”Mr. Stockwell was immediately praised for his skill, winning a special award at the Golden Globes for “Gentleman’s Agreement” in 1947. Reviewing the movie “Kim” in 1950, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times praised his performance as “delightfully sturdy and sound,” adding, “Little Dean shows a real tenderness.” Other Times reviews of his performances as a child called his work “touching,” “commendable” and “cozy.”Robert Dean Stockwell was born on March 5, 1936, in Los Angeles. His parents divorced when he was 6, and he spent most of his childhood with his mother and brother. He would later say that he looked up to directors and leading actors on the set as father figures.He would appear in 19 films before he turned 16, at which point he quit acting for the first time. Withdrawn as a child, he took little pleasure in acting, seeing it as an obligation foisted upon him by others, he said in an interview with Turner Classic Movies in 1995.“If it had been up to me, I would have been out of it by the time I was 10,” he said.After graduating from high school at 16 — as a child actor, he received three hours of schooling while working — Mr. Stockwell realized he had little training to do anything else. He flitted from one odd job to the next before reluctantly returning to acting in 1956, when he was 20.Mr. Stockwell, left, with Scott Bakula on the set of “Quantum Leap” in 1989.Ron Tom/NBCU Photo Bank, via Getty ImagesOne of his biggest roles in his 20s was alongside Jason Robards, Katharine Hepburn and Ralph Richardson in the 1962 film version of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night,” in which he played the younger son, Edmund Tyrone. He, Mr. Robards and Mr. Richardson shared an acting award at the Cannes Film Festival.Other notable roles in that period included “Compulsion” (1959), a fictionalized version of a well-known murder case, in which he and Bradford Dillman played the killers of a young boy; and “Sons and Lovers” (1960), based on the novel by D.H. Lawrence.Later in the 1960s, Mr. Stockwell found comfort in the counterculture movement and the hippie ethos.“My career was doing well, but I wasn’t getting anything out of it personally,” he told The Times in 1988. “What I was looking for I was finding in another place, which was in that revolution. The ’60s allowed me to live my childhood as an adult. That kind of freedom, imagination and creativity that arose all around was like a childhood to me.”After a few years off, he returned to acting, only to learn that his time away had led Hollywood casting agents to forget him. For about a dozen frustrating years, he struggled to land roles, appearing in fringe films and performing in dinner theater.“I even heard about a casting meeting where the producer said, ‘We need a Dean Stockwell type,’” he told The Times in 1988. “Meanwhile, I couldn’t even get arrested.”He quit acting again in the early 1980s, moving to New Mexico to sell real estate. His next comeback would be his most successful, beginning a decade of his most critically acclaimed work.In 1988, he was acclaimed, and Oscar-nominated, for his performance in “Married to the Mob.” The next year, he was cast in “Quantum Leap.”That show, seen on NBC from 1989 to 1993, starred Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett, a scientist who, because of a botched time-travel experiment, spends his days and nights being thrown back in time to assume other people’s identities. Mr. Stockwell portrayed Adm. Al Calavicci, described by John J. O’Connor of The Times in a 1989 review as “Sam’s wiseguy colleague, who hangs around the edges of each episode, setting the scene and commenting on the action.” Mr. Stockwell, Mr. O’Connor wrote, was “Mr. Bakula’s indispensable co-star.”Mr. Stockwell was nominated four times for an Emmy Award for best supporting actor in a drama series for his work on “Quantum Leap.” He never won an Emmy, but he did win a Golden Globe in 1990.He is survived by his wife, Joy Stockwell, and two children, Austin and Sophie Stockwell.In a 1987 interview with The Times, Mr. Stockwell said that his approach as an actor hadn’t changed since he was a child.“I haven’t changed in the least,” he said. “My way of working is still the same as it was in the beginning: totally intuitive and instinctive.“But as you live your life,” he added, “you compile so many millions of experiences and bits of information that you become a richer vessel as a person. You draw on more experience.”Neil Genzlinger contributed reporting. More