Arts & Culture

Watch a tight drama about paranoid retiree “Ed” (John Lithgow) and lovable widower Ronnie (Blythe Danner) overcoming their own endearing personal quirks to find love in their golden years? You bet!

Except “The Tomorrow Man” ends up feeling longer than 94 minutes, Ed and Ronnie’s eccentricities turn out to be rather damaging, individual scenes don’t necessarily add up to a cohesive whole, and a great wind-up fails to deliver a solid punch.

But Lithgow and Danner are great together and apart, while the story itself paints a rather bleak picture of aging in America masquerading as some kind of personal acceptance. Ed’s loneliness and bitterness over a failed marriage turn him into a socially awkward conspiracy theorist, “prepping” for the impending End Of The World. Seeing Ronnie at his local store buying the same sorts of prep-goods he frequently purchases (in small quantities so as not to raise suspicion!), he senses a kindred spirit. His light stalking develops into a relationship of convenience with absent-minded Ronnie, who is always late to work and never has anyone over to her house because she can barely fit inside it; she’s a hoarder, endlessly buying and storing stuff she doesn’t really need.

Complicating matters is the absence of a supportive family. Ronnie lost her husband to cancer long ago, and her only onscreen friend is a well-meaning coworker a third her age. Ed meanwhile is estranged from his son and family, with themselves fighting amongst each other.

All of this might be worth subjecting yourself to if it went somewhere. But as the movie wears on, the storyline frays, which is a shame since the set up was solid. I’ve seen this happen with many a Sundance film (this year’s “The Sound of Silence” and “The Sunlit Night” among them), which leads me to wonder if Sundance filmmakers work on their projects sequentially, with The Ending suffering from an approaching submission deadline.

Or perhaps the filmmakers wanted the disjointed nature of the third act to reflect the aged and jumbled mindset of the lead characters? If so, it’s a brave creative choice; but I don’t know if it makes for a satisfying movie-going experience. Around the 90-minute mark, I found myself prepping for the inevitable and predictable end as well.

“The Tomorrow Man”

RUN TIME 94 min

Writer/Director: Noble Jones

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See all of our Sundance Coverage here!

Loosely based on the true story of his real-life best friend Brittany, writer/director Paul Downs Colaizzo delivers one of the best dramedies this year at Sundance, the aptly named “Brittany Runs A Marathon.”

Although an ensemble film by some measure, Jillian Bell takes center stage as a young woman struggling with body issues, insecurities, and a general lack of direction in her life. She covers up such conversational non-starters with her wit and humor, although sometimes her quips reveal too much; double-edged, they often lightly cut the listener while gutting herself.

Brittany’s ire is fueled by keeping up with the virtual Joneses in her social media feed, with everyone’s life looking far better than hers; in particular her vapid, outgoing roommate (Alice Lee) and her successful, upstairs neighbor (Michaela Watkins). It doesn’t help that she can’t get away from such comparisons even when taking a break from Facebook, as she plays this same game with members on her own family, and even perfect strangers with their presumably perfect lives. As such, “Brittany” is more than just a film about poor body image, its more of a survival story in a time when the virtual seems preferable to the actual; when everyone feels they must “go it alone” as long as they share the news eventually; and connections are constantly made online but scarcely in reality.

Many of the actors in the film usually wind up as the sidekick or supporting character in other movies, but here, the cast of “Brittany” is given so much to do — with much of their activities contributing to the overall storyline — that sometimes they all feel like co-leads without ever crowding the titular focus (and actor) of the film.

The marathon that Brittany endures is certainly more than literal and one for which she must volunteer. She realizes that in the game of life the prize doesn’t always go to the swift, but to those who just finish. Very funny and heartfelt, “Brittany” is that rare film that doesn’t preach or condone; just simply tells the story of one woman’s journey to love herself, accept that others love her too. Sometimes the best success stories are within and never get a single “Like.”

“Brittany Runs A Marathon” was picked up by Amazon, so watch for it soon on Prime.

