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    ‘Butter’ Review: High-Stakes Popularity

    Fed up with his classmates’ contempt, an obese high school student decides he’ll gorge himself to death on New Year’s Eve.Why do movies that take on bullying so often fetishize the very acts they seem to be critiquing? “Butter,” directed by Paul A. Kaufman — who adapted Erin Jade Lange’s young adult novel — seems to wallow in the brutality.Fed up with his classmates’ contempt, a high school junior, Butter (Alex Kersting), decides he’ll show them by eating himself to death on New Year’s Eve. Just tune in to buttersfinalmeal.com, he announces online. But far from shaming or freaking out his peers, Butter’s promise makes him a celebrity at his school.Once the movie gets going, Kersting, a newcomer, gives an all-in performance. Butter is a gifted saxophone player, a thoughtful soul. He’s gaining ground in his incognito courting of the school’s popular girl (McKaley Miller). Onetime foes are becoming friends. Is there any wonder he’s approaching his big night with less and less verve?The adults in Butter’s life are less compelling. Mira Sorvino plays Butter’s flummoxed mom. His dad (Brian Van Holt) is even more confounded and distant. And Butter’s physician (Ravi Patel) is a tad too madcap. The only adults who seem to really see him are his band teacher (Mykelti Williamson) and a hospital psychiatrist (Annabeth Gish).The movie is a good-hearted dramatic comedy about the bedeviling issues of bullying, and the hazards of social media. But the lessons become stand-ins for richer characters who could have been memorable — and persuasive. For all its ache and churning emotions, “Butter” winds up being little more than a meager “Afterschool Special.”ButterRated PG-13 for suicidal ideation, crude sexual material and even cruder language. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters. More

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    ‘East of the Mountains’ Review: Heart Doctor Is a Lonely Hunter

    Tom Skerritt delivers an unfaltering portrayal of a cardiologist who is ailing and grieving.Had the widower Ben Givens executed his plan early in “East of the Mountains,” it would have made for a very short movie. Instead, Ben (Tom Skerritt) reconsiders killing himself in the home he and his wife shared and decides to stage a hunting accident. With his sweet spaniel and a shotgun, Ben drives east, away from Seattle and away from his daughter (Mira Sorvino), who doesn’t know he has cancer, toward the land of his youth. Washington’s Columbia River basin is a vast terrain rife with shrub and grassland, apple orchards and memories.His plan may have been revised, but he remains resolute. Then his car engine blows. Ben is picked up by two young lovers. Their solicitousness is buzzy and heralds interactions that will alter Ben’s journey. Some are kindly. One proves nearly lethal.There’s a bit of Hemingway-like overdetermined white masculinity to Ben, whose calling as a doctor came during the Korean War. Thane Swigart’s script engages that quality and provides a couple of demographic observations. “It wasn’t this brown when you were growing up,” Anita (Annie Gonzalez), a veterinarian and veteran, says about the town of Ben’s childhood.Based on David Guterson’s novel of the same name, this engaging if familiar drama (directed by SJ Chiro) joins a growing number of movies about aging protagonists. Often, these films are rewarding not so much for their story as for the telling performance of an actor who spent his or her career elevating the surrounding ensembles. In a star’s turn, Skerritt reveals the tiniest fissures of vulnerability in his unfaltering portrayal of a cardiologist who is ailing and grieving — and fed up with both.East of the MountainsNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 33 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More