Category: Scoot McNairy

NIGHTBITCH (2024)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: Marielle Heller
CAST: Amy Adams, Scoot McNairy, Jessica Harper
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 59%

PLOT: A woman pauses her career as an artist to be a stay-at-home mom, but her domesticity takes a surreal turn.


[SPOILER ALERT…if you plan on seeing Nightbitch, avoid this review.  This movie, like most movies, works best on the viewer if they have no idea what’s happening or what’s about to happen.  Consider yourself Spoiler-warned.]

Nightbitch shoots out of the starting gate like a thoroughbred – or a greyhound, if you will – but about halfway through, it runs out of narrative steam.  I felt like a gambler watching a horse race, watching my horse lead the pack around the first turn, already spending the winnings in my head, and then my horse fades a bit, then a bit more, and by the time we get to the finish line, I’m tearing up my ticket in frustration.  I needed a WIN, not a PLACE.  There goes my trifecta.

Amy Adams plays an unnamed Mother who has put her promising career as an artist on pause to be a stay-at-home mom while her also-unnamed Husband (Scoot McNairy) pursues his career as a…um…well, whatever it is, he has to travel a lot, leaving Mother at home with, you guessed it, Son (played by adorable twins Arleigh and Emmett Snowden).  Referred to throughout the movie as “my guy” and “sport” and “little buddy,” Son is a typical toddler in the throes of the terrible twos: cute for long stretches, maddeningly frustrating for longer stretches.  [Ed. Note: the author is not a father, has no plans on becoming a father, and will never possess the immense dedication it takes to rear a child, so don’t expect him to embrace the chaos of toddler-hood because it ain’t gonna happen.]

Mother is going through an identity crisis, set up in a brilliant opening scene where Sally, the woman who assumed Mother’s job at an art gallery, asks her, “Do you just love getting to be home with him [Son] all the time?”  Mother answers the question with a little more honesty than Sally or anyone had a right to expect, including this tidbit: “I am deeply afraid that I am never going to be smart, or happy, or thin ever again.”  I am a straight Hispanic cisgender male, so I’m here to tell you, I will never understand that mindset, but I am reasonably certain there are untold millions of moms out there who, if they listened to Mother’s opening statement, would say, “AMEN, sister.”

A little later, Mother delivers an internal monologue where she reflects that, as a mother, you can squeeze someone into the world “who will one day pee in your face without blinking.”  Again, I’m not a parent, but I know that’s truth in cinema right there.

After a few more establishing scenes of Mother interacting with Son, who absolutely REFUSES to go to sleep at night or eat anything for breakfast except, apparently, hash brown patties fried in butter, some odd things start to happen.  At the playground, some stray (?) dogs approach her as if she’s their best friend.  Mother notices her sense of smell has become much more acute.  Son helpfully points out that her back is hairy.  And, in a creepy Cronenberg-y moment, she notices a lump growing at the base of her spine just above her rump.  Curiosity gets the best of her.  She heats a needle, lances the lump, and…well, if you remember the title of the film, you have an idea of what pops out of that lump.

This was all wonderfully thrilling stuff as a movie lover.  I’m thinking, “My god, this is a Spike Jonze movie told from a woman’s perspective!  I’ve never seen anything like this!  This is gonna be GREAT!”  Mother starts to enjoy eating a lot of meat.  She starts to play “doggie” with Son, growling and barking at each other like two puppies.  The two of them eat their lunch at a deli with no silverware…or hands, to the consternation of other diners.  Son doesn’t sleep at night, so Mother, in a genius parenting move, buys a dog bed and gets Son to play “doggie” and sleep in the dog bed at night.  Presto, problem solved!

And more and more dogs start showing up at her door, at night, sometimes bringing gifts: small dead animals.  One night she walks outside, starts digging around, and an astonishing transformation takes place…

I know, I know, SPOILERS, I get it.  But it’s important to get across just how brilliantly original the first act of the film is, because the second act is, alas, all downhill.  I am not saying that the film’s message is unimportant, not at all.  I admire the film because of its message, and because it was being delivered in such an original way.  But then we get into conflict with Husband, who is desperately trying to understand why their 2-year-old is now sleeping in a dog bed on the floor, or why their cat suddenly turned up dead on the front porch, or why his wife suddenly wants a separation.  It must be said, Nightbitch is remarkably even-handed with the Husband’s dialogue.  He is not reduced to a 2-dimensional sitcom husband.  When she lays into him for not supporting her career, he fires back with a well-reasoned argument.  Their dialogue could be turned into a first-rate play.