Watch the Q& A session with the writer/director here!

Paul Downs Colaizzo, director of Brittany Runs A Marathon, an official selection of the NEXT program at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Brittany Runs A Marathon (2019)

1h 43min | Drama

Director: Paul Downs Colaizzo
Writer: Paul Downs Colaizzo
Stars: Utkarsh Ambudkar, Kate Arrington, Jillian Bell

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See all of our Sundance Coverage here!

Director David Wnendt (of “Wetlands” fame) joins forces with newly minted poet-turned-novelist Rebecca Dinerstein to adapt her novel of the same name into the movie “The Sunlit Night.” The title refers to the 24 hours of sun her onscreen counterpart Frances (Jenny Slate) experiences during an extended stay on an island in Norway.

But that’s about all of the facts you will find in this work of fiction. The rest of the drama, including but not limited to a project to paint an entire barn, the belligerent artist in charge of this strange residency, Frances’ love interest, and his familial encumbrances… all fiction. Not that I mind fiction, but whereas real life can be unbelievable at times, as Mark Twain was quoted as saying: “…fiction needs to be credible.” But much of “The Sunlit Night” just isn’t.

After a rocky week wherein her own art project falls short, she fails to get even a job she barely wants, her model-handsome boyfriend breaks up with her just when her younger sister gets engaged, Frances’ parents get separated.

All of this desperation leads to the decision to get away from the Big Apple and go just about as far north as she can.

Meanwhile, a young man named Yasha toils away in his father’s bakery in the same city, but he and Frances never meet. He’s too busy making the pastries that feed NYC’s endless stream of blue-collar workers stopping by for a quick bite, as well as a mysterious older gentleman who makes a point to visit and to make his visits memorable.

But when Yasha’s father dies – you guessed it – he requests that he be buried on Frances’ tiny island in the Arctic Circle. They meet and ludicrously quickly fall in love and reject all manner of opportunities to instead eventually be with each other back in the states.

Slate is in the lead as Frances, and she’s just charming enough to make you overlook how annoying her character can be. Zach Galifianakis provides comedy relief from all the neurosis on display as an expatriate, wannabe Viking. Gillian Anderson’s Russian accent is good as Yasha’s long-lost mother, and so is she (for as long as she’s around) which is to say, not much. Even the aforementioned Mysterious Gentleman makes an appearance up north.

Both Yasha and Frances’ stories are fine as they are (although Frances’ line is far more developed than Yasha’s), although not extremely interesting. However, once entwined, the credulity is strained to the point of indifference. It’s all well and good, but almost pointless. If you’re going to ask me to believe your slice of life story, at least make your slices part of a satisfying sandwich.

One of a trio of movies whose endings undermined the whole (“The Silence of Sound’” and “The Tomorrow Man”), viewing “The Sunlit Night” is akin to sitting through someone’s photo album of a vacation you didn’t take; it’s only as interesting as it can be considering you weren’t on the trip, and the pics don’t do their experience justice.

Check out the Q&A from a screening at the SLCC Grand Theater here!

“The Sunlit Night.”

RUN TIME 106 min

Director: David Wnendt

Writer: Rebecca Dinerstein

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See all of our Sundance Coverage here!

Back in the day (that day being the `80s and `90s) the words “Mike Wallace is Here” probably struck fear into the heart of many a volunteered surprise interviewee. Wallace basically invented the guerilla-style interview format, and this documentary is as timely as it is needed, with journalism under attack every day. The cyclical nature of life in general and news stories specifically are hilariously shown, with people being concerned about journalistic values vs. showbiz; lying politicians; and even this “new math” being taught in schools …in 1968.

Utilizing entertaining old footage from when he was more of a jack-of-all-trades on-air talent — either working on game shows or hawking products — “Wallace” introduces us to a man probably totally unfamiliar even to those who knew him from “60 Minutes,” his most famous outlet.

