A dark, mythic, mysterious "coming-of-age" in Fritz Böhm and Florian Eder's WILDLING

That unusual little actress Bel Powley (of Diary of a Teenage Girl) does another memorable turn as the lead and titular heroine of a new and quite welcome addition to the werewolf genre: WILDLING.

As co-written (with Floridan Eder) and directed by Fritz Böhm, a young German filmmaker new to me, the film boasts the wonderfully mythic, all-encompassing darkness and foreboding of a Brothers Grimm tale involving family, would-be family and a necessary but extremely difficult coming-of-age.

Herr Böhm, pictured at left, has done an excellent job building both tension and empathy for his fish-out-of-water heroine, brought to fine and quite specific life by Powley's very "lived-in" performance. The actress, below, beautifully captures the innocence of her character, as well as her increasingly frightening aspects.

The filmmaker has done a particularly welcome job of capturing the strange and storybook atmosphere that makes his movie seem as much like some modern version of an odd old folk tale as anything else.

There's the abandoned child, the missing parents, the fairy godmother -- in this case, a godfather in the shape of a wild woodsman (James LeGros, below) -- and of course the something-like-a-curse that hangs over all. 

Appearing in the excellent supporting cast are Liv Tyler (below, who also produced the movie) and the original Chucky, Brad Dourif (two photos below), and especially Collin Kelly-Sordelet (shown at bottom), a young actor new to me who takes the rather standard juvenile lead and turns it into a genuinely felt journey from initial annoyance to attraction, protection and love.

Mostly though it's Ms Powley and the filmmaker's ability to combine atmosphere, dark beauty and smart cinematography (by Toby Oliver) into a kind of timeless tale of the animal in us that must come out.

As the movie rises to its conclusion, a few too many genre cliches sprout (without being handled by the filmmaker in any unusual way), but the ending is sad, sweet and brings us full circle. Less a horror film than a dark fairy tale, Wildling proves a very nice, if oddball, addition to its genre -- the best we've seen since Paul Hyett's Howl back in 2015.

From IFC Midnight and running 92 minutes, the movie opens this Friday, April 13, in New York City at the IFC Center and in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinelounge Sunset) -- with a simultaneous release on VOD and digital HD.

Afghanistan meets Northern California in Ian Olds' oddball tale, BURN COUNTRY

A fish-way-out-of-water story, BURN COUNTRY -- the first full-length narrative film from Ian Olds -- proves better at enticing us in than it does fulfilling its promise once we become involved in the tale. And yet that may be part (maybe the whole point) of the tale: How very strange it is to try to enter and then correctly appraise the world of people you barely know, who may, in fact, not want you in their world, after all. That is the situation of our protagonist, a young Afghan fellow named Osman (played very well by Dominic Rains, shown below).

Osman worked, expertly it seems, as a translator for a U.S. journalist whose beat is in the middle east, and because of this has been given asylum in the United States. He is now located in the backwoods of Northern California, visiting/living with the mother of that journalist (the fine Melissa Leo, shown below) and expecting to find a job at the local newspaper.

That job works out, sort of, but not in the manner Osman was expecting, and little by little he meets the townsfolk and becomes involved in some very bizarre doings: arson, beatings, a disappearance and a possible murder. Exactly what happens, along with how and why, we piece together haltingly, just as Osman himself must do, and the biggest strength of Mr. Olds' movie (the filmmaker is shown at bottom) is that we see and know only what Osman himself learns about this whole mess.

Along the way, Osman sees his first sight of the ocean and a beach, gets involved with a pretty young woman (Rachel Brosnahan, in the penultimate photo, below) and her rather bizarre acting instructor, and meets, gets beaten up and then befriended by a guy named Lindsay (James Franco, below and further below, doing another good job in full-out weirdo mode).

More and more bizarre and unsettling do things appear until we and Osman are ready to think the very worst of America's small towns (and why not, as these people apparently elected the asshole of all time to become the next American President?).

Things do sort themselves out. Sort of. Which leaves us even more unsettled -- with only some understanding of what has just transpired. One of the townsfolk lets us and Osman know that, in this a particular area of the country, everything is eventually forgiven. Well, OK.

Meanwhile, Osman has been in touch via phone with his journalist mentor along the way, and the final scene -- a quiet beauty of a few moments -- should make viewers appreciate Afghanistan in a manner we would never have expected.

While I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Burn Country, except to an audience who especially appreciates the intentionally unclear/ambivalent, there is certainly enough here to mull over, chew and maybe even digest. In the cast are stalwarts like Thomas Jay Ryan, too, so that's a plus, while Mr. Rains, who won a Tribeca Festival Best Actor Award delivers in fine form.

From Samuel Goldwyn Films and Orion Pictures, the movie, running 102 minutes, opens this Friday, December 9, in Los Angeles at the Laemmle's Monica Film Center. Elsewhere? No idea. But as it will simultaneously play VOD in most major markets, if you want to view it, I am sure you'll be able to find it.