But instead of exploring the surreal nature of Mother’s new condition, the movie settles into soap-opera territory, with only the occasional nod to the mystical incidents in the first act.  I distinctly remember, in the middle of the second act, feeling as if a balloon had deflated in the plot.  I imagine defenders of the film might say, “Well, the second act is where the weird stuff has to take a back seat to deal with the real issues at hand.”  Okay, maybe that’s true from a real-world perspective, but to me, it felt as if the filmmakers were on the verge of showing us something mindboggling, then backed away from the precipice at the last minute.

Does that make me guilty of critiquing a movie for what I wanted as opposed to what I got?  I guess it does, as much as I dislike that tendency in myself.  I feel there are so many different ways the movie could have gone in act two, could have leapt gleefully over the edge of convention and truly broken the mold with this movie.  When it became clear what they were doing instead, my elation evaporated.

I give Nightbitch a generally favorable score, though, based on the mad inventiveness of the first act and the plot in broad strokes, and also on the incredibly brave performance from Amy Adams, who maybe has two scenes in the entire film where she seems to be wearing any makeup.  She also appears to have to put on some weight for the role, which is not something I can ever recall seeing a female actor do.  Male actors have turned that kind of thing into a cottage industry, but when was the last time you saw a woman do it?  That took guts.  Watch Nightbitch for Amy Adams’ performance and for the story, even if the movie doesn’t follow its own plot to a satisfying conclusion.

A COMPLETE UNKNOWN

By Marc S. Sanders

A drifter hitches a ride into New York City with a guitar on his back looking for Woody Guthrie.  He only comes to realize that his musical idol is in a New Jersey hospital ward with a debilitating illness. The drifter just came from Jersey.

The young stranger eventually catches up with the legendary folk singer, and a friend named Pete Seegar.  He plays a song he wrote for the ill and mute Mr. Guthrie and the men are dazzled by this young man.  This is Bob Dylan, and he writes music and lyrics as quickly as he breathes.  But where did this wunderkind stem from?  To everyone that encounters Bob Dylan, he’s simply A Complete Unknown.

Timothée Chalamet delivers a blazingly convincing performance as Bob Dylan, surely a front runner for the Best Actor Oscar.  The appearance is easy to get used to. The dialect and expressions of what I’d like to think is the summit of what most of us know about the musician never falters from an apathetic expression or that mumbling hoarseness we all know.  Everything from the clothes to the shaggy brown hair to the sunglasses and motorcycle he confidently rides perfect this embodiment. In James Mangold’s latest musician biography (prior credits include the Johnny Cash bio Walk The Line), with Timothée Chalamet in this role, I was truly watching a Bob Dylan of the early to mid-1960’s.

Any movie has a conflict for its story to work around.  There’s more than one conflict in A Complete Unknown, but Bob Dylan would not know that.  He’s content with doing what he does and has not one care for what anyone else wants him to be or wants him to share.  Bob lacks much concern for the tumultuous times of the mid twentieth century either.  JFK and Malcolm X are assassinated.  The Vietnam War persists.  The Cuban Missile Crisis terrifies everyone.  Yet, Bob only focuses on his songwriting.  He’ll make connections with Pete Seegar (Edward Norton) and develop a sometimes-romantic tryst but mostly singing partnership with Joan Baez (Monica Barbaro).  He also gets involved with Sylvie Russo (Elle Fanning), one of his first fans.  However, no matter what they might expect of the performer, he’s only going to follow the path that drives him.  Therefore, that will be their own respective problems to contend with, not his.  Bob is only going to follow that path that he chooses.

