OUR FRIEND: 3 ½ STARS Magazines may be becoming an artifact of the past, but Hollywood still looks to them for inspiration. In the last few years a half dozen movies found inspiration in the pages of Esquire, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker, including The Friend, a new drama starring Dakota Johnson, Casey Affleck and Jason Segel and now playing in theatres and on-demand. Based on Matthew Teague s Esquire article The Friend: Love Is Not a Big Enough Word, the film uses a broken timeline, jumping back-and-forth to tell the true story of Teague s terminally ill wife Nicole and their friend-turned-nursemaid Dane. Affleck is Matt, a war correspondent with an attitude. It s Friday, says his editor, I ve been tired of you since Wednesday. He s an up-and-comer, married to Nicole, a talented musical theatre performer played by Johnson. Her best pal at the theatre is Dane (Segel) a sad sack who can t seem to get a girlfriend. It s not fair, she says. I m the only woman
1/22/2021
A lovesick brain surgeon questions her grasp on reality in Hungarian director Lili Horvat s cryptic Oscar contender.
A cerebral mystery thriller told by an unreliable narrator in a fugue of emotional dislocation, writer-director Lili Horvat s
Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time puts a lightly feminist spin on classic screen tropes about hysterical wronged women driven by romantic obsession and fatal attraction. Selected as Hungary s official submission to the Academy Awards, this haunting slow-burn psychodrama is superbly acted and quietly gripping, despite some minor plot wobbles and that cumbersome title, which Horvat borrowed from an early 1970s underground theater play. Premiered to politely positive reviews in Venice and Toronto last year, the film launches digitally in the U.S. this Friday, Jan 22.