Author: Corrina Lee

The outside world is always prying, straining its beady eyes to get a peek at our inner lives. It wants a public sacrifice of our most intimate secrets. It is never satisfied. Every morsel feeds an all-devouring hunger until there is nothing left unshared. In the film, A Fantastic Woman, Marina (Daniela Vega) feels this pressure more overtly than most. She is constantly subjected to questioning by people looking, searching for some undefinable thing that makes her wrong. But there is nothing to find. Marina is just another Chilean woman, working as a waitress by day and a singer by night. Yet, despite her best efforts, people refuse to accept her as she is because of her identity as a transgender woman. When her partner, Orlando (Francisco Reyes), dies suddenly, the gnawing everyday curiosity of others is given justification, a right to pry. Even as Marina grieves over the death of a loved one, she must endure constant questioning of the very nature of that love.

It is excruciating, to be pricked and prodded in the places where you have made yourself vulnerable. The film’s greatest success is translating this pain without ever becoming maudlin. Vega’s performance radiates the strength of a woman who has become accustomed to a world that is always seeking more information instead of understanding. She has adapted, but the sting is still there on her face, behind her eyes. Much of the film focuses on Vega’s face as she encounters various ignorant or openly antagonistic force. Each time, it becomes something newly expressive. During one conversation with Orlando’s ex-wife, Vega is outraged, grieving, smoothly impassive. She knows what the world needs to see. But in her moments alone, she is truly herself, even if only her dog is there to witness it.

The film may focus entirely on Marina’s day-to-day life, but by interweaving a melancholy surrealism, it also provides a welcome variation on the typical, staid drama. In these moments, the film becomes beautiful and mysterious. It does not bother to explain away any of these enigmas. Instead, they act as the visible expressions of emotion that Marina must bottle up in front of others. Director Sebastián Lelio gives the audience both the privilege and burden of watching Marina closely. Even in her most uncomfortable moments, the camera is aimed unswervingly at her. But there are scenes where the film floats above the daily humiliations that Marina must endure. Scenes where it becomes swirling color and ecstatic dance sequences.  Scenes of humanity even when one has been declared a monster.

A Fantastic Woman is an expertly made, character-driven film. With its single-minded focus, it could easily become monotone. But the inclusion of Vega allows the film to craft a fascinating story without a sensationalist plot. By the end, the constant yearning to know more has been eliminated, not through nosiness, but compassion. We know exactly who Marina is. And she is fantastic.

The Oscars may be over, but some of its awardees are still trickling into theaters. Hailing from Chile and the winner of Best Foreign Film, A Fantastic Woman has finally arrived in Ann Arbor. The film concerns the experiences of Marina (Daniela Vega), a transgender woman, after her lover dies suddenly.  Daniela Vega’s performance, especially, promises to bring something special to the film. She is one of few trans actresses being cast in a trans role. It will be fascinating to see if her closeness of experience will translate to the screen. All in all, A Fantastic Woman seems to be a thoroughly unique insight into one woman’s life. It is currently showing in the State Theater. Purchase tickets ($8 for students with ID), online at the Michigan Theater website or at the box office.

Adaptations come in all qualities. Some are blamed for adhering too closely to their source material, some for veering too far. Fortunately, A Wrinkle in Time had neither of these problems. Unfortunately, it was also not an entertaining or even comprehensible movie. It attempts rousing and achieves mild curiosity.

The character who must suffer through the brunt of the inspirational speeches is Meg (Storm Reid). Her father, a supposed scientist, disappeared four years ago, leaving Meg adrift in a sea of mean girls. The situation is portrayed so unrealistically though, that it is difficult to summon too much sympathy. No character seems to exhibit recognizable, human behavior. Meg’s classmates are cartoon bullies that have only ever existed in movies. Her brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe), is a precocious, all-knowing genius. When Meg’s classmate, Calvin (Levi Miller), joins the adventure, his sudden interest is swept away in a single line. This lack of any explanation occurs regularly, but never ceases to be frustrating. It is not just that the movie fails to explain its more obscure science fiction elements. These can be difficult to articulate even for more sophisticated films. Perhaps I do not need to know exactly how one travels through time and space. But the film also fails at the most basic levels: character and plot. The characters could be interesting, but the plot whisks them from point to point without any pause for development. Most of the time, Meg is not given enough information to grant her agency. It is hard to cheer for Mrs. Which (Oprah) when she urges Meg to be a warrior when we barely know what Meg is fighting against or how she can fight. Instead, the antagonist is ambiguously named ‘It’ and given no backstory. If that sounds familiar, it is because I am running out of ways to describe my frustration with this film. For a movie with a budget of 103 million dollars, there simply isn’t much there.

