Parentage, the past and the present collide in Christine Molloy & Joe Lawlor's beautifully creepy ROSE PLAYS JULIE

Seemingly -- and if so, quite appropriately -- made for the Me Too generation, ROSE PLAYS JULIE (don't expect anything nearly as ludicrously "meta" as Kate Plays Christine) details an adoptee's learning the identity of her birth mother and the consequences -- initially unintentional and then quite intentional -- of her acting upon that information. 

The movie's plot, such as it is, is not particularly complicated and is handled in pretty straight-ahead fashion. Therefore, telling you too much about it would let loose the few spoilers present. 

Consequently, TrustMovies will concentrate on filmmaking style and performances rather than on content. As written and directed by the filmmaking team of Christine Molloy (shown far left) and Joe Lawlor (left), the movie has a remarkably precise, controlled and composed look that utterly belies (and yet, in its odd way, begins to add to) the tale's creepy and increasingly fraught story line.

Rose (Ann Skelly, below) is a veterinary student whose class is currently studying the euthanasia process, of which we see several examples during the film (a couple via instructor, and another, later in the film, done quickly via non-professional, in an emergency). 

Rose's real interest, however, is in making contact with that birth mother Ellen (played by Orla Brady, below), about whom she already knows rather a lot. Once that contact is made -- initially haltingly and rather creepily -- pertinent information arrives almost too fast and furiously.

The film's third wheel, a fellow of great interest to both women, is played by the fine and oft-seen Irish actor Aidan Gillen (below), who proves to be everything needed to fit the confines of the story -- which turns out to be just a little too convenient and predictable, particularly during its second half. In terms of events, the movie, once past the connection made by the two women, treads a pretty obvious path.

On the plus side are Rose Plays Julie's very good visuals (color- and composition-wise, it's a consistent pleasure to view), as well as its fascination with various animals. Even if most of these are dying, dead or about to be, the end credits assure us that "no animals were harmed" in the course of the filmmaking.

The fact that mother Ellen happens to be a working actress (she's shown below in period costume for one of her films) adds a bit to the movie's content and visual interest. Otherwise, this 100-minute movie moves along without ever losing our interest, thanks for those visuals and the excellent performances by the three leads -- even if  some of you out there will be well ahead of things in terms of plot development and surprises.

From Film Movement, the movie premieres via Virtual Cinema, VOD and Digital this Friday, March 19. Click here then scroll down for further information and to see all currently scheduled virtual screening playdates, cities and theaters.

Changing times: Gorgeous, tradition-bound, coastal Sicily in the 1960s is the locale for Paolo Licata's ALONE WITH HER DREAMS

Yet another "find" from the increasingly indispensable Corinth Films, ALONE WITH HER DREAMS (the Italian title is the even lengthier Picciridda - Con i piedi nella sabbia) is the first feature film from director Paolo Licata, co-adapted from the novel by Catena Fiorello by Signore Licata, Ms Fiorello and Ugo Chiti. This is yet another small, independent, foreign film not picked up for theatrical release here in the USA that is very much worth seeing and savoring.

Filmmaker Licata (shown at right) hasn't merely found  some breathtaking locations in which to film this coming-of-age tale of a young girl separated from her parents, who must go abroad to earn a living to support the family, taking with them their younger child and leaving a very lonely Lucia (newcomer Marta Castiglia, above and below) in the care of her seemingly cold and domineering grandmother. No, he has used  these marvelkous locations to maximum effect.  

Granny is played by a wonderful Sicilian actress (TrustMovies has seen her a few times already, but this, he suspects, 

may be one of her best performances), Lucia Sardo (shown below, right, of The 100 Steps and The Sicilian Girl). Ms Sardo allows us to slowly understand the reasons for the grandmother's reticence and anger, as well as the great love she feels for her granddaughter and why she feels that she must keep this hidden.

Hiding and silence is the Sicilian answer to many problems, and it is to the film's great credit that it finally and thoroughly shows us how and why this simply adds to those problems. Setting the novel and film in the late 1960s, when change was quietly, slowly appearing -- even in Sicily -- allows us to see the tip of several icebergs that took their time before coming to the surface, from feminism to GLBT concerns to emigration/immigration.