But captions might have been wise for such footage, as much of the audio is of poor quality: hampered by being recorded with antiquated techniques or captured during live shoots on remote locations. Additionally, onscreen lower thirds would have helped identify the various subjects of his numerous interviews, as I doubt many in the audience will recognize them all, or their significance. The small slices of interviews may make you want to watch them in full, though.

Still, such footage takes us to a different world, one where cigarettes are everywhere (cigarette smoke was even used as the background for the title sequence of his 1956 show Night Beat, a precursor to 60 Minutes), and Wallace’s brand of bulldog seems almost quaint by comparison to the bombast regularly seen on today’s news programs.

But to that modern bluster he never got to witness (he died in 2012), Wallace makes a great point: to not confuse anger and hostility with a dogged insistence to get to the facts. “Wallace” also address the intertwined and complicated relationship between advertisers and Networks, and the rise of tabloid journalism, even though the doc itself uses many of its typical trappings: stylized transitions, editing techniques, music beds, and pointed juxtaposition of shots. An interesting use of split screen shows Wallace observing Mike Wallace observing the reactions of people Mike Wallace is interviewing; a rather meta way of visually representing the cult of personality that so many journalistic icons of Wallace’s level attain.

But the doc also humanizes Wallace, as he takes on the tough questions regarding his own personal life, the tragic loss of his son, and his battle with insecurities and outright depression.

A movie (or a doc) is sometimes its ending, and this movie has a good one; it answers the question Why. Why make this doc, or why would anyone do Wallace’s job? I won’t spoil that ending by telling you the answer; just check out the film.

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• “Mike Wallace is Here”
• TRT: 94 min
• Drexler Films/Delirio Films
• Director: Avi Belkin

See all of our Sundance Coverage here.

Universal healthcare in Mexico is in crisis. According to Luke Lorentzen’s documentary Midnight Family, there are only 45 government ambulances serving Mexico City’s population of 9 million. Fortunately, in one respect, private ambulances, like the one driven by the Ochoa family, race to the scenes of accidents and crimes in just a few minutes once an emergency call goes out, while one of the few government ambulances might take more than half an hour, if one arrives at all. One substantial downside, of course, is that, while government transportation is free to patients, private ambulances must charge in order to remain solvent, to continue to do the good work of getting people the emergency care they need. The price for this is generally less than $200.

The Ochoas, the affable and indomitable subjects of Lorentzen’s film, take their work very seriously. Not just because it pays the bills (often it doesn’t), but because they seem to have a genuine sense of responsibility to their fellow citizens. One wonders what they’d do, if they weren’t in this business—or what the youngest of them, 17-year-old Juan, his sister, and their little brother Josué, could do if they had the opportunity, and inclination, to commit themselves to school. So far as we can tell from the numerous tense and intimate sessions recorded in the film, a sincere sense of caring drives the family, a desire to provide injured people immediate relief—whether through an IV or a hug—and to help them make the best choices about where to get more extensive care. Their efforts become even more complicated when they have to guide a victim of a car crash through a quick decision about which hospital will provide the best pediatric care for her injured son, and whether they should go to a public hospital (which might be too busy to admit new patients) or a private one (which may be expensive).

Throughout, the Ochoas stay mostly calm, presenting options as coolly as the situation allows, even when it comes time to request payment, which frequently surprises the injured or their family. If they have to pack up empty-handed, the Ochoas remain humble, understanding that in most cases, their patients simply have nothing or too little to give. The job is the important thing. It must be done. But it is, nevertheless, a job, and the ambulance requires gas, or maintenance, or special license plates, and more, just to stay on the road. Like many of their patients, the Ochoas struggle to pay for food and the basic necessities of life, such as water and heat in their home, and school fees for their sister and Josué, who—taking little interest in studying—often accompanies the crew throughout the night, bouncing around in the back of the ambulance on their wild, gladiatorial rides through Mexico’s City’s legendary gridlock.

