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ARE YOU THERE, GOD? IT’S ME, MARGARET.
**** A girl opens her jaws wide, revealing a mouthful of chewed-up marshmallows. That’s one of the first images we see in Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret., and it’s a declaration that what follows won’t be a prettified portrait of girlhood. True to the Judy Blume novel on which it’s based, the film is a heartfelt, honest tale of an 11-year-old girl confronting three of the most powerful forces in the universe: family, puberty and faith. Writer-director Kelly Fremon Craig (The Edge of Seventeen) sets the film in the 1970s (when the book was published), but it never feels like a kitschy relic. When Margaret (Abby Ryder Fortson) longs for her first period, yearns for the boy who mows her front lawn, or struggles to understand why religion ruptured her family, her every emotion is here, now, overpowering. As Blume’s adapter, Fremon Craig stands on the shoulders of a literary giant, but she brings her own flourishes to the story, like a shadowy shot of Margaret’s parents, Barbara (Rachel McAdams) and Herb (Benny Safdie), tenderly holding each other as they watch Barbara’s parents, Paul and Mary (Gary Houston and Mia Dillon), drive off into the night. When Margaret learns that Paul and Mary are conservative Christians who disowned their daughter for marrying a Jew, she’s horrified that anyone could be cruel to her mother. “She’s nice to everyone,” she says, a line that plays over a scene of a smiling Barbara holding the door for a line of strangers. Margaret has a lot to say about God and to God—even though she often doubts His existence—but the best thing about Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret. is that it has little use for deities. The only higher power it serves is kindness. PG-13. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Lloyd Center, Mill Plain 8, Movies On TV, Progress Ridge, Vancouver Mall, Vancouver Plaza.
BEAU IS AFRAID
*** Do not listen to anyone who claims to understand Beau Is Afraid after the first viewing. Written and directed by Ari Aster (Midsommar, Hereditary), the film is a comedy crossed with the nightmare of a fully grown mama’s boy (with some farcical lovemaking and an animated sequence thrown in for good measure). Does Aster have any insight into masculinity or motherhood? Has he created a soulless, swaggering compendium of weirdness? Either way, I can’t stop thinking about Beau Is Afraid, or its epically unlucky protagonist (Joaquin Phoenix). Beau’s insane misadventures defy explanation, but let it suffice to say that the nearly three-hour film chronicles his attempts to attend the funeral of his mother (Patti LuPone) after she is decapitated by a falling chandelier. With the zeal of a born-again book of Job fan, Aster turns the entire universe against Beau. When he comes home, of course there’s a warning on his door about a brown recluse spider in the building; when he opens the door, of course that very spider is lurking in his apartment (let’s not even talk about the sequence with the stabbing, the partygoers and the water bottle). Beau Is Afraid is so hysterical you may groan when it abandons joyous lunacy for a blunt conclusion in which Beau is literally put on trial for being a terrible son. It’s enough to make you want to scream, “We get it! Beau has issues with his mom! Jeez!” After two tightly scripted horror hits, Aster may now be lost in a web of quirky pretensions and indulgences, but that shouldn’t stop audiences from savoring the mesmerizingly demented new design he’s woven. R. BENNETT CAMPBELL FERGUSON. Bridgeport, Cascade, Cedar Hills, Cinema 21, Clackamas, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Fox Tower, Laurelhurst, Lloyd Center, Vancouver Mall.
GUY RITCHIE’S THE COVENANT
** The Covenant stars Jake Gyllenhaal, but Dar Salim is the star of the show. Or at least that’s what the movie wants us to believe. Gyllenhaal plays John Kinley, a former U.S. Army sergeant and veteran of the war in Afghanistan who returns to rescue Ahmed (Salim), an interpreter who saved his life. The Covenant takes its time getting to the botched operation that allows the interpreter to rise to the occasion, with the Taliban subsequently fumbling all of its opportunities to capture him (though the incompetence on both sides is never commented on). Extended gunfights notwithstanding, The Covenant is principally a sentimental film; it’s less about the covenant between its two main characters so much as between the United States government and its own citizens. It is as always important to reassure Americans that we at least mean well with our pointless destructive wars, not like “bad” countries that only start wars for malicious reasons. A person predisposed to believe that might find The Covenant enjoyable. I did not. R. WILLIAM SCHWARTZ. Bridgeport, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Division, Eastport, Evergreen Parkway, Hilltop, Movies on TV, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, Progress Ridge, Studio One, Vancouver Plaza, Wilsonville.
TO CATCH A KILLER
** To say a movie about gun violence is timely is a troubling indictment of our perpetual “right now.” That reality is reflected in the English-language debut of Argentine filmmaker Damián Szifron (Wild Tales), who takes direct aim at America’s gun culture with unapologetically visceral depictions of senseless violence—while missing the mark by obsessing over the people who pull the trigger. The catalyst for the story begins during a Baltimore New Year’s celebration, as random gunshots begin cracking through the air, leaving several nameless victims dead. One of the first to respond is a young officer named Eleanor Falco (Shailene Woodley), who attempts to take charge of a chaotic situation in hopes of finding the culprit. FBI agent Geoffrey Lammark (the incomparable Ben Mendelsohn) sees something in Eleanor, recruiting her to the investigation. With so much focus on the chase, Szifron never taps into the emotional wreckage experienced by the victims, but Woodley and Mendelsohn successfully reveal the human beings behind the badges. There may be more procedural intrigue in an episode of To Catch a Predator, but taking aim at gun violence through the eyes of two compelling characters does create a dynamic worth watching, as long as you go in with low expectations. R. RAY GILL JR. Movies on TV.