Harper Steele, Will Ferrell
“WILL & HARPER” My rating: B+ (Netflix)
114 minutes | MPAA rating: R
“Will & Harper” is both a hugely emotional paen to friendship and a sobering/reassuring look at grassroots America.
It’ll have you sobbing one minute, furious the next.
The Will of the title is Will Ferrell, famous comic actor. Harper is the former Andrew Steele, a long-time writer for “Saturday Night Live” who at age 61 decided to transition.
At the outset of Josh Greenbaum’s documentary, Ferrell recalls getting an email from Steele announcing her new status as a woman. Farrell never saw it coming.
But Will Ferrell is a very good friend. Knowing that as a man Harper had often driven across America, hanging out in seedy motels and nefarious watering holes, Ferrell suggested the two buds take a road trip.
It would give them plenty of time to explore their new relationship while seeing how, if at all, Harper would be accepted by the everyday folk being bombarded with anti-trans propaganda.
There’s good news and bad news. At an Oklahoma road house Harper is serenaded by a group of Native American men who employ a plastic tub as a tom tom to chant a welcoming song. Awwww.
The next day, in Texas, the two travelers take center stage at a crowded highway restaurant. Clearly, the local folk are impressed at having a celeb in their midst, but many fire off a slew of cruel anti-trans tweets aimed at the comic’s companion.
But perhaps the most devastating part of the journey is hearing Harper speak of the many years in which she fought against recognizing her true sexual identity. It’s sad and inspiring.
Which is not to say that “Will & Harper” is a downer. Ferrell and Steele have earned their livings by making other people laugh, and their banter has plenty of drollery sprinkled among the truth nuggets.
I believe I’m a better person for having watched it.
Brad Pitt, George Clooney
“WOLFS” My rating: B (Apple+)
108 minutes | MPAA rating: R
It really doesn’t go anywhere, but you’ve gotta enjoy the ride provided by “Wolfs,” a lean, funny crime dramedy fueled by Tarantino-esque banter.
The premise of writer/director Jon Watts’ film: Two mob cleaners (they are hired to discreetly remove evidence — like dead bodies — after violent encounters) find themselves working on the same assignment.
It must be a mistake because these unnamed dudes (played by George Clooney and Brad Pitt) always work alone and are fiercely protective of their trade secrets. (They’re “lone wolfs.”)
Nevertheless, here they both are in an expensive hotel room to remove the body of a young man who, while cavorting with an older woman (Amy Ryan), bounced off the bed and into a glass coffee table.
These wolfs don’t play well with each other. The older one (Clooney) is a brooding grump. The younger (Pitt) is a cocky wise ass.
Oil and water.
And then there’s the vinegar. (Here comes a spoiler but I don’t know how to avoid it.)
That would be “the kid” (Austin Abrams), the supposedly dead body that returns to life mid-disposal. He’s a goofy college student who got picked up by the cougar while running an errand for a friend…an errand that involves a backpack full of drugs.
Now the two fixers and the kid are trying to return the illegal pharmaceuticals to their criminal owners without getting killed.
But not before an awesome chase through NYC with the two wolfs pursuing the whacked-out kid, who is racing gazelle-like through a snowstorm in his tidy whities.
Remember Nicolas Cage’s quest for baby diapers in “Raising Arizona”? It’s that good.
The thorny plot twists of “Wolfs” may not stand up to close scrutiny, but viewer doubts probably won’t kick in until after the final credits. For the most part the flick is just plain fun.
Natasha Lyonne, Elizabeth Olsen, Carrie Coon
“HIS THREE DAUGHTERS” My rating: B+ (Netflix)
101 minutes | MPAA rating: R
Getting married. Having a kid. Losing a parent.
These are three of the most impactful experiences in a human life. Azazel Jacobs’ “His Three Daughters” examines the third event through a pressure-cooker environment and three astonishing performances.
The daughters are Katie (Carrie Coon), Rachel (Natasha Lyonne) and Christina (Elizabeth Olsen). The siblings have gathered in the New York apartment of their father, who lies dying in his bedroom (we won’t actually see him until the final moments of the film).
Though all were raised by the same single dad, the women have radically different personalities.
Katie, the oldest, is a brittle, opinionated woman who tries to come off as helpful but actually is merely bossy. Katie has rarely visited her father in recent months but now wants to dictate how this whole business of dying will unfold. The problem, of course, is that death doesn’t operate on a convenient schedule.
Christina has a husband and young daughter back in Ohio. She’s painfully insecure, always sharing appallingly sappy phone calls with her kid and shying away from argument and controversy.
Rachel is the family bohemian. She’s been living with her father for years, taking care of him in his decline. She appears not to have a real job and frequently lets off steam with a joint or two, both life choices that infuriate the judgmental Katie.
“…Sisters” unfolds almost entirely in the living room and kitchen of the apartment, creating a claustrophobic intensity that magnifies the points of conflict among the women.
Every few hours a hospice worker (Rudy Galvan) checks in; at one point Rachel’s boyfriend (Jovan Adepo) shows up to give her a bit of moral support and to unload on Katie and Christina, whom he (rightly) believes have shirked their familial responsibilities while Rachel got stuck with the role of caregiver.
“His Three Daughters” could quite easily have been conceived as a stage play rather than a film. The dialogue is tight and polished and wastes little time in exposing the character’s conflicted essences. Sometimes it sounds a bit artificial and forced, but any misgivings are quiickly dispersed by the power and subtlety of the performances.
Most of the film is brutally realistic. But in the final moments, when we finally meet the women’s father (Jay O. Sanders), it becomes borderline metaphysical. I can’t say more without ruining the effect…let’s just say that despite often rubbing our noses in dysfunction, “His Three Daughters” leaves us with a whiff of hope.
| Robert W. Butler
Butler's Cinema Scene 