THE PROM: 3 STARS
Director Ryan Murphy returns to familiar territory with “The Prom,” a high school musical adapted from a Broadway show now streaming on Netflix. The creator of the pop culture juggernaut “Glee” throws subtlety out the window and ups the ante with an all-star cast to bring the all-singing-all-dancing story of inclusivity to glittery life.
The action begins on the opening night of a Broadway show, a musical about Eleanor Roosevelt starring two self-involved stage icons, Dee Dee Allen (Meryl Streep) and Barry Glickman (James Corden).
When terrible reviews force the show to close on opening night, taking their dreams of Tony Award glory with it, they fear they’ll never work again. Joining in on the pity part are Trent (Andrew Rannells), a Juilliard grad waiting on his big break by bartending at Sardi’s restaurant and Angie Dickinson (Nicole Kidman), a “Chicago” chorus girl who has spent twenty years for her chance of playing Roxie.
At the same time across the country in small-town Indiana controversy is brewing. Mrs. Greene (Kerry Washington), head of the local PTA, has announced that to preserve community standards, gay high school student Emma Nolan (Jo Ellen Pellman) will be banned from attending the prom with her girlfriend.
Cut to New York where the four actors hatch a plan to find a cause they can support to boost their dented public images. When they hear about Emma’s plight, the self-proclaimed “liberals from Broadway” hop on a bus for Indiana to bring their self-styled (and self-serving) activism to the Midwest.
High jinks and high stepping result.
“The Prom” is a feel-good movie that not only celebrates inclusivity, but also the form of the musical. It’s an ode to Broadway and, in these isolated times, the importance of entertaining people.
When Dee Dee tells high school principal Tom Hawkins (Keegan-Michael Key) she’s planning to quit the business, he says, earnestly, “You can’t quit because I need you to do what you do.”
It’s a lovely sentiment but it makes the clumsy handling of many of the musical numbers somewhat mystifying. If this form is so important, why are the big dance sequences such a mish mash of frenetic camera work, candy colours and flailing choreography? There is a difference between dazzling and dizzying and Murphy errs on the side of the latter too often.
Other than that, “The Prom” fits alongside pop musicals like “Bye Bye Birdie,” another show about actors trying to wring some publicity out of a small town. It’s peppy with a game cast.
Streep, Rannells and Kidman have fun in big performances and Corden goes for it, but made me wonder if Nathan Lane, who would have been terrific, or Brooks Ashmanskas, who played Glickman on Broadway, were otherwise engaged while the movie was being shot.
The film’s heart and soul, however, is Jo Ellen Pellman as Emma, the gay high school senior who displays resilience and courage in the face of prejudice. She’s terrific in a role that requires her to sing, dance while pulling on your heartstrings.
If you are someone who has the release date of “West Side Story,” which features Pellman’s co-star Ariana DeBose as Anita, marked on your calendar, or if the words “Meryl Streep raps” grab your attention, then you’ll want to put “The Prom” in your Netflix queue.
It aims to please fans of the genre and delivers a blast of feel-good vibes but probably won’t win over people who don’t like it when actors suddenly burst into song.
I’M YOUR WOMAN: 3 ½ STARS
There are loads of crime dramas about bad guys on the run, but “I’m Your Woman,” a new thriller starring “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’s” Rachel Brosnahan and now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, tells the story from a different perspective, the bad guy’s wife.
The action begins when Jean’s (Brosnahan) husband Eddie (Bill Heck) comes home with a baby. We later learn she’s unable to conceive and because of his criminal record they can’t adopt, so Eddie “finds” a baby and now they’re a family of three. That night Jean is woken up by loud bangs on the door.
Eddie has disappeared and now she has to flee in the company of one of her husband’s associates, a kindhearted killer named Cal (Arinze Kene). She doesn’t know where Eddie is or why he disappeared, but there is an urgency to the situation. On the road, hop scotching from seedy motels and safe houses to remote cabins, the pair try and stay one step ahead of the baddies who hunt them in their search for the elusive Eddie.
“I’m Your Woman” is a quiet movie. The stillness only broken up by the occasional door knock or gunshot. It’s the story of a woman trapped in a situation not of her making, who must shape her own destiny.
It draws on 1970s crime dramas and even borrows its title from a line in Michael Mann’s 1981 “Thief,”—I’m your woman,” Tuesday Weld tells James Caan, “and you’re my man.”—but make no mistake, this isn’t simply a film that flips the genders of the protagonists. The movies that inspired it may have starred men but this is a different story, it’s a look at what happens when the men aren’t around.