Midnight Family is a deeply engaging, often exciting, documentary, mostly due to the close relationship Lorentzen developed with the Ochoa family over three years of filming. They are completely unguarded around him, and the viewer must appreciate the balletic quality of Lorentzen’s camerawork (and editing) as he, in tandem with the family, navigates tight spaces and difficult interactions with police and patients. But Midnight Family is also quite bleak, a troubling observation of a system overwhelmed by a lack of resources, and a portrait of millions of lives, including those of the most civic-minded caregivers, perched just over the edge of a steep decline into economic disaster and life-altering physical peril. And yet, the commitment to service documented here, the dedication to community, a renegade caring, might still provide a glimmer of hope.

See all of our Sundance coverage here.

Wicked became in instant classic when it debuted on Broadway with a cast brimming with musical powerhouses 15 years ago. But this show isn’t going out of style anytime soon: the cast touring at the Eccles this month have a new treat and a fresh set of chills with every set change.

LOTTERY: You can enter to win two $25 orchestra seats to any day-of performance! The lottery begins 2.5 hours before each performance, just head to the Black Box Theater office to get your name on the list. If you’re selected, you have to be there in person, with your ID and $25 cash. Opening night tickets start at $130. So it’s a wicked deal. Sorry. Had to do it.

Kara Lindsay was an even more ditsy and loveable Galinda (with a “Gaaaa”) than I expected, and was bubbly in every sense of the word. Her giggly airhead demeanor and obnoxious flouncing around the stage had the whole crowd cracking up, instantly smitten with that first pop-u-lar note. The opera styling quintessential to the role is a bit of a departure from Lindsay’s usual belt numbers, but she nails it right on every time.

Jackie Burns was a true force as Elphaba. She holds the title of the longest-running wicked witch, and it definitely shows. Her experience with Elphie lets her make the role all her own despite having the massive shoes of Idina Menzel to fill. (Side rant: A lady in front of me was telling her friend the history of the show, and struggled through Idina’s name before giving up and just calling her “the Frozen girl.” You’d think after John Travolta’s botch job at the Oscars in 2015 cemented the pronunciation in everyone’s brains forever, but I guess not. Whatever.)

Back to the important topic: Jackie Burns’ set of incredible pipes.In the iconic act-one finale Defying Gravity, Burns’ performance was almost ethereal. I grew up a musical theater geek, and that song is one of the most over-performed in the high-school theater world, believe me. So it takes a lot for me to not roll my eyes at it and skip to the next song in my Broadway playlist. But Jackie Burns made it a whole new experience, and it blew me away.

Wicked Jackie Burns and Kara Lindsay

One of my favorite parts of this show are the well-rounded harmonies that send shivers down your spine, and this tour’s ensemble blew them out of the water. Despite being a relatively small cast, they still pack a knock-your-socks-off wall of sound. When combined with their emotion and dynamics, their performance makes the show amazing. They say a team is only as strong as its weakest member, and this show set the threshold up in the rafters! Every ensemble number had us dancing in our seats, probably to the dismay of everyone around us. Whoops!

But why on earth should we all see this at the Eccles, you ask? Because the space opens up all sorts of new possibilities for showing off the set and the show. We heard murmurs all through intermission about how much the new facility improved the show: countless “I saw this when it toured at Capitol and…” statements gushed about the acoustics, the high ceilings and how everyone gets a view of dynamic costumes and choreography. That steampunk set that everyone knows, whether by attending or seeing gloating posts on Instagram, is always a showstopper but the tall stage of the Eccles lets those mechanical layers shine. Given its full range, the set can be anything. Menacing, inviting, whimsical, you name it!

Original Broadway Company set for Wicked.

There really is no better time than now to see this show, for a parade of reasons that don’t include the treat of a theater. The cherished lesson of seeing the other side of “different,” rather than letting differences divide us, is needed in our climate now more than ever. Every line about silencing others, plus the entirety of “Wonderful” had my politics-buff husband reeling at the cultural relevance for today’s world. Seeing all sides of the story feels even more critical today than it did over a decade ago when the Wicked story began.

