'Run' is Hulu's new thrillride, plus 'Hillbilly Elegy' on Netflix
No Content for Old Men
with Matt Craig
Hey movie lovers!
As always, you can find a podcast version of this newsletter on Apple or Spotify. Thank you so much for listening and spreading the word!
In this week's newsletter: We're talking about the second feature from promising young filmmaker Aneesh Chaganty. Then we'll take a quick look at Ron Howard's Hillbilly Elegy, a Jenny Slate...something, a reminder to watch Citizen Kane and a quick dive back into Pixar. In this week's "Trailer Watch," are they really remaking The Godfather: Part III? Yes, yes they are.
Word Count: 665 words
Reading time: 4 minutes
Run
(Hulu)
In August of 2018, when reviewing his debut feature Searching, I wrote this of the then-27-year-old Aneesh Chaganty: "If I could buy stock in his filmmaking future, I'd sell the car (that I don't have) and mortgage the house (that I also don't have) to invest in this guy. He's going to have a long and successful career."
Searching was an excellent directorial debut, and an even better fit for Chaganty, who came up in the tech world directing commercials for Google. After the critical success the first time around, Chaganty says he got approached with every technology and screen-capture movie pitch in Hollywood.
So, in the interest of proving himself as an emerging auteur, Chaganty went hard in the opposite direction. One location, very tactile, very practical. He "leveled up," in director-speak, partnering with a studio (albeit a smaller one) in Lionsgate and starring a higher wattage lead actress in Sarah Paulson.
But Chaganty's style is beginning to emerge, if two data points can be considered a trend. He's very interested in how parents and children interact, particularly at the boundaries of that relationship. And he's got a talent for thrillers.
Apparently those two building blocks came into conflict with one another in the production of Chaganty's second feature, Run. Opting into studio money meant opting into the studio notes process, which Chaganty said led to stripping away most of the more nuanced family drama from this story about an overbearing mother treating her seemingly multi-disabled daughter.
The result is an extremely taught 90-minute thrill ride that doesn't really stop to catch its breath between further revelations and plot twists. Harsher critiques of the movie might call it campy, because there's little time for characters to escape the cartoonish rough sketch of an archetype. It's plot-plot-plot all the way through, not stopping to dig for deeper meaning below the action and tension right there on the surface. Yet Chaganty's level of craft is obvious, and I found myself continually impressed by the layers he was able to build into the straight forward construction.
In lesser hands, this movie would be a predictable game of checkers. It's short on time, on locations, on props, and on action capabilities when your main character (and actor) is in a wheelchair. But scarcity can lead to creativity, and little cues and hints dropped early in the narrative become keys and tools deployed later. So it's more like Beth Harmon playing chess (just finished "The Queen's Gambit" !!).
This is the first studio thriller (to my knowledge) to star a disabled actor, Kiera Allen, who deserves a lot of credit for not overplaying a part meant to be a very normal teenage girl. The same cannot be said for Sarah Paulson, who's been stuck putting in good performances in bad movies for so long she maybe forgot to mix in some use of the brake alongside pressing the gas pedal into the floorboard. Her performance isn't exactly what one might call...nuanced, but few actors play inner creepiness as well as the former "American Horror Story" and "Ratched" star.
I can't say more without getting into spoiler territory, but the best compliment I can give is that the "big reveal" isn't in the top five best plot twists of the movie. If you're someone who prefers movies to be diversionary entertainment, this is made for you.
And moving forward, someone please LET CHAGANTY COOK! First he was constrained by the screen capture gimmick, then the limited time/location/resources. He's handled both admirably, and now he's turned the corner into his 30's. It's high time someone gives him a budget, a handful of awesome name actors and the leash to tell the multilayered story he's clearly capable of. I can't wait.
The Aneesh Chaganty stock I bought over two years ago has matured some, but the price is still ripe for you to buy in now before the inevitable skyrocket. Consider this your second chance to get on board.
Streaming Suggestions!
Something New
Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix): I've never been a fan of the term "Oscar bait." It gives audiences a reason to dismiss something that is artistically minded as phony or cheap. So I grant you this Ron Howard-directed project was designed as an awards vehicle for its lead actresses, Amy Adams and Glenn Close, who combine for 13 Academy Award nominations and zero victories. But that's no reason, in my mind, to make this one of the worst reviewed movies of the year. Similar to the backlash around Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, a movie that I loved, I don't think the bicoastal critical apparatus is really equipped to evaluate movies that are about red-blooded America.
This movie doesn't fulfill its lofty ambitions for no other reason than it's another unsuccessful literary adaptation, this time of a memoir packed with political commentary about the culture of lower-middle class life in Kentucky and rural Ohio. Once you remove all of that opining, you're left with an insufficient narrative taken in the literary form of flashbacks, which play out like anecdotes rather than interconnected story.
But hey, we came here for the acting performances! Adams is good (as always) and could scratch out a nomination, but her role is a little too one-note and lacking the signature moment needed for a win. Meanwhile Glenn Close is an absolute powerhouse in a role more than juicy enough to make her a favorite throughout awards season. It's time. Give her the statue!
The Sunlit Night (Hulu): You may see this movie while scrolling through Hulu, and you may notice it stars Jenny Slate. And you may be like, "oh I like her!" And then you may see the movie also features Zach Galifianakis in a viking costume. And all that might be enough for you to give 90 minutes of your time to watching it. At which point you'll realize that the movie is very bad, more a commercial for tourism in Norway than any kind of story. Every character seems to think they're in their own wildly different movie, leading to a confusing tone that's never quite funny or dramatic or emotional. If my job here is to help you find movies that are worth your time, then I'm afraid this one is a pass.
Something Old
Citizen Kane (1941, HBO Max): Ok we're now just one week away from the release of Mank, David Fincher's movie about the Citizen Kane screenwriter that is the favorite to win this year's Best Picture, giving you one week to watch or rewatch what many consider the greatest movie of all time. Vulture's Mark Harris wrote about why Citizen Kane is as watchable now as it was in the '40s. And as added incentive, I've started an open invitation for anyone who is hesitant to try it out: I'll swap you one thing you want me to watch even if I've been hesitant to try it (I'm currently on the hook for "Avatar: The Last Airbender") in exchange for you watching this movie. I'm just some crazy guy who thinks Citizen Kane is as good now as it was in 1941. Give it a try.
Something to Stream
Wall-E (Disney+): There's a new Pixar movie coming out on Christmas Day, Soul, and seeing all the advertisements made me realize there are still a lot of Pixar movies I have never seen. I'm not really one for children's programming in general, but you don't need me to tell you these movies are so much more than that. There's really no way a kids movie about the end of the world where the cute sidekick is actually the main character and there's basically no real dialogue should have me tearing up at the end. But hey, that's why the filmmakers at Pixar are some of the best storytellers on the planet. If you've got Disney+, now's a great time to watch or rewatch some classics before Soul comes out.
Trailer Watch: The Godfather Coda, The Death of Michael Corleone
"Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!" You can't make this stuff up. Apparently Francis Ford Coppola has been hard at work with Mario Puzo (writer of The Godfather trilogy) to construct a new cut of the third installation in The Godfather trilogy, joining the recent trend of high profile directors calling for a mulligan on some of their biggest flops (looking at you, "Synder Cut"). On anyone's list of the top say 10 movies of all time, two entries are always reserved for the first two Godfather movies. Something tells me that a new beginning, a new ending, and remastered audio/video will not be enough to salvage this third movie. But you'd be crazy not to at least give it a chance.