There’s more than that, however. “I’m Your Woman” is a much more human story than the paranoid thrillers that informed it are not. Here Jean isn’t fighting against a machine or the government, but against the imbalance of power in a personal situation. It changes the dynamic of the storytelling and puts the focus on the person doing the fighting, Jean, and not some monolithic organization.
Brosnahan is in almost every frame of “I’m Your Woman” and yet there isn’t a trace of Mrs. Maisel to be found. In a terrific performance she allows Jean to uncork survival skills she didn’t realize she had. But, just as this isn’t “The Friends of Eddie Coyle,” it also isn’t “Atomic Blonde.” It’s a movie that guides us through Jean’s journey step by step, without flashy action or a big body count.
As a result, “I’m Your Woman” does away with the nihilism of many thrillers to offer something rare for the genre, and that’s hope for the future.
SONGBIRD: 1 ½ STARS
“Songbird,” a new film produced by Michael Bay and now on premium VOD, feels ripped from the headlines.
Like, today’s headlines.
The first film to shoot in Los Angeles during the lockdown details life during COVID.
Set in 2024, during the fourth year of pandemic, COVID has mutated, leaving the United States under martial law where infected citizens are forcibly removed from their homes. Treated like walking, talking biohazards they are housed in concentration camps called Q-Zones.
Meanwhile, motorcycle courier Nico (K.J. Apa) is immune. A recovered COVID patient, he has the antibodies to fight off the disease. When his locked-down girlfriend Sarah (Sofia Carson) is suspected of contracting the virus, Nico springs into action to save her from being taken away.
There are side characters galore, like Bradley Whitford’s sex-crazed record producer, a lovelorn veteran played by Paul Walter Hauser, Demi Moore’s protective mom and an over-the-top Peter Stormare as the evil head of the Los Angeles' "sanitation" department--but most of them exist only to heighten the grim desperation of the situation.
“Songbird” isn’t a politicized screed about masks or the virus’ origin. Instead, it’s a star-crossed style romance—"You’ve never been in the same room,” says Sara’s mother, “but he loves you.”—set against the backdrop of the worst world event in decades.
It would be one thing if “Songbird” had something to add the conversation about COVID, but it doesn’t. Instead, it plays off our worst collective fears in clumsy and exploitative ways.
It’s likely to appeal to conspiracy enthusiasts who may finger their tinfoil hats in excitement at the mention of bracelets for “munies”—the immune—an unchecked department of sanitation who arrest at will, apps that will report you if your temperature is above normal and ever-present surveillance.
For those not inclined toward dystopian extremes, “Songbird” is a crass reminder of the real-life death, sickness, unemployment and heartache COVID has wrought. It feels tone deaf, and worse, it’s a bad movie.
YES, GOD, YES: 3 ½ STARS
Based on director Karen Maine’s own experiences as a Catholic high schooler “Yes, God, Yes,” now on VOD and Blu Ray, is a look at a young woman’s sexual awakening as she grapples with the taboos that surround her faith.
Set in the early 2000s, “Yes, God, Yes” stars Natalia Dyer as Alice, a sheltered sixteen-year-old who accidentally stumbles into a racy AOL chatroom. The lewd photographs and provocative conversation are unlike anything she’s ever seen or heard and it sets her on a journey of self-discovery.
At a brisk 77-minutes (including credits) “Yes, God, Yes” is a breezy and often insightful coming-of-age story. The push and pull Alice feels between her faith and her burgeoning sexuality is sensitively handled by Maine and delicately portrayed by Dyer. Stuck between naiveté and some rather adult thoughts, she is at the cusp of great change, feeling her way through her awkward formative years. The film gives her space to do so, and each low-key revelation feels authentic.
This isn’t a movie with big moments, just a series of occasionally frank but often sweet set pieces. From Alice’s self-conscious confessions to an excruciating rendition of Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” to pretending every roasted marshmallow is a mortal sin before holding it to the fire, “Yes, God, Yes” is finely and respectfully observed. In Alice the movie finds an everyperson character, an adolescent working her way through feelings of confusion and shame in pursuit of her own pleasure.
“Yes, God, Yes” doesn’t judge its characters, even when they are too chipper to be believed or preaching abstinence-led sex education. Instead, it paints a picture of a time and place and allows the characters to inhabit it.