The lowest-common-denominator genre lives! Ian Edelman's PUERTO RICANS IN PARIS

Looking for a movie in which almost everything you can predict -- so long as it is obvious and over-used -- comes to fruition? Well then, PUERTO RICANS IN PARIS should be your cup of Caribbean coffee. Funny only in the manner of the most been-there-done-that jokes, and using perhaps every Puerto Rican cliche known to man in exactly the way you'd expect, this new film does no favors for anyone involved. It does have a good (if wasted) cast, so it might hold your attention in that way for a time. But it might have difficulty enticing an audience with even a slightly sophisticated bone in its collective body.

As co-written (with Neel Shah) and directed by Ian Edelman (shown left), the film's premise is promising: a team of NYC detectives infiltrate the Canal Street grey market in fashion accessories and make an arrest. Suddenly they're asked to head for Paris to find out who stole the prototype of a hot new handbag. Yet even in that scene in which the folk from Paris meet and ask the NY detectives for help, the film begins to plod and appear awfully amateur. Scene after scene just sits there, waiting for a some kind of goose that clever writing, directorial style and better acting chops might provide. But this never occurs.

All this seems odd because, from the cast that has been assembled here, we know these performers to be solid and professional. TrustMovies has enjoyed Luis Guzmán (above, center) in supporting role after supporting role for decades now.

Here, as one of the film's two leads, he proves consistently obvious and annoying. So our sympathy goes to his co-star Edgar Garcia (above, whose laid-back quality provides the film's major pleasure. While being laid-back does give us a necessary respite, this is not quite enough to make the movie worthwhile.

Grossly underused on the distaff half of the American cast are a tamped-down Rosie Perez (above, as Garcia's wife) and Rosario Dawson (below, as Guzmán's current squeeze).

The French side of the equation hardly fares better, as actors we've seen and enjoyed previously -- Alice Taglioni (below), for instance -- are here asked to behave mostly like idiots at half-mast.

The film is full of would-be suspects -- supposedly venal co-workers and an uber-gay cliche (below, center) -- yet the handling of this is so absurd and silly that we never really care whodunit.

From FocusWorld and running 82 minutes, Puerto Ricans in Paris is said to be opening theatrically (if you can find a theater anywhere in the continental USA, you're doing better than I) and via VOD and Digital HD this Friday, June 10. Your move.

DVD surprise: J. Singleton's ABDUCTION is not the worst movie of your year/lifetime

So what's with the near-zero score that ABDUCTION rates on Rotten Tomatoes? (Only four critics out of nearly 100 had anything good to say about it.)

TrustMovies is not necessarily going to recommend it, either. He only watched it because Blockbuster, in its usual obtuse fashion, neglected to stock Dirty Girl this week, so there was practically nothing new to take out of the local store. (Yes, TM has gone back to BB, after receiving a free month during which the company promised to show him how much better its "Total Access" program is now than when it first began trying to compete with Netflix some years back. How's it doing? Not so well, but more on this later.)

Meanwhile, back to the movie that was to launch Taylor Lautner's post-Twilight-franchise career. Abduction is slick, shiny, silly, by-the-numbers, fast-moving fun -- boasting  a cast of supporting players much better than it has any right to possess. Isn't that Maria Bello (above)? Yes, and there's Jason Issacs, too (below).

And oh, my: Signorney Weaver (shown at right), Alfred Molina (at bottom, left) and Michael Nyqvist (the hero of the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, though, here, he's something less of a good guy).  Really now -- how bad can watching these people be? Not bad at all, once you realize how by-the-book this enterprise is. Then you can sit back, relax and enjoy the "moments."  And there are a number of fun ones.

My point is, should there be a teenage family member dead set on seeing this movie, don't worry: You can have a good time, too. Enjoy the slickness of the look and the fast pacing that director John Singleton, shown at left, provides (for my money this one's the most fun he's given us since his Shaft remake). Savor the little moments the keep happening when high school kids try to look and act like action/
adventure stars. That's what makes the movie both silly and a little endearing.

The two ostensible leads, Lautner (above, left) and Lilly Collins (above, right), are good-looking youngsters who may someday impress us. For now, they're serviceable but little more, and their would-be love-scene in the compartment of a fast-moving train is a real hoot. These kids strike love-making postures/poses they've clearly seen adult actors handle with aplomb, but when they do it, it's closer to funny. (Not to worry, parents: The two stop before anything untoward happens -- which is itself not particularly believable).

Much of what makes the movie watchable is its sense of kids out of their element and over their heads into everything from espionage to murder, car chases and sex. At one point, their friend Gilly, nicely played by Denzel Whitaker (above, right), asks if these two on the run will be all right, and Ms Collins simply crosses her fingers, as if begging heaven for some good luck. Very childlike, very sweet. It turns out that playing at being grown-ups can still be fun.

Abduction, from Lionsgate, is available now, on Blu-ray or DVD, for sale or rental.