Category Archives: Now Showing

Now Showing

THE ORDER

Producers: Bryan Haas, Stuart Ford, Justin Kurzel and Jude Law Director: Justin Kurzel   Screenplay: Zach Baylin   Cast: Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, Odessa Young, Sebastian Pigott, George Tchortov, Victor Slezak, Morgan Holmstrom, Ryan Chandoul Wesley, Huxley Fisher, Philip Forest Lewitski, Philip Granger, Daniel Doheny, Geena Meszaros and Mark Maron   Distributor: Vertical

Grade: B

An early, almost forgotten, episode in America’s modern white supremacist history is dramatized effectively by Australian director Justin Kurzel, who dealt with mayhem in his native country in films like “The Snowtown Murders,” “The True History of the Kelly Gang” and “Nitram” but stumbled with his two international Michael Fassbender starrers, “Macbeth” and “Assassin’s Creed.” 

Working from a script by Zach Baylin based on the 1989 non-fiction book “The Silent Brotherhood: Inside America’s Racist Underground” by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt, Kurzel tells the story of Robert Jay, or Bob, Mathews, the neo-Nazi activist who created the titular group, also called The Order, to pull off robberies of banks and armored cars in order to finance the sort of revolution and race war depicted in William Luther Pierce’s infamous 1978 novel “The Turner Diaries.”

It’s framed in the form of a cat-and-mouse story, in which Mathews’ plot is uncovered, and Mathews himself hunted down, by FBI agent Terry Husk, a man haunted by his previous undercover work.  (Husk is a fictionalized version of Wayne Manis, an agent who played a major role in Mathews’ downfall, which culminated in his death in a 1984 shootout with federal agents at the rural Washington home that caught fire during the stand-off.)

The transformation of Husk into a troubled character is a typical Hollywood-style gloss on the historical record, and there are other alterations made in the script for dramatic effect as well.  But overall, the film is more faithful to the actual events than most pictures of this sort.

Chain-smoking Husk (Jude Law) arrives in a deserted Washington state field office world-weary and without his family.  He looks into a spate of bombings and robberies that the sheriff (Philip Granger) hasn’t investigated very seriously, but gung-ho deputy Jamie Bowen (Tye Sheridan) thinks might be the work of a right-wing militant group associated with the Aryan Nation, a white-supremacist religious outfit headed by Richard Butler (Victor Slezak). 

Husk is doubtful, but a visit to Butler’s compound and to Bonnie Sue West (Geena Meszaros) persuades him otherwise.  Her husband Walter (Daniel Doheny), an old friend of Bowen’s who’d been spouting radical ideas rather freely to the likes of liberal radio talk-show host Alan Berg (Marc Maron) has disappeared, and Husk and Bowen find his body buried in the forest, a victim (we see in an early scene) of his comrades in The Order, which has splintered off from Butler’s church because of what its leader Mathews (Nicholas Hoult) considers an overly passive approach.

There follows a complicated pursuit of Mathews and his motley crew of confederates by Husk and Bowen, who are joined by Joanne Carney (Jurnee Smollett), a colleague of Husk’s, and, eventually, plenty of other agents, especially after Mathews’ followers assassinate Berg, bits of whose broadcasts have punctuated the film from the start.  In the process we’re introduced to Bowen’s devoted wife (Morgan Holmstrom) and son (Ryan Chandoul Wesley), and that domestic bond naturally presages his fate in a shoot-out that erupts when the lawmen attempt to foil one of the gang’s robberies—another typical Hollywood invention, but excitingly staged by Kurzel, cinematographer Adam Arkapaw and editor Nick Fenton.  Fleeting allusion is also made to Mathews’ domestic life, which involves both a wife (Alison Oliver) and a lover (Odessa Young), as well as a young son (Huxley Fisher) whom his father intends to follow in his footsteps.  And there’s a tense sequence when Husk and Mathews briefly meet as the FBI man goes hunting and Mathews considers taking him out.

For the most part, “The Order” brings this early event in the recent history of white supremacism in America to vivid life, thanks to Kurzel’s intense direction and compelling performances down the line.  Despite the tendency to tweak the narrative to meet audience expectations, in terms of accuracy it’s leagues ahead of Costa-Gavras’ 1988 “Betrayal,” which altered the facts to such an extent as to make its connection to the record beyond tenuous (the picture was mediocre in purely dramatic terms as well).

Though Husk may be a character colored by Hollywood convention, Law invests him with gruff passion, and Sheridan nicely etches the arc of a young man who embraces darker impulses as he rushes to engage against dangerous forces.  The real revelation, though, is Hoult, who has usually played more benign figures but here captures the malignancy Mathews hides beneath an ordinary exterior.  There are moments—like a speech at Butler’s church—where he could be more charismatic, but in general he’s a genuinely menacing presence.

Without exaggerating, production designer Karen Murphy and costumer Rachel Dainer-Best evoke the atmosphere of rural Washington and Idaho in the mid-eighties, which they and Arkapaw make no attempt to prettify, even if the vistas are often magnificent.  (The film was actually shot in Canada.)  Jed Kurzel’s score is suitably downbeat, though it pulses up during the action scenes.