Sylvie wants to know more about her live-in boyfriend who only tells tales of when he moved with a travelling carnival.  Joan wants to know where he learned to play guitar or even how he developed a knack for poetic lyricism.  Later, she’ll want to play the original numbers that solidified their friendship on stage despite his stubbornness not to agree.  It becomes curious when photo albums are delivered, addressed to a Robert Zimmerman.  Pete and his other peers want Bob, a now marquee name, to hold on to the grassroots of folk singing.  Bob will not acquiesce though.  Like other masterful musicians such as Prince or John Lennon and Elton John, Bob Dylan is going to continue to reinvent himself. 

In a matter of months, the signer becomes a nationwide superstar and he can’t walk the streets without getting bombarded; something he never wanted.  He performs with a passion for the music he’s written and he persists in making the next new thing with his talents as he transitions from acoustic to electric guitar and incorporates keyboards and drums to accompany his performances.  His friend Pete sees a berth becoming wider from the folk music he parades at annual festivals in Newport, Rhode Island and what Dylan insists on only playing.  Record producers (primarily represented by actor Dan Fogler) beg the singer to perform his older familiar tracks, but Bob Dylan only wants to move on to what is new and fresh. 

A Complete Unknown is full of such energy because it delivers what was produced by the guy who composed all of these magnificent and magnetic tracks from Song To Woodie to Blowin’ In The Wind to Like A Rolling Stone and to The Time’s They Are A Changing and A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.  You might not know or even understand all the verses by heart, but you quickly catch on to the choruses. To hear these newly composed songs pulled out of a dusty attic for an updated biography, performed by Timothée Chalamet in underground bars, at concert festivals or even in messy apartments is addicting.  You don’t want the actor to stop the song.  You don’t want the film to cut away from any of the numbers and you wish the concert would never end.  Like Joan Baez, Bob Dylan’s works stay with you.

I’ve become a huge admirer of James Mangold.  He’s a writer/director who does not criticize his subjects.  He empathizes with them and respects their boundaries.  We might find frustrations in people like Bob Dylan or Johnny Cash, but Mangold does not compromise the biography.  He finds reasons for you to like these men even while those who stand in their circles might not care for their attitudes. 

The director is also skillful at showing the history of the time.  Like the last Indiana Jones film he covered, the settings are so authentic.  New York City in A Complete Unknown is depicted down to the finest detail including the yellow street signs within the small boroughs of damp Brownstones and city streets that Bob Dylan navigates. The musty interiors of Woody Guthrie’s hospital room or Pete Seegar’s cabin home are shot with a hazy photography.  The Newport music festival, full of concert spectator extras feels like it was pulled from a documentary; what maybe a calm and relaxing Woodstock might have looked like.

Beyond Timothée Chalamet, the cast of this film is superb.  Elle Fanning need not say a word as James Mangold provides an assortment of close ups depicting her pain of wanting to love Bob Dylan but knowing she just can’t.  Her complexion turns into a weeping pink without one tear shed.  Monica Barbaro is on the cusp of becoming a marquee name in films.  The actress who was recently in action material with Tom Cruise and Arnold Schwarzenegger hides so well under the folk appearance of Joan Baez and she carries an immense stage presence. Scoot McNairy is Woody Guthrie who never speaks and only stares straight ahead during visits from Bob and Pete. Yet, the silent performance offers the only character who truly understood the value of an enigmatic Bob Dylan. Edward Norton has given a new range as a liberal and calm Pete Seegar who uses folk music as an escape from the turmoil of the times and not as a harbor to protest or fight an authority with aggression and violence.  He might wish for his friend Bob Dylan to uphold the value of folk music, but he knows he can’t keep a bird caged in one place either.  Norton’s introductory scene in a courthouse with a banjo in hand is unforgettable.  The casting is simply perfect in A Complete Unknown.

Since I saw this film on Christmas Day, I have not stopped thinking about it, and I think I want to see it again in a theater with a speaker system that amplifies the power of Bob Dylan’s guitar and mumbly vocals.  Right now, nothing sounds better.

A Complete Unknown is one of the best films of the year.

KILLING THEM SOFTLY

By Marc S. Sanders

What did I just watch? A mob movie, or a 2008 Presidential debate where the candidates are no shows, and their respective commercials are aired in their place? Andrew Dominik directs Killing Them Softly, with Brad Pitt who also produces.

