Teo Bugbee

The camera follows Steve as he waddles through extraordinary vistas filled with cliffs backlit by a sun that never sets and ice floes rocked by the tempestuous waves of the Southern Ocean. These are precious glimpses of a vibrant ecosystem, one under severe threat because of ocean warming. But the pressure to build a family-friendly narrative out of these images diminishes the observational accomplishments of the directors, Alastair Fothergill and Jeff Wilson. As a result, nature’s complexities are reduced here to dull clichés.

The character invented for Steve is as bumbling and cute as his wobbly walk. But the choice to create an inner monologue for him feels like an infantilizing suggestion that animals must be wholly anthropomorphized to be compelling subjects. And although Helms alternates between perspectives — frequently leaving Steve’s head to offer third-person descriptions of the environment — “Penguins” only grants internal life to one creature out of thousands, concealing the symbiotic relationships that sustain life in such a harsh climate. Even Steve’s mate is silent.

As a fairy tale with a penguin for the hero, “Penguins” is proficient. But as a documentary with access to one of the world’s most remote locations, this fantasy feels insufficient and even distorting, particularly when common threats that connect every species — like climate change — are never mentioned.

Rated G. Running time: 1 hour, 16 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a id="dfb5cd02-731f-3552-a17b-bf71849f78d8" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/movies/penguins-review.html">The New York Times</a>.

'Penguins' review: A nature documentary veers into fairy tale

In “Penguins,” the beautiful but frustratingly shallow Disneynature documentary, Ed Helms provides the internal monologue for a 5-year-old Adélie penguin referred to as Steve, who is about to embark on his first mating season. Helms explains that if Steve hopes to thrive in the Antarctic spring and summer, he must find a mate, procreate and provide food to keep his new family alive.

In the present day, a businessman, Michael Kingley (Geoffrey Rush), is poised to make a deal with the devil — in this case, a mining company — that would decimate his home’s natural ecosystem. His granddaughter (Morgana Davies) urges him to reconsider, spurring Michael to tell her about his childhood. He recalls his youth on the coast, recounting the time when he was better known as Storm Boy.

Director Shawn Seet flashes between scenes of Michael as an adult and his memories as Storm Boy (Finn Little), a child who lives in seclusion with his father, Hideaway Tom (Jai Courtney). They reside in a shack that sits on land they hope will become a pelican sanctuary, but hunters threaten the purity of the region and kill the birds for sport.

Storm Boy’s loose education comes from his father, leaving him endless time to wander the beach. He finds three chicks orphaned by hunters and decides to raise the birds with the help of his father and Fingerbone Bill (Trevor Jamieson), an indigenous Ngarrindjeri who teaches the boy how to care for the land and animals. Storm Boy nurtures the three pelicans, forming a particular connection with a bird he names Mr. Percival, who returns the child’s loyalty beyond all expectations.

“Storm Boy” tries to present itself as a modern fable, where the lessons learned relate directly to present-day concerns over the environment, industrialization and the marginalization of indigenous cultures. But these themes come across as didactic rather than moving. The cinematography is frequently beautiful, in large part because of the majesty of South Australia’s Coorong region, where the movie was shot. But the ham-handed dialogue saps the energy from the images, drawing attention to the thinness of archetypal characters. And the centrality of white characters who learn from a noble native undermines the film’s attempts at political relevance.

Seet does best when he focuses on the boy with his birds. In keeping with the movie’s environmental themes, Seet uses live pelicans for many scenes, documenting the growth of the birds from bald infancy to their first flight. Largely free from the trappings of treacly dialogue, these scenes place the emphasis where it belongs — on the rather remarkable performance by its misty-eyed child actor and on nature itself.

Production notes:

“Storm Boy” is rated PG. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/04/movies/storm-boy-review.html" id="0caf6fa4-6f67-3874-a42b-b715e7521741">The New York Times</a>.

In a new adaptation of the early 1960s Australian children’s book “Storm Boy,” the story of a child who raises pelicans is updated to mixed effect.

'Storm Boy' Review: Raising Pelicans in a Film That Never Fully Takes Flight

Having abandoned her daydreams, June is shocked when she wanders into the woods after escaping a trip to camp and finds Wonderland fully realized. The park is now haunted by a dark vortex that has damaged the rides. With the help of her park’s animal crew, June must conjure up solutions to fix the damage.