Perhaps more interesting is the conversation around the movie and what it represents. You cannot separate A Wrinkle in Time from the fact that it features a young black woman, directed by a black woman. The film is inherently empowering simply by existing. The context, thus, becomes inextricably tied to the film’s message. Ava DuVernay sets out to create a film as unique, as legitimizing of black womanhood. She doesn’t quite succeed. She is hampered by her own goal and overreaches. But it is history, itself, that forcers DuVernay’s hand. There has never been a movie like A Wrinkle in Time. Blockbuster movies with budgets over 100 million dollars are not handed over to black women. Until now. DuVernay stuffs her movie full of platitudes, but it is her chance to reach out to those young girls in the audience, her chance to influence the narrative. If the movie veers too much toward the falsely inspirational, it is because it tries to distill hundreds of years of self-care and female empowerment into two hours. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait another hundred for the next leap forward.

The beloved 1962 book, A Wrinkle in Time, finally comes to the big screen. Directed by Ava DuVernay, this is the second attempt at an adaptation, hopefully more successful than the 2003 television film. This version features newcomer Storm Reid as Meg Murry. Meg sets out on an interdimensional adventure with her little brother, Charles Wallace (Deric McCabe) and her classmate Calvin (Levi Miller) to find her father. The journey promises to be fantastical, beautiful, and dangerous. Another interesting aspect of the movie is its star power.  Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, and Mindy Kahling all have roles as Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit, and Mrs. Who, respectively. A Wrinkle in Time is currently showing at the State Theater. Purchase tickets ($8 for students with ID), online at the Michigan Theater website or at the box office.

We are fascinated by murder. We parse through the grisly details, not with glee, but with a relentless, morbid curiosity. Most of all, we are captivated by the murderer, the unnatural being who has deviated outside moral boundaries. Perhaps it is the rebellious nature of murder and the assertion of independence from seemingly binding rules that is so fascinating.

If so, there are no characters more appropriate than the teenage girls at the center of Thoroughbreds. Lily (Anya Taylor-Joy) and Amanda (Olivia Cooke) are entirely products of their upper-class breeding. They are perfectly groomed, perfectly behaved. They are calm, cool, and confident. They are beautiful, shiny exteriors; cracked into a thousand pieces underneath. Amanda confesses to feeling nothing. Lily despises her step-father. Together, they plan a murder. It is a simple enough premise, made interesting because of the characters. These are two girls that are fundamentally broken, but well-trained enough to hide it. This leaves the audience constantly guessing at their motivations and questioning any display of emotion. The film takes advantage of the eagerness to psychoanalyze and constantly toys with curiosity, offering one motive after another. It is a conceit that is at once intriguing and completely maddening because it allows the movie to get away without making its meaning clear. Instead, the film pursues multiple tracks, switching personalities as easily as the sociopaths it concerns. Thoroughbreds wants to be a character study, a critique of the rich, and a crime movie at the same time. It never succeeds entirely in any of these attempts, but the resulting combination is perhaps unsettling enough to leave a lasting impression.

An uneasiness permeates the film even as the camera cruises through opulent mansions and well-tended lawns. The over-the-top richness of the setting lends to the discomfiting feeling. Watching Lily and Amanda treat these luxuries for granted separates them and the situation even further from reality. It certainly leads to some good laughs, especially with the constantly present and entirely ambivalent staff at the mansion. However, in doing so, the film also becomes less consequential and more fantastical. The bizarre elements become more problematic when the character of Tim (Anton Yelchin) enters the movie. In contrast to the two girls, Tim is a drug dealer, a man desperate for money thrust into a world beyond his wildest dreams. He is proof that the there is another reality besides the insular world of the ridiculously rich. But the film cannot deign to fully explore what Tim represents. Instead, he is another prop for the girls to play with and discard. Perhaps, this too, is a choice to display the carelessness and abuse of the rich. It is just not a very complex or interesting one. The film wants to confront us with the damages, to question the systematic pursuit of money. However, it is so deeply embedded in the mindsets of those born to privilege that it only challenges these topics superficially.

More intriguing, is the relationship between Lily and Amanda which succeeds because it does not attempt to tackle the thorny issue of class. Instead, it relies entirely on the deadpan charisma of Cooke and the enigmatic talents of Taylor-Joy.  They have a natural rapport as they warily dance around each other. Cooke expands upon what could be a one-note role in the wrong hands. Taylor-Joy does equally good work by letting Lily’s moments of emotion surface through layers of repression. It is these two performances that give the film its twisted charm. Thoroughbreds’ greatest flaw is also its greatest strength. By refusing to elaborate on the details, it allows the audience to construct its own murder narrative. But it also doesn’t say much.