Reader, I don’t get the appeal. Maybe it’s the outstanding cast which includes Pitt, as well as James Gandolfini, Ben Mehndelson, Richard Jenkins, Scoot McNairy and Ray Liotta. Sadly, these guys are given next to nothing do of any consequence.

After it is revealed that Liotta’s character, Marky, ripped off his own mob poker game a few years back, an idea is presented to two street addicts played McNairy & Mendehelson to do the same thing because, heck, they’d never be suspected and logic dictates that Liotta must have done it again. So, he’ll be the one to blame and get whacked. The game is robbed and now Brad Pitt’s hitman character is on the job. Simple enough story, almost like a Guy Ritchie picture.

Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of a 1974 novel by George V Higgins. I never read the book, but I’m curious if it contains any kind of relation to Andrew Dominik’s idea of editing recurring speeches and ads, compliments of Obama, McCain and Bush 45. Truly, what was the point of this recurring theme? A two-sentence piece of dialogue finally acknowledges this in the final minute of the film, but I’m still lost on the significance. Somehow Dominik made a dirty, cold, rain-soaked picture that has an omnipotent viewpoint from our most prominent politicians, and I don’t know what one thing has to do with another.

As well, Gandolfini arrives in the story and I never could gather what was his purpose. I think he is a hitman who is washed up, never getting his ass up to carry out the job and just monologues about nothing like the hooker he pays off; topics that Quentin Tarantino might’ve thrown in the editing trash bin.

Mendelsohn looks incredibly convincing as an addict living off the streets, yet his storyline has no end. He’s arrested. Then what happens? What does that mean for everyone else? Liotta has a long drawn out sequence of getting the shit kicked out of him by two mob foot soldiers. The scene goes on and on and on. His face cracks and bleeds, and bleeds some more. Brad Pitt? Well, he’s the hitman who just looks cool. Yeah, the black leather jacket he wears looks very cool on him. That’s about it.

There’s no development to Killing Them Softly. No surprise or twist. The guys you expect to get killed, get killed, and there’s no good dialogue.

This film is just an empty void of poorly, uninteresting violence.

BATMAN V. SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE

By Marc S. Sanders

Zack Snyder may have been indulging in too many cookies from the jar when he made Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice.  I can not deny how ambitious this film is, but did it ever need to be this ambitious?  There are too many storylines, too many characters, and not enough thought provoking dialogue to really make any sense of the gobblety gook that’s splattered all over the screen.

Reader, my favorite super hero of all time is Batman.  Nearly any variation of Batman (including moments from the dreadful Joel Schumacher films) contains an element that I just love about the character.  Ben Affleck is cast as The Dark Knight here.  He’s fine in the role.  I knew since he had done Daredevil, that he could pull off this part.  He might be too long in the tooth, and too busy an actor/director, for a new series of super hero films, but I digress.  That being said, the movies have gone into overkill on the Batman character.  It’s time the Gotham crusader hide in his cave for a little while and let some of the other super heroes out to play.  Snyder’s film proves my theory.  After all, the true highlight is neither title character in this movie.  

Actually Wonder Woman (Gal Godot) making her big screen debut is the draw above anything else here.  Even that is problematic, though.  I’ve seen this film twice now.  Can anyone tell me why Wonder Woman aka Diana Prince even makes an appearance in this film?  From a story perspective, what justifies Diana creeping into this film, other than to plaster her picture on DVD covers and merchandise a new action figure?

Events begin right after Snyder’s stellar Superman film, Man Of Steel.  An older and experienced Bruce Wayne is dubious of the benefits that Superman (Henry Cavill) can serve on Earth.  After all, his bout with the Krypton villain, General Zod, practically leveled Metropolis.  Heaven forbid if one day this powerful alien with the red cape goes out of control.  Bruce, as well as politicians led by Holly Hunter, ask a wise question.  Who on earth could ever stop him?  So Bruce, with assistance from Alfred (Jeremy Irons playing the well known sidekick more as a strategist, than a polite butler) begin preparing for a seemingly inevitable battle to eliminate the Kryptonian. 