“Wonder Park” thrives when it emphasizes the practical pleasures of creativity. The movie visualizes the gears and pulleys of June’s creations, producing exciting action scenes that make fantasies function efficiently. (Its uncredited director, Dylan Brown, was removed from the film after allegations surfaced of what The Hollywood Reporter and other outlets described as “inappropriate and unwanted conduct.” Brown disputed the allegations.) But when these sequences fall back to accommodate the narrative, the shabbiness of the visual design drains energy from the screen. The characters are unexpressive and generic, making it difficult to connect to their emotions, and murky colors dim the fantasy. Although its protagonist is blessed with a gift for engineering the impossible, “Wonder Park” is a film where faulty execution betrays a healthy imagination.

“Wonder Park" is rated PG for swarming chimpanzees and suggestions of impending doom. Running time: 1 hour 25 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/movies/wonder-park-review.html" id="2f97c5d4-d365-383d-aa3a-fc73e3c658b7">The New York Times</a>.

In the amiable animated feature “Wonder Park,” a child’s imagination can power an amusement park. Unfortunately, the movie falls shy of providing the same sensory thrill ride. June (voiced by Brianna Denski) is an 8-year-old who displays an unusual aptitude for engineering. She has developed her talent through conversations with her mother (voiced by Jennifer Garner), who talks June through her plans for a park called Wonderland, where animals run the rides and carousels are mounted with fish...

'Wonder Park' Review: An Animated Amusement Park Adventure Stalls Visually

“Clara’s Ghost” introduces its main character in a moment when she is desperate, discombobulated and on a mad mission to retrieve a lost shoe. Clara’s anxiety is curious rather than contagious, at once funny and sad and a little unnerving. Her disconcerting presence provides the first signal of the elusive and intriguing film to follow. Clara’s loopy voice is soothing and her face looks familiar, as if she were a beloved character actress with a thousand credits to her name.

This is not the case. Clara Reynolds isn’t a professional performer. Neither is the woman who plays her, Paula Niedert Elliott — though like her character, she is married to a comedian (Chris Elliott of “Cabin Boy”), and their two children are actresses. With her real-life family as her co-stars, and her daughter Bridey Elliott as the film’s writer and director, Paula steals the spotlight in a story that reflects, warps and magnifies the thorny dynamics of showbiz households.

Clara is the long-suffering wife of Ted (Chris), a comedian whose career has floundered. They have two daughters, Julie (Abby Elliott) and Riley (Bridey), who are each struggling to establish adult careers after child stardom. As the whole family convenes on their dog’s birthday, Clara is relegated to become the butt of her loved ones’ jokes. Disoriented and disempowered, she begins to have visions of a wild woman (Isidora Goreshter) who offers an escape from the role Clara plays in her family of professional clowns. Clara suspects that her raving visitor is a ghost, especially since she only appears to Clara — but this specter is warmer than the egomaniacal Reynolds family, and Clara does not resist divine intervention.

Clara’s private, phantasmal liberation signals the influence of the John Cassavetes film “Opening Night,” but Bridey’s images do not aspire to the sensuousness of that inspiration. The Reynolds’ house may be haunted, but it does not look foreboding — in fact, it’s hard to think of any shot that is memorable in any way. Over time, this visual slackness proves to be a sinuous strength. It prevents the film from indicating its intentions, which would remove the mystery from the tense relationships it depicts. As is perhaps appropriate, given the comic occupations of the Reynolds (and the Elliott) family, this unusual, unsettling and terrific little film presents itself not as a domestic opera, but as a family comedy.

“Clara’s Ghost" is not rated. Running time: 1 hour 32 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/13/movies/claras-ghost-review.html" id="9b8c1bb1-a793-3e2f-ade7-6a3362781951">The New York Times</a>.

(Critic's Pick)

'Clara's Ghost': A Family of Performers, a Night of Hysteria

The story follows Libby Lamm (Tika Sumpter), a professor who was once the top security adviser to a steely U.S. vice president, Rachel Burke (Jamie Lee Curtis). Now, after retreating from politics, Libby is hounded by anti-war protests and demands for her trial as a war criminal. At first, the film plays coy with the events that made her a pariah. But the phrase that was central to her foreign policy — “total war” — suggests her history. Despite her diplomatic manner, Libby was the architect of an unprovoked nuclear attack carried out by the United States.