Though the tale eventually encompasses some very heavy-duty events, Licati's style manages to avoid melodrama, while the excellent performances, beautiful landscapes and emotional, often-heart-tugging family dynamics will keep you more than glued to your screen.

From Corinth Films, in Italian with English subtitles and running just 95 minutes, Alone With Her Dreams is a movie to seek out and enjoy on a number of levels. It makes its DVD and digital debut this Tuesday, February 23 -- for purchase and/or rental. (I believe it will be available for Amazon Prime members to view at no charge.)

In John Balazs' RAGE, rape, murder and vengeance all add up to boredom

Despite its relatively early scene of maximum violence (a murder, then a rape, then a beating and attempted murder), the new Australian movie RAGE really ought have been entitled Enervation, so slow-moving and unnecessarily lengthy is the road to would-be vengeance that this surprisingly tiresome film then takes. 

As directed by John Balazs from a screenplay by Michael J. Kospiah, the filmmaker wastes way too much time on "establishing shots" that, once established, just go on and on and on. The filmmaker likes to linger -- which, in this kind of movie, proves deadly. It occurred to TrustMovies, as he was watching, that Mr. Balazs should have perhaps chosen a better editor. But then, as the end credits rolled, he discovered that Balazs himself had edited the movie.

The filmmaker, shown at right, keeps us waiting an awfully long time to learn stuff we ought to have already known -- and then he informs us via a scene of sudden, lengthy exposition. More than one and one-half hours into things, the husband says to his wife, "I can't believe this is happening to us." You will likely echo that sentiment once you realize that you still have another 50 or so minutes left to go.

Then, after so little has happened for so long, convenient coincidences start piling up. At a snail's pace, of course. 

The movie is full of wretched policemen, wretched police work, and, I'm afraid, not very good filmmaking. All of which, it turns out, is supposedly based around poor communication between spouses. Hmmm.

Performances are as good as can be expected under these circumstances, with the three leading actors -- Matt Theo (above) as the husband, Hayley Beveridge (below) as the wife, and Richard Norton (two photos below) as the chief investigating officer -- carrying us along as best they can.

Technical credits, outside of the direction and editing, are very good, as well, and the ideas the film presents are worth considering. Yet the manner in which they're presented leaves so much to be desired that when the movie's biggest "surprise" turns out to be the linchpin of an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents TV episode, you'll find yourself ready to cry "uncle."

From Gravitas Ventures and running two hours and 24 minutes (yes!), Rage opens digitally on all major VOD platforms in North America, with a Vimeo On Demand release in Australia, this coming Tuesday, Feb. 23rd.  

ROLL RED ROLL: Nancy Schwartzman's expansive documentary about rape culture at that Steubenville, Ohio, high school

The rape, back in 2012, of a teenage girl by a couple of guys from the Steubenville, Ohio, football team did not go unnoticed by our national press. I recall reading about it in The New York Times in the months afterward and being surprised (but not really) at the nastiness of both the thing itself, and of some of the reactions of the students and adults who were involved, even as bystanders, to this ugly event.

Even if you remember a lot about this, too, TrustMovies suspects you will still be surprised and quite interested in the information garnered by filmmaker Nancy Schwartzman and how she has delivered it for further exploration in her new documentary, ROLL RED ROLL. The movie is quietly involving and finally as depressing as it is devastating.

Ms Schwartzman, pictured at left, has a low-key but penetrating style; this is nothing like so many of the obvious, repetitive and cliche-ridden weekly television programs that deal with "true crime."

Instead, the filmmaker has unearthed enough behind-the-scenes information and subsidiary characters, one of which -- a female crime blogger named Alexandria Goddard (shown below) -- seems as close to the heroine of the documentary as you'll find. Ms Goddard, when she first heard of this incident, did her own digging, and her blog posts made much of the town of Steubenville angry as hell. For very good -- if very guilty -- reason: As in so much of American, today, just as at the time of this event, boys, machismo, and football trample just about everything in their path. Especially girls and even a remote sense of justice.

One of the most interesting things about the documentary is the manner in which it demonstrates both the horror and the help produced by social media. What we see of these footballers' texts speaks volumes about male entitlement and the place of the female in American society. And the collusion between everyone from parents and students to school administrators and teachers to protect the guilty and tarnish the victim is appalling, disgusting. What is uncovered here goes both farther back and farther ahead than this single rape incident.

