We Bury the Dead

I am a big fan of Daisy Ridley so I was excited to see her new movie We Bury the Dead last night.  While it does have some unsettling sequences involving zombies, I really liked the exploration of grief and things left unresolved when a loved one dies.  After a catastrophic military experiment conducted by the U.S. leaves the entire population of Tasmania dead in an instant, volunteers are needed to help retrieve and bury all of the dead bodies.  There are rumors that some of the dead are waking up so Ava (Ridley) volunteers hoping to find her husband Mitch (Matt Whelan), who was on a work retreat at a resort on the southern tip of the island, because they parted on bad terms.  She enlists the help of Clay (Brenton Thwaites), another member of the body retrieval team, and has a sinister encounter with Riley (Mark Coles Smith), an officer in the Australian Army, as she makes the dangerous journey to the resort while flashbacks detail her deteriorating relationship with Mitch.  She eventually finds Mitch's body but realizes that she must make peace with herself rather than with him.  This is a new and interesting take on the zombie genre because the ones who wake up are those who have unfinished business and I especially loved a scene in which a father wakes up in order to bury his family.  It is a meditative character study rather than an action thriller but the design of the zombies is incredibly unnerving, especially the disconcerting sounds they make as they become reanimated, and there are some tense moments when Ava encounters several of the zombies (as well as some moving moments with a few of them).  Ridley gives a haunting performance (she is often the only one on screen) because she is able to effectively convey so many different emotions with just a nuanced change in expression.  There are a few odd tonal shifts throughout but I enjoyed this and definitely recommend seeking it out (it seems to be flying under the radar because I could only find one theater screening it near me).

Note:  It seems like all of the best post-apocalyptic movies are set in Australia (especially the Mad Max franchise).

Marty Supreme

There has been so much hype for Marty Supreme but I did not share everyone's enthusiasm for it.  I reluctantly agreed to see it last night at the Broadway with my nephew (who did share everyone's enthusiasm) and I was very surprised by how much I liked it.  Marty Mauser (Timothee Chalamet) is a fast-talking hustler who wants to be the world's best table tennis player even though the U.S. does not support the sport and he must resort to performing half-time shows for the Harlem Globetrotters with the reigning champion Bela Kletzki (Geza Rohrig).  He finds a way to get to a competition in London where he easily defeats Bela but is humiliated by Koto Endo (Koto Kawaguchi), a player from Japan, in the finals and incurs a fine from the International Table Tennis Association for running up a bill at the Ritz Hotel.  Back home, he is desperate to get the money to pay his fine and get to Tokyo for the World Championships and a chance at a rematch with Endo.  However, he has a series of misadventures with his uncle Murray (Larry "Ratso" Sloman), his childhood friend Rachel (Odessa A'zion), Rachel's husband Ira (Emory Cohen), his friend Wally (Tyler, the Creator), a mobster (Abel Ferrara) and his dog, a homicidal farmer (Penn Gillette), a would-be business partner (Luke Manley), a retired actress hoping to make a comeback (Gwyneth Paltrow), and her businessman husband (Kevin O'Leary).  Marty eventually makes it to Tokyo but he finally learns what is most important.  I was hesitant to see this because I found the character to be very abrasive in the trailers but I actually really enjoyed Marty's arc.  I also didn't think table tennis would be a very compelling subject but, even though it does feature in the narrative, most of the movie involves all of the increasingly absurd situations Marty finds himself in as he tries to get the money he needs and the action moves at a frenetic pace (I was never bored during the long runtime).  Chalamet has been getting a lot of attention for his performance and, while he does do a great job disappearing into the role, I don't think it is the best one this year (Michael B. Jordan is much more impressive in Sinners) nor do I think it is even his best (he blew me away in Dune: Part Two).  I liked this a lot more than I thought I would but I definitely prefer both Good Time and Uncut Gems (they are similar to this but the stakes are much higher for the characters) from the Safdie brothers.

Note:  This is set in the 1950s and features meticulous period verisimilitude in the production design and costumes so I found all of the 1980s music to be a strange choice.