Libby is wracked with guilt and anxiety. Every night, before she falls asleep with a gun under her pillow, she records her memories of the meetings where she supported Burke’s plan to drop a nuclear bomb on Homs, Syria. Libby plans to publish a memoir exposing the moral and tactical failures of those still in power. But she knows from experience that if she shows any resistance to the administration, she risks becoming a target.

The relevance of “An Acceptable Loss” to the current global political climate is immediate and obvious. Characters debate the nature of evil, ponder American exceptionalism and question the moral difference between dealing mass death in an instant and delivering destruction piecemeal.

But these questions are undermined by the filmmakers’ reliance on generic thriller plot points and intrigues. Every time the repentant Libby raises a topic worth philosophical consideration, it’s time for her to run, hide or dodge the violent and vindictive government. “An Acceptable Loss” errs in its insistence that political conspiracies demand larger-than-life action. In the real world — the one in which politicians don’t need color filters to seem ominous and whistleblowers are merely discredited or imprisoned — conspiracies are common. For a political thriller to come up with a scheme that feels genuinely rousing, “An Acceptable Loss” would need the two qualities it most severely lacks: style and substance.

‘An Acceptable Loss’

Rated R for state and genre violence. Running time: 1 hour 42 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/movies/an-acceptable-loss-review.html" id="7fd700c6-cd5b-3d9a-acf9-9c57b023d6b9">The New York Times</a>.

“An Acceptable Loss” is an American political thriller that indicates in every frame its intention to take the subject of war seriously. Director Joe Chappelle has heavily filtered the movie’s images — draining the color from his characters’ faces, polishing their features into dull smoothness, dimming even the daylight. And unfortunately, the plot is as lackluster ideologically as the picture is visually.

'An Acceptable Loss' Review: Conspiracy Drives a Nuclear Attack in a Rote Thriller

The movie follows Katherine (Katherine Waterston), wife of Stefan Delvoe (Michiel Huisman), a rising Belgian film star who died in an apparent suicide. Their marriage was a rocky one, shaken by revelations about Stefan’s drug use and the possibility that he was unfaithful. It was Katherine who found Stefan’s body with a bullet lodged in his temple.

One year after Stefan’s death, Katherine returns to their home in Brussels. Her mother (Mary Kay Place) has suffered a minor stroke and is in need of medical care. In between her visits to the hospital, Katherine unpacks the mess Stefan left behind. She finds matchboxes with the name of his favorite club written on them — the first breadcrumb in a trail that leads Katherine to suspect her husband’s death was a conspiracy.

Katherine retraces Stefan’s final days and finds herself submerged in a world of nightclubs and narcotics. In this shadowy landscape, Katherine’s numbed grief is indistinguishable from a high.

Writer-director Meredith Danluck relies heavily on flashback sequences to illustrate Katherine’s dawning realizations.. Though Katherine moves through exclusive and expensive environments in both the past and present, she scrutinizes her surroundings without indulging in them. Danluck’s film follows her example.

Like her protagonist, Danluck seems less interested in languishing in the ambience of her mysterious settings than she is in tying together the loose strands of a plot. The result is a film that is narratively logical and cinematically inert, a funereal march to Katherine’s inevitable conclusions. Each time there is a memorable image — burlesque dancers posing in a grim line, a shock of bleached hair alerting Katherine to the presence of a threat from across the room — Danluck cuts away as soon as the shot has satisfied Katherine’s search for meaning.

The images serve the dialogue, but they are not given a chance to expand the story, depriving the movie of texture and energy. Danluck dives with Katherine into the depths of grief-stricken obsession, and her film suffocates for want of room to breathe.

‘State Like Sleep’ is not rated. Running time: 1 hour 44 minutes.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/03/movies/state-like-sleep-review.html" id="91fcea19-2e5c-362c-abf7-7c583aad6661">The New York Times</a>.

Far from a fantasy, but not quite a nightmare, “State Like Sleep” is a thriller without thrills, where every setting that was once familiar has become loaded with a sense of dread. It pauses before turning any corner, anticipating horrors that never satisfyingly arrive.

'State Like Sleep' Review: A Suspicious Suicide Drives This Suffocating Thriller

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