Schwartzman also reconstructs the night of the crime, the where and the when, along with the police investigation, then puts it all together so that we easily follow things. By the time Anonymous becomes involved, further goosing justice into a "woke" state, you'll be holding your breath yet again. Schwartzman and her crew have done a major service in helping to upend the ongoing rape culture so prevalent in our own and much of western (hell, eastern, too) society, personified perhaps most clearly and wretchedly by the current President of the United States.

A Together Films release running a lean 80 minutes, Roll Red Roll opens in its theatrical premiere this Friday, March 21, at Film Forum, New York City. Other playdates? I don't find any currently listed on either the distributor's or the film's web site. But if you are not currently in the NYC area, the documentary will air later this spring as part of the popular PBS series, POV. Check your local PBS station for more details.

An Indonesian cinema artifact: Mouly Surya's pretty, silly, would-be feminist fable, MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS

OK: TrustMovies admits that he's hardly any kind of expert on Indonesian film, or for that matter Indonesian culture in general. Given that, he's at a loss to find much more than very pretty cinematography and a weird kind of ersatz feminism in the just-released-here-theatrically road trip/slasher movie from Indonesia, MARLINA THE MURDERER IN FOUR ACTS. Directed and co-written by a filmmaker new to me named Mouly Surya (shown below), the cinematography is sometimes ravishingly beautiful, both interior

and ex, while the film's titular leading lady, played by an actress named Marsha Timothy (shown above and below), who is also very attractive but keeps her performance so close to the vest that, whether by design or talent level, very few emotions are allowed to be seen. In the film's beginning a man arrives on motorcycle to the little shack and farm owned by our heroine to inform her that six of his pals will soon be arriving on scene to steal all her livestock and then rape her. But she should not feel at all bad about this because: Imagine the fun and delight of begin able to have sex with seven different guys!

They arrive, Marlina is asked to prepare chicken soup for dinner, two of the younger men leave with the livestock, and the rest remain to dine on the soup and Marlina. Only one of them -- the gang's leader -- gets to have sex, however, for reasons you will soon observe.

From there the movie and Marlina hit the road to go to the local police station (quite far away) and report all this. Ms Surya's film is divided, as its title explains, into four acts: The Robbery, The Journey, The Confession and The Birth.

Yes, one of Marlina's friends (above), whom she meets along the way, is pregnant, and this allows us to partake of some interesting-if-oddball cultural assumptions about things like breech birth and adultery. To a fault, the males pictured here -- from the gang of robbers to a nasty husband to the single policeman (below) whom we meet -- are stupid, entitled assholes, reflecting, I 'm sure, Indonesia's brand of patriarchy as observed by the filmmaker.

But Ms Surya's attempt at plot machinations -- involving everything from beheadings to a psychologically-inspired ghost to a sweet little girl who misses her mother -- seem so alternately grotesque or sentimental that the movie hardly registers as much more than a silly-but-pretty little fable. 

Still, when it's pretty, it is quite something, so your eye will not mind the lovely scenery; nor, if you're a slasher fan, will you tire of the slice-and-dice swordplay. For me, however, the molasses-like pacing made the movie's 93 minutes seem like three full hours. The moral, I guess: Choose something other than chicken soup off the menu of a woman you're about to rob. Oh, and by the way, whatever happened to all that stolen livestock? Doesn't Marlina need it back in order for her farm to survive? Oh, well: I am probably just being picky....

An Icarus Films and KimStim release, in Indonesian with English subtitles, the movie opens today, Friday, June 22, in New York City at the IFC Center and on Friday, July 6, in the Los Angeles area at Laemmle's Monica Film Center. It is also said to be coming during a couple of days in August to Brooklyn's Nighthawk Cinema.

Rape and its aftermath in the Arab world's said-to-be most democratic country: Kaouther Ben Hania's BEAUTY AND THE DOGS

The first thing TrustMovies did after viewing BEAUTY AND THE DOGS -- the Tunisian-set narrative film (based on a real incident) from filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania -- was to find out more about the tiny North African country of Tunisia, which is said by Wikipedia to be considered the only full democracy in the Arab world. How that "democracy" is seen by Ms Ben Hania (shown below), however, indicates that her country has a long way to go regarding the rights of women and the persistence of abuse by the police.