So whether you’re in it for the hype, the local orchestra members, brilliant schoolbook-filled choreography or just because you’re curious about the background of that iconic Wicked Witch hat, RUN down to Eccles tonight to get your name on that ticket lottery list.

Wicked runs through March 3, 2019 at theGeorge S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Theater, 131 Main St., SLC. Tickets and info here.

See all of our theater coverage here.

Luce Edgar (Kelvin Harrison, Jr.) is a model student, a leader on his high school’s debate and track teams, and a persuasive mediator in conflicts between friends. You would never know that he’d spent his first seven years growing up in war-torn Eritrea, that, as he says, he learned how to use a gun before he could walk, and that the terror of that experience drove him to sleep under his bed, even after he’d been adopted by an affluent, white couple, Amy and Peter (Naomi Watts and Tim Roth), and moved to a comfortable American suburb.

Now he seems like a perfectly well-adjusted high achiever. Except, maybe for his senior history paper on the uses of political violence. That “maybe” is the crux of Julius Onah’s Luce, a powerfully acted and thoughtful drama about race, expectation, and stereotype.

In the process of complaining about his history teacher, Luce tells his parents that he doesn’t like what he perceives as her “tokenism.” Ms. Wilson (Octavia Spencer) is also black. And Luce is not the only black kid in the class. But his former teammate Deshaun’s mannerisms and language suggest a very different upbringing than Luce’s, one with fewer advantages, and, in the eyes of some, including Ms. Wilson, more to gain and more to lose than Luce, further to climb to reach Luce’s level of success—even despite where Luce started. Deshaun, in this view, is probably not expected ever to reach Luce’s domain in terms of personal or professional success. The most he can hope for is the aspiration such a model might inspire, and perhaps to be led by someone with Luce’s level of intellect and charisma.

To his credit, Luce rejects this kind of thinking, particularly as it’s embodied in what he perceives as Ms. Wilson’s targeting of Deshaun and other non-white kids (even Luce himself), forcing, in Luce’s mind, her expectations of their character on them, based mainly on their appearance, perhaps their academic performance, and her own experience. But how much can Ms. Wilson really know about what Deshaun, Luce, or any of their classmates are capable of, good or bad? This is the issue around which Ms. Wilson’s reception of and speculations about Luce’s paper on political violence hinges.

On the other hand, what Luce, with his egalitarian ideals, doesn’t seem to understand, is that, despite having started life in a worse social position than Deshaun, he may have both natural and now cultural advantages over his classmate that have consequently amplified the expectations (his as well as others) of his success. In a sense, this isn’t a matter of performance or merit, it’s about America. Others may frame their faith in Luce as the fruit of his excellence as a student, an athlete, or a son. But what almost no one wants to say is that their sense of Luce’s potential, of his being bound for great things, is based on his performance as an African refugee, as a young, black man. They can’t see the advantages of the whiteness of his American home because, in this world, this neighborhood, those advantages are virtually transparent. Except to Deshaun. And Ms. Wilson.

Even the viewer wouldn’t dispute that Luce is all he seems to be. There’s just something about him: a manner, a polish, a look that evokes confidence—that’s also, perhaps, dangerously irresistible. How much of his performance is just that? What might he really be capable of when his sense of justice and self—values shaped by his particular American upbringing—are challenged?

Onah creates a wonderfully Hitchcockian atmosphere around these questions, hinting at answers we want to believe and not believe at once. The truth is, we probably want Luce to succeed too, to confirm something for us about what America makes possible. But we’re here in this theater knowing that’s not the whole story. That’s why we came. We want something to bump, jolt, shock us out of the easy embrace of phony truisms about opportunity and bootstraps. Luce, the film, like the character, may not be perfect, but it does fine work with a dense and thorny script and particularly strong performances from Harrison, Jr., Spencer, and Watts.

See all of our Sundance coverage here.