Though “The Order” is about events in the eighties, it obviously carries contemporary relevance, given the realities of today’s political climate. The film doesn’t neglect to note that, but mostly it’s content to let the fact that the past is prologue to the present resonate on its own.

Now Showing

NIGHTBITCH

Producers: Anne Carey, Marielle Heller, Sue Naegle, Christina Oh, Amy Adams and Stacy O’Neil   Director: Marielle Heller   Screenplay: Marielle Heller   Cast: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Arleigh Patrick Snowden, Emmett James Snowden, Jessica Harper, Zoë Chao, Mary Holland, Archana Rajan, Ella Thomas, Adrienne Rose White, Stacey L. Swift, Darius De La Cruz, Ros Gentle, Kerry O’Malley, Michaela Baham and Nate Heller   Distributor: Searchlight Pictures

Grade: C

Coming from Marielle Heller, whose “Can You Ever Forgive Me?” remains one of 2018’s better films, this adaptation of Rachel Yoder’s acclaimed 2018 novel is a disappointment.  “Nightbitch” might have been a caustic, challenging metaphorical depiction of the costs and pleasures of motherhood, but in Heller’s transformation it becomes more an oddball sitcom-like ode to the idea of having it all, girl—but only if you unleash your inner canine.  Despite some early feints in the direction of horror, especially of the body variety, “Nightbitch” turns into what feels like a toothless feminist liberation fantasy that, in the end, wants to have it all possible ways—to have its cakes while eating them too.

Amy Adams is the unnamed Mother, who gave up a promising career as an artist to stay home with the son she has with her Husband (Scoot McNairy) and is beginning to regret that choice. She dreams of how as a girl (Michaela Baham) in a rural religious community, she watched her mother (Kerry O’Malley) abandon her chance at a singing career and her grandmother (Ros Gentle) intently prepare concoctions (meals?) from weird ingredients. 

Son (Arleigh and Emmett Snowden) is now a hyperactive toddler, whose care Mother finds exhausting and often aggravating, just as she finds her housewifely chores monotonous.  She imagines replying to questions about how she’s doing, like that posed pro forma by an old colleague, honestly, though in reality she recites the usual bromides about how she loves being a full-time mom—while her actual feelings are expressed in lots of voice-over narration.  When Husband returns from one of his frequent job-related trips, she snaps at the guy that evening for not giving her enough of a break from wifely-maternal duties.  Only twenty minutes in, she half-jokingly refers to herself as a nightbitch for berating him.

That’s just a precursor to the real thing.  Mother’s body starts to undergo strange physical changes—sharper teeth, a heightened sense of smell, and hair growths in unexpected places.  She attracts a pack of dogs while playing with her son in the park, and expresses her loathing of the family’s pet cat.  She enthusiastically enters into games with her son in which they both pretend to be canines.  Her search for answers lead Norma (Jessica Harper), the local librarian, to introduce her to a book about mystical shape-shifting women, even as she connects with a trio of neighbors (Zoë Chao, Mary Holland and Archana Rajan) at the library’s Book Babies sessions presided over by a guitar-strumming guy (Nate Heller).  She shares her observations on the demands of motherhood, both physical and mental, with them, and finds bonding surprisingly satisfying. 

And when Mother has an evening out with old art business colleagues (Ella Thomas, Darius De La Cruz, Stacey L. Swift, Adrienne Rose White), she feels out-of-place at the restaurant, starts woofing at them after reacting queasily to her kale salad and actually transforms, as she had one previous night, into a handsome Husky, running down the street in unbridled freedom.

All of which will lead her to confront Husband about her regrets, and to a revision of their “contract” that allows her to resume her artwork with time to herself.

And yet she doesn’t reject her marriage, or forget the absolutely joyous times she’s spent with Son.  To the contrary, as a postscript set some time later insists, she continues to embrace her maternal role, along with—presumably—her revived career.

One can imagine a version of “Nightbitch” that takes far greater risks than Heller’s does.  What she offers is a film that declines to challenge overmuch—and certainly not to offend or repulse.  The result is a picture that saddles up to the line of making a strong statement but then demurely pulls back.  It’s nicely made—production designer Karen Murphy and costumer Arjun Bhasin fashion a convincing suburban environment, Stuart White’s visual effects and Vincent Van Dyke’s makeup do their jobs without getting gross, Brandon Trost’s cinematography is unfussy but attractive, and the score by the director’s brother Nate is fine, in terms of both the little diddies he sings to the kids and his background music.  Anne McCabe’s editing is a mite bumpy, leaving one with the impression that things are a little repetitious and obvious, but that’s the script’s doing.

What the movie does have going for it is Adams’ performance.  She brings ferocity where it’s required and yet maintains a sympathetic, softer side, and her extended interactions with the Snowden twins (who together make a delightfully rambunctious kid) exude an affection that extends to the audience; one wonders how much of the action was extemporaneous and improvised, and how much effort the necessarily scripted portions took to achieve.  McNairy is okay in a reactive role, but he does catch both Husband’s obtuseness and his genuine admiration for his wife toward the close. Among the others Harper is the most notable, but one must confess that the rationale behind the changes in her character is about as bewildering as Mother’s transformation.

Nonetheless Adams’ committed turn can’t quite compensate for an approach to the material that never quite decides exactly what the writer-director is trying to achieve.