Beauty and the Dogs is also said to have been filmed in discrete sections, each of which was done in a single "take." While this is unusual, still, entire movies have actually been filmed in one take: Russian Ark and Valzer, to name two. This  decision and its execution does lend the film both immediacy and a kind of improvisational quality that adds to its veracity.

Regarding that veracity, however, some understanding of the history, culture and character of Tunisia might also help matters.

My spouse opined, during the course of the film, that this young woman, as well as the male friend who helps her, would have been long dead by now at the hands of the police (some of whom are shown above). That thought did crop up in my mind, too, but Tunisia is not Egypt nor Saudi Arabia. Democratic standards are at least higher there, and while the police can get away with a lot -- quite a lot, as you will come to observe --  there apparently is a limit.

The tale told here is one of a quite beautiful and bountiful 21-year-old student, Mariam (played by the impressive and talented newcomer, Mariam Al Ferjani (above and below), who has organized a dance party with the help of her friends, and hopes to have a good time and maybe meet a young man she sees hanging out around the dance floor (Ghanem Zrelli, below). She does meet this fellow, Youssef, but suddenly we're in scene number two, and the pair appear to be running for their lives. What has happened?

The answer to that sets the tone and provides remainder of this very dark and pretty ugly story, the various pieces of which fall into place, as we watch Mariam and Youssef try to negotiate the ordeal of post-rape procedure in Tunisia. This involves private vs public hospitals, the willingness (or not) of medical professionals to do their job, and most of all -- of course -- it involves the police who are, in this case, more than a little involved by being both the assailants and the supposed instruments for justice.

These guardians of society threaten, cajole, blackmail, lie, play the good-cop/bad-cop game, and oh, so much more  (my favorite is their don't-you-love-your-country scam), as they attempt to get our girl to drop the charges. Mariam's perseverance proves at times almost too much, and yet Ms All Ferjani's performance is so good -- so full of fear, anger, shock, energy and strength that she sometimes single-handedly carries you along. Tunisia is clearly still bound by its traditional Muslim past (Mariam's connection to her father runs strongly and consistently through the film), and the writer/director makes clear how much tradition matters and how her country is in a transitional phase.

I rather wish, however, that the filmmaker has not left out some really key scenes (the rape is one of these; another concerns what happened at a pivotal moment when Mariam needs to escape. Instead of learning how she managed to do this, we simply movie to the next discrete chapter, in which the threat has evidently evaporated.

Overall, though, Beatuy and the Dogs is a pretty riveting, stimulating movie. It should have you wishing Tunisia well in its continuing climb toward democracy -- even as so many western nations, including our own, seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

From Oscilloscope Films, in Arabic with English subtitles and running 100 minutes, the movie opens today, Friday, March 23, in Los Angeles (at the Landmark NuArt) and New York City (the Landmark 57th), and will then hit cities across the country over the weeks to come. Here in South Florida it will play the Bill Cosford Cinema in Miami, beginning April 13. To view all upcoming playdates, cities and theaters, click here and then scroll down. 

DVDebut for IN HER NAME, Vincent Garenq's drama of death and much-delayed justice

Less a revenge thriller than a quiet and compassionate drama of loss, anger and a search for justice, IN HER NAME, the 2016 French film by Vincent Garenq and starring the exceptional Daniel Auteuil, is a tale taken from life that spans several decades but compresses these into a smartly conceived, directed and written (by Garenq, shown below, and Julien Rappeneau) movie that lasts but 87 compelling minutes that are definitely worth a watch.

A true-life tale that made news in its native France, the movie tells of the Bamberski family -- husband (M. Auteuil), wife (Marie-Josée Croze, shown two photos below) and their two children -- torn apart by the wife's continuing infidelity with a family acquaintance (his daughter is a schoolmate/friend of their daughter) who is a successful doctor in Germany and who proves to be a swine of the first order. This character, who exists mainly as the significant "villain," is  played with a near-perfect combination of charm, sex appeal and sleaze by German actor, Sebastian Koch, shown below, left, with Auteuil.

The story -- which begins with the arrest of M. Bamberski by French authorities (we're unsure of exactly why, although kidnapping has been mentioned) -- then backtracks some 30 years to Morocco and then France, Germany, and back again, as events unfold in a continuous time-line made up of relatively short scenes that show us what is happening and why.