Alejandro Landes’s Monos is sometimes a thrilling action film, bounding from cloud islands in the Colombian highlands down into dense jungle canyons. But more frequently it’s a nuanced and beautifully photographed psychodrama exploring the tensions holding together a squad of child soldiers deeply immersed in an unending civil war—so deeply they seem to know nothing of the conflict other than its basest imperatives and hierarchies. In other words, war is their youth and life. They call themselves monos, monkeys, taking codenames, or simply nicknames, for themselves, as if they were superheroes or mythological beings: Bigfoot, Wolf, Lady, Dog, Boom Boom, etc.

The film opens with the monos ensconced at a remote mountain base, a kind of brutalist treehouse idyll, where they enjoy a relatively free, heavily armed state of adolescence, taking pleasure in their natural environment and violent play, as well as in their developing, gender-fluid sexuality. The band’s only duties, for the moment, are to stay vigilant and to guard an American engineer, known to them as Doctora (Julianne Nicholson), taken hostage by the rebel Organization for whom the monos fight. In this high state of grace, Doctora, the only adult around, often seems more of a playmate for the monos than their a prisoner.

Soon, The Messenger arrives, the team’s handler and drill sergeant, a cruel-faced representative of distant authorities with obscure plans, bringing with him another assignment: maintaining a milk cow on loan to the Organization from peasant supporters of the revolution. This added responsibility, however, quickly begins to expose potential fractures within the group and the ease with which their unity, their “we”—temporarily fixed by The Messenger’s discipline, a goad to their pride—can turn to an indolent disorder and a Lord of the Flies-like atavism focused on “him,” “them,” and “you.” They are teenagers after all, and even play wrestling is practice, yes? A martial skill that must eventually be turned on something, or someone. One wonders, actually, how the adults who made killers of these kids—perhaps assuming their malleability and lack of conscience—could allow themselves to think them incapable of aiming their lethal potential at authority in general, at everything that wants to control and isn’t them.

Monos’ power derives from its preferencing of myth over reality. For all its intimacy with the characters’ faces and bodies, with their human qualities—strength, weakness, ingenuity, fear—its mode is not to sentimentalize the monos’ lost innocence, but to mythify their creation, their mode of living, and the legacy they make for themselves (that they’ve been made to make by the Organization and by a country in perpetual crisis), not just in the jungle but in any other world they choose to enter. There is a reality from which they’ve escaped, and it is no match for their capacity to play one game.

Landes, his actors, his cinematographer and editor lyricize these lives and the landscape with an exquisite sense of taste and timing, without trivializing at all the issues at stake for the real Colombia, and for its Central American neighbors—Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador—whose citizens are fleeing north from the same kind of violent actors, seeking sanctuary and hope. If we’re familiar with the contours of this story, the unbounded child mob’s descent into pitiless savagery, Monos provides us with a particularly irresistible version of it—sensual and surreal with no easy answers.

See all of our Sundance coverage here.

In the cutthroat world of fine-art trading and representation, up-and-coming agent Josephina (Zawe Ashton) stumbles across a secret weapon: hundreds of dazzling paintings left behind after an elderly tenant in her building dies. Ignoring the instructions the clandestine artist left to destroy his work, she promptly starts circulating the paintings, which soon attract the attention of the heavy hitters around her—including her boss Rhodora (Rene Russo), art critic (and Josephina’s sometime lover) Morf (Jake Gyllenhaal), and competing collectors, managers, and curators like Bryson (Billy Magnussen) and Gretchen (Toni Collette). Yet as the deceased artist’s portraits gain posthumous acclaim, they also awaken something imperceptible and sinister that threatens to punish those who have profited from his work.

Master of suspense Dan Gilroy (Nightcrawler) has assembled an all-star cast for this dark, uproarious, and painfully accurate spoof of the art world. With strong supporting turns by John Malkovich, Daveed Diggs, and Natalia Dyer, Velvet Buzzsaw invites us into a traditionally insular world that’s suddenly splattered wide open, where art and commerce collide with dire consequences.

See all our Sundance coverage here.

Photos by Natalie Simpson / Beehive Photography