Butler's Cinema Scene

Amy Adams

“NIGHTBITCH” My rating: B- (In theaters)

99 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Kafka meets “Diary of a Mad Housewife” in “Nightbitch,” with Amy Adams starring as a frustrated stay-at-home mom convinced she’s turning into a dog.

Writer/director Marielle Heller’s female empowerment  saga is half comedy, half serious.  

Adams’ Mother (we never get her name) once had a career as an artist. But she gave it up to get married to a nice guy (Scoot McNairy) who’s away on business four nights a week, leaving her to deal with their four-year-old son (played by twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden, who are weirdly reminiscent of Cary Guffey in “Close Encounters…”).

She’s slowly going nuts. Weirder still, Mother starts growing a tail and multiple nipples.  Neighborhood pooches leave piles of dead wild animals on her front porch…evidently as tribute. She develops a taste for raw meat and sex in the, well, you know…doggie position. Eventually she becomes (or imagines she becomes) a beautiful red Huskie running freely through the night.

Adams is terrific as a burned out woman rapidly going to seed.  But “Nightbitch” feels less like a feature than a one-hour episode of “Twilight Zone” or some other dark fantasy. At 129 minutes it spends much of its time repeating itself.

Andrew Garfield, Florence Pugh

“WE LIVE IN TIME” My rating: B (Apple rental)

108 minutes |  MPAA rating: R

Given its subject matter, “We Live In Time” might easily have been a by-the-numbers romantic weeper, a standard-issue  Lifetime Original.

It transcends those limitations thanks to a couple of super lead performances from Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh), sensitive direction from John Crowley (“Brooklyn”) and a screenplay by Nick Payne that embraces a time shifting narrative that keeps us invested and guessing.

The film follows the courtship and marriage of Tobias, (Garfield), who has a job in online marketing, and Almut (Pugh), a chef with her own London restaurant.  They will marry, have a child, and deal with Almut’s struggles with cancer.

But none of this is straightforward.   We’re always jumping jumps back and forth in time.  We eventually figure out where we are in the continuum through little tells.

For instance: Are Tobias and Almut living in the country or in the city? In any given scene are they dinks (double income, no kids), or has their precious bundle arrived? (This film offers the most unforgettable childbirth scene in movie history.) Almut’s hair is a big tell…is it long and flowing or cropped chemo-style?

Throughout Garfield and Pugh ignore the narrative sleight of hand and concentrate on giving deep, fully-rounded performances.  

“We Live in Time” could have been no more than a cinematic gimmick.  Give it a chance and it will move you.

“LOOK INTO MY EYES” My rating: B (Prime rental)

105 minutes | MPAA rating: R

Psychics.

Are they for real? Con artists?  Are they and their clientele awash in self-deception?

Those are the questions you’d expect of a documentary about a handful of NYC psychics plying their trade — questions Lana Wilson’s “Look Into My Eyes” utterly ignores.

This cinema verite effort (no exposition, no narration, no explanatory graphics) mostly records sessions between the psychics and their customers. 

 If there’s manipulation and flimflam going on here, it’s not obvious. The psychics are humble and empathetic (yeah, it could be a performance). Most have an uncanny knack for zeroing in on whatever loss or trauma the client hopes to address.

Sometimes there are obvious emotional connections with attendant moist-eyed moments.

Wilson’s camera also follows some of the psychics in their off-time. Curiously, most of them appear to be in some way damaged or struggling.  One fellow is an obvious hoarder (and hopeful musical theater performer); most seem to have come become psychics by accident. They simply realized that something extraordinary was happening to them.

:”Look into My Eyes” won’t convince anyone of anything.  But the film does suggest that psychic readings may provide emotional benefits for both parties, irregardless of any paranormal implications. 

Maybe we’re looking at it all wrong.  It’s therapy.

Daisy Ridley

“YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA” My rating: C (Disney+)

129 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Despite its timely feminist message and impressive production values, “Young Woman and the Sea” is a very old-fashioned movie. It feels like one of those TV bio-pics produced by Disney in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Narratively forced, psychologically shallow, aggressively inspirational.

Daisy Ridley stars as Trudy Ederle, who in the 1920s overcame rampant chauvinism in the sports world to become the first woman to swim the English Channel.  Think of it as “Nyad — Junior Division.”

Ridley is surrounded here by some solid “name” players.  Christopher Eccleston appears as her first coach, a creep who actively sabotages her first attempt.  The seemingly inescapable Stephen Graham (he’s been in six films or TV series this year) plays a bearded fellow channel swimmer who takes our girl on as a protege.

Kim Bodnia does as nice job as Trudy’s German-American father, who reluctantly gets sucked into her quest; Jeanette Hain is the Missus and Tilda Cobham-Hervey is Trudy’s ever-supportive sister.

The biggest issue here is Ridley’s performance.  Aside from a determination to succeed, there’s not a whole lot of interesting angles to Trudy’s personality. She’s essentially colorless — at least until she gets in the water.

| Robert W. Butler