Meanwhile, a young, brainy Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) is planning for his own undoing of both of these super heroes by living up to the film’s title; pitting the Bat of Gotham against the God of Metropolis; mano y mano.  Like most iterations, Luthor plays with defying the odds of nature.  In this case, he is experimenting with a green element sourced from Krypton which we all know is Kryptonite, as well as extracting blood from the corpse of Zod to create his own monster movie.  That last part feels like a side gig for the supposedly genius villain.

In addition, a mysteriously exotic and beautiful woman is turning up on various occasions.  Somehow, only Bruce seems to take notice of her.  Why?  I don’t know.  There’s really no purpose for him to scope out this person amid a sea of other extras attending a Luthor gala. 

There’s also Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane).  There’s a retread of Bruce Wayne’s origin story that we’ve seen countless times before.  There’s a bitter and disabled former employee of Wayne Enterprises.  There’s a dream sequence showing vague plague like foreshadowing to come.  There’s an arms dealer/terrorist sequence in the desert for Lois to investigate, and another figure for Bruce to track.  There’s the eventual gladiator battle between the two heroes, and then there’s another battle thereafter for the two guys to team up with the the woman who carries a magic lasso to defeat a Doomsday monster; likely rejected sketches from the Harry Potter and Star Wars franchises.  Oh yeah.  There’s also some teaser material for what’s yet to come in the DC cinematic universe.

Do you see where I am going with all of this?  There’s just too much stuff here.  Eventually it all gets tedious.  A laundry list of storylines with little to no connection with one another feels burdensome.  I wish the screenwriters, Chris Terrio and David S Goyer, finished writing a script before starting another script.  As lengthy as all of these stories feel, they also seem unfinished, and, I can’t understand why.  

Forgive me.  It’s easy to compare the DC Comics film adaptations to the Marvel Comics films that Disney now owns.  The latter franchise seems well structured and outlined.  The former franchise helmed by Snyder seems rushed to catch up to everything that Marvel has already accomplished.  If the intent was to have a huge franchise of films, then why smash all of your material together in one sitting?

That gets back to my viewpoint on Batman.  Why Batman, all over again?  Snyder and the producers really aced it with the casting of Gal Godot.  She is Wonder Woman.  Snyder also struck gold on Man Of Steel with Cavill as Superman.  I wanted more exploration of that guy.  So why make this a Superman and Batman film?  We’ve seen enough Batman through the last thirty years.  Let’s give someone else a chance.  Much could have been accomplished had this installment been a Superman and Wonder Woman team up with maybe a teaser ending of a new Batman yet to come.  This Batman shows me nothing I hadn’t already seen.  There’s a new car and gadgets and cables to swing from.  It’s all been done before.  Lemme see some of what this Wonder Woman can do.  As well, if Wonder Woman is here, then tell me why she is here.  Again, she just comes out of nowhere and never explains why she’s there.  My wife and daughter tried to explain it to me.  Apparently, she wants to acquire a photograph of her with her war comrades from the first World War, and Lex Luthor is in possession of it.  Really?  That’s it?  She just needs to get a sentimental photograph back?  By the way, why does Lex have this photo, and how did she know he has it anyway?

Good stories always answer questions with more questions until it’s eventually tied off at the end.  Moments in Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice seem to begin in the middle of their stories with questions that did not answer questions that likely came before, and by the end of the picture, there’s no ending or answers in sight.

I had already reviewed Wonder Woman, and in that column I specifically noted that DC films with Warner Bros always seems to come close, but never gets it completely right.  This film boasts an impressive cast, and all are good in their respective roles.  My approach to this Lex Luthor from Eisenberg might have been different if I were in charge; make him more like a Steve Jobs kinda guy rather than a slight variation of the actor’s other famous role as Mark Zuckerberg.  Still, it’s not good enough and it’s hardly forgivable for what the filmmakers churned out with this picture.  The writers have an infinite wealth of source material to select from.  Pick up a comic book, guys!!!!  They have the funds and opportunity to divide up the best moments of these outstanding characters for the next ten years of film installments.  Nevertheless, they don’t take the time to think strategically, and flesh out the environments and the characters that inhabit these settings.  

Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice is just a sloppy mountain of peas, carrots, corn and green beans, with lumpy mashed potatoes and covered in lots of over seasoned gravy.