Wright, Robin

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    ‘Damsel’ Review: Yet Another Strong Female Lead

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    Millie Bobby Brown is a daring princess in a fairy tale that unspools its surprises far too soon.“There are tales of chivalry, where the heroic knight saves the damsel in distress,” a young woman’s voice intones as “Damsel” begins. “This is not one of them.”Oh, well, thank goodness, I thought, sarcastically and, perhaps, a bit uncharitably. Somewhere in my head I heard Miranda Priestly: Strong female lead? Groundbreaking.I like a scrappy heroine as much as anyone, but leading with that foot — we’re not like the other girls, we’re the cool girls — is starting to feel stale. “Damsel” isn’t bad, but it feels a bit gnawed upon. Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (“28 Weeks Later”) from a screenplay by Dan Mazeau, it’s an action movie starring Millie Bobby Brown as Elodie, a princess from a poor kingdom ruled by her father (Ray Winstone) and stepmother (Angela Bassett). She consents to marry the handsome prince from a much wealthier realm, only to discover something far darker is at play here.There are elements of “Damsel” — including a few shots — that remind me of one of the best feminist action movies in recent memory: “Ready or Not.” In that film, released in 2019, the heroine marries into a rich family, only to discover their family traditions include a pretty horrific ritual that she must endure to survive till morning. This plot runs along similar lines, but in a fairy-tale kingdom where Robin Wright is the queen and also there are dragons. (One bit also echoes “Eyes Wide Shut,” but this is not that kind of movie.)Elodie is a princess in the latter-day Disney mold: a smart girl who can ride horses, read books, decipher a map and outsmart a trap. She is resourceful and strong and spends a lot of time figuring out how she can escape. At the beginning of the film, she is obedient and obliging and corseted; by the end, she is in a much smaller skirt and taking no guff. In short, she has become self-actualized.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Devil’s Peak’ Review: The Curse of a Family Name

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      In this thin drama, Billy Bob Thornton plays a menacing drug kingpin whose son begins to question their way of life.A montage early in “Devil’s Peak” — bags of meth trading hands, the patched-up houses of its users — gives a rundown of the milieu we’re about to enter and introduces Charlie (Billy Bob Thornton), the Appalachian drug kingpin at its center. The grainy, faux-home movie footage is about as close as we’ll get to truly feeling present in the gritty crime world that the film attempts to evoke. “In Jackson County, North Carolina, my family name meant something,” Jacob (Hopper Penn), Charlie’s son, explains.Different iterations of this opening line come up again, over and over, each time emphasizing the McNeely name and the outlaw blood that flows through any cursed person who bears it. Yet the rest of the film, directed by Ben Young and adapted from a novel by David Joy, struggles to meaningfully flesh out what the McNeely life is actually like.The movie doesn’t have enough of a narrative engine to compensate for its lack of world building. After Jacob becomes involved with Maggie (Katelyn Nacon), the stepdaughter of a greasy politician who eventually targets Charlie’s dealings, he begins to question his obligation to his father’s way of life. Yet their relationship (and many others) is too thinly developed to provide emotional stakes.Instead, the film mostly relies on Thornton’s overdone malice — his character, in his punked-up, Southern Walter White look, often borders on the cartoonish. On the other hand, Penn, the son of Robin Wright, a co-star and producer of the movie, is left to offer up little more than the sad stare of a conflicted son. Wright is the film’s easy standout: Her story as the addicted mother is one whose details we never really know but can intuit through somber, silent moments in her darkened home.Devil’s PeakNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. In theaters. More

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      ‘Land’ Review: True Nature

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      #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }What to WatchBest Movies on NetflixBest of Disney PlusBest of Amazon PrimeBest Netflix DocumentariesNew on NetflixAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyCritic’s Pick‘Land’ Review: True NatureIn her feature directing debut, Robin Wright plays a woman who moves alone to the mountains.Robin Wright in “Land,” which she also directed.Credit…Daniel Power/Focus FeaturesFeb. 11, 2021, 7:00 a.m. ET”Land”NYT Critic’s PickDirected by Robin WrightDramaPG-131h 29mFind TicketsWhen you purchase a ticket for an independently reviewed film through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.The beauty of the mountain regions of Alberta, Canada, is presented in modes both lush and piercingly sharp in Robin Wright’s feature directing debut, “Land.” Wright also plays the lead role, Edee, a grieving woman who wants to get away from the world.Many say they’d like to do that, but Edee means it. As she heads off to a mountaintop where she’s bought a minimally equipped cabin, she sees an incoming call on her iPhone. She throws the phone in a trash bin. At the cabin, she asks the man who’s handing it over to her to drive her rental car back down the mountain. “It’s not a good idea to be out here without a vehicle,” he warns. She does not heed him.[embedded content]“This isn’t working,” Edee admits to herself as hard winter sets in. We’ve seen flashbacks to her former life, so we’re now partially aware of her situation. Through impressionistic shots that seem part flashbacks, part wishful visions, we get glimpses of an existence that is no longer Edee’s. And we begin to understand that while she’s come to this location perhaps in part to relive scenes from that life, she may also be actively courting death.Suffering from exposure and dehydration, she’s found by a hunter, Miguel. With the help of his sister, a doctor, Miguel brings Edee back from the brink of death. The hunter is played by Demián Bichir, a great actor who very well may have the saddest eyes of anyone working in movies today. “Why are you helping me?” Edee asks. “You were in my path,” he says.As they get to know each other a little, Miguel recognizes the arrogance and egotism that have made Edee’s mourning a destructive thing. To her assertion, “I’m here in this place because I don’t want to be around people,” he responds, in a gentle voice, “Only a person who has never been hungry thinks starving is a good way to die.”Miguel reveals the losses in his own past, but it’s only at the movie’s very end that we learn how deep his injury, and indeed his self-injury, have gone. And what Edee’s been keeping hidden also comes fully to light. What’s left is reconciliation. If possible.Wright’s movie is ambitious (that location! that weather!), but not grandiose. Its storytelling economy helps make it credible and eventually moving. While “Land” sometimes leans too hard on conventional signifiers (the rootsy music score is predictably somber), it’s a distinctive, strong picture.LandRated PG-13 for themes and imagery. Running time: 1 hour 29 minutes. In theaters. Please consult the guidelines outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention before watching movies inside theaters.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More