Although these events involve things such as rape, untimely death and maybe murder, Garenq avoids any heavy melodrama by keeping his film to more of a documentary style (and I mean that in the old-fashioned, not the newer, hybrid, sense of the word). He doesn't try to jolt us or turn his movie into a suspense thriller. He doesn't need to because the events themselves are awful enough, and what happens after the initial death proves even more jarring and anger-provoking. The filmmaker has chosen to tell his tale in what turns out to be the most appropriate way possible.

Garenq's other ace-in-the-hole is his leading actor. M. Auteuil has for decades now proven his command of the screen in his own generally quiet fashion. He can on occasionally go over the top, too, and either way stealing films from under other heavier-handed actors like Gérard Depardieu (remember The Closet) without even trying.

Here his quiet determination is both believable and occasionally chilling. He's an obsessive, all right, but as someone who has lost his daughter, first to her betrayer and then to the French and German justice systems, how could he not be? Auteuil holds the film together and brings it home. His final line, in fact, is as simple, honest and heart-breaking as you could want.

The supporting cast (made up mostly of characters trying to help Bamberski achieve his goal) is also spot-on, with Christelle Cornil (above) especially good as the new woman in Bamberski's life who tries her best to join in/put up with his obsession.

Out on DVD from Icarus Films and streaming from Distrib Films, In Her Name, in French with English subtitles, is available now -- for both purchase or rental.

Black lives mattered: Nancy Buirski's latest, THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR, opens in theaters

Over the past six years documentarian Nancy Buirski has made four terrific non-fiction films: The Loving Story, Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq, By Sidney Lumet and now THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR. If her newest documentary does not reach -- film-wise, at least -- the level of her previous movies, its subject matter alone makes it an extremely important piece of work. The documentary relates the story of the titular 24-year-old black woman in Alabama back in 1944 who, after leaving an evening church service and walking toward her home and family, was forced at gunpoint into an automobile by/with six young white men, who took her off with them, raped her multiple times and mutilated her sexual organs (she was unable to have more children after the rapes) and then left her by the roadside, once she had promised "not to tell."

This is a disgusting tale, though not at all unusual in our Southern states during the time of Jim Crow (yes, and before and since). What makes it particularly resonant at this moment, of course, is all the instances of sexual harassment currently coming to the surface and their seeming consequences for the harassers.

I say "seeming" because only time will tell how much will actually "change" regarding male behavior toward the female. Yet whatever problems white women have had regarding sexual harassment, the plight of black women in our country's history would seem to be at least ten times as awful.

What made Recy Taylor's case so significant was less the event itself than her reaction to it. She and her family actually spoke up about what had happened to the community at large. Ms Buirski, shown at right, lets us discover all of this -- the event, finally, and Recy's and her family's reaction to it -- and her film is full of shock and anger at how and why all this took place. (And took place much more frequently than most of us whites would care to know.)

We experience how the black community around the nation rose to the occasion, raised money and publicized the event and its follow-up.

What makes the movie fall down somewhat, particularly compared with the filmmaker's earlier projects, is the fact that Buirski evidently did not have access to nearly as much specific archival footage as in her previous films. Consequently, she must rely on imagined or re-created footage, most of which simply does not do the trick.

Almost from the beginning, this seems unnecessarily repetitive and a little tiresome. And yet, once we hear the known facts of the case, the anger and enormous sense of injustice is so strong that it carries the movie along.

We hear from Recy's surviving family members, from a few of the surviving white families of the perpetrators or their friends, along with other Alabama folk -- many of whom present a very good picture of just why Roy Moore is so likely to win his upcoming election. It's a degrading, disgusting spectacle. But, hey, that's our South, honey. D.W. Griffith would be proud.

The Rape of Recy Taylor is a story that needs to be told, and I am glad Ms Buirski rose to the occasion. Given what she had to work with, I suspect that the film is as good as we could get in terms of a full-length documentary. Though perhaps an hour-long program for television might have worked even better.

From Augusta Films and running 91 minutes, the movie opens in Los Angeles this Friday, December 8, at Laemmle's Monica Film Center, and in New York City next Friday, December 15, at the IFC Center.