The latest film releases include How to Train Your Dragon, Echo Valley, Materialists, and Prime Minister. Weighing in are Katie Walsh, film reviewer for The Tribune News Service and The Los Angeles Times, and Monica Castillo, freelance film critic and senior film programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center.
How to Train Your Dragon
In this live-action remake of an animation, the Viking boy Hiccup goes against long tradition as he becomes friends with a dragon named Toothless.
Castillo: “DreamWorks saw what Disney has been doing over the past several years and said, ‘I want to do that.’ It actually works. … CGI has come a long way since 2010 when the original animated film came out. And we have one of the original directors coming back, and I think he has some fun … getting to create more with the creatures. They look so much more detailed. It actually doesn't look weird. … I do wish that it was a new story, a new chapter of some sorts. But as far as these things go, you could definitely have done worse.”
Walsh: “This is actually going to be fun for adults, if they haven't seen the original How to Train Your Dragon too many times, because it is a very faithful remake. … What I enjoyed about this is just seeing him play in a new stylistic toolbox. I thought the flying scenes were really amazing. … I think scaling it up to this live-action, more realistic look-and-feel ages it up a little bit. It's not just for little, little kids. It feels more like a tween, older kids type of film. … I think the message at the heart of it is the relationship between Hiccup and his dragon Toothless, and that you don't have to be at odds with each other, that if you can learn about something new and different, then you can learn to work together.”
Echo Valley
A woman’s drug-addicted daughter pulls her into a world of violence and crime, testing her devotion to her child.
Walsh: “This is gonna maybe be a tough watch for anyone who has dealt with addiction or the relationship with addicts in their lives. And yes, it's definitely the definition of enabling, and it is playing on that … vampiric relationship. … This is written by Brad Ingelsby. … It's that really gritty, really down-in-the-depths realistic depiction of hard-scrabble life. … You don't ever really know where this is gonna go. … The twistiness of the story, it gets out of control. It's very preposterous what happens.”
Castillo: “I love what Julianne Moore is doing here. … You always have to brace with her for the day and everything that she's dealing with, the grief, dealing with her daughter's drug addiction and everything that comes with it. … I also really love Sydney Sweeney. … She's almost like a live wire. … She's really unpredictable here, and it's actually frightening in some sequences. … I think there was too much going on in the film, and maybe too much bleakness, if that's possible, that detracted from all the performances.”
Materialists
A New York City matchmaker is torn between the perfect man and her screwed-up ex.
Castillo: “It has the DNA of a rom com, but there's other stuff going on inside of it as well. It does tell the story, actually, based on Celine Song’s own experience as a matchmaker, which informed the character of Lucy, who plays a matchmaker, and in pairing up her own clients, she learns a bit about what she would like. Celine, I think, is trying to address some of the realities of dating … both the shallow aspects of we have these impossible standards for each other … and maybe we're shutting out love when we hold on to these unreal expectations. But there's also some other darker stuff, and about the dangers of being out in the dating pool.”
Walsh: “This is definitely a film from the director of Past Lives, like you can see the shared DNA, not just in the story of a woman who was choosing between two men, but also in the style and the aesthetic. She has the same creative team from Past Lives, the same editor, the same DP [director of photography]. … I do think that there are some dramatic stakes that get pushed a little bit that … it strains the screenplay a bit. But I think the dialogue is really sparkling and witty and emotionally intelligent in a way that I found really satisfying.”
Prime Minister
This documentary follows the former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.
Walsh: “I think it's a great look at everything that she dealt with during that very short time period. She was pregnant when she was elected prime minister. She wasn't yet married to her partner. She dealt with not only the Christchurch shooting, but the COVID lockdown, and then subsequent huge backlash to the vaccine mandate. And then also the volcano eruption. … And so she's navigating this all as a woman in the public eye and as a mother. And it's really remarkable just to take that all in at once. And it's a very intimate documentary.”
Castillo: “The conversations with the directors and, I think, with other members of her staff, and what the cameras capture do feel very candid. We're definitely getting to see a side of her that obviously, at that time during her administration, she probably was not as forthcoming. … It's interesting to have a politician go back and … re-examine what was going on in their lives, and why they made certain decisions, and how they came to pass certain policies. … It's really interesting to hear her talk through her process of leadership. And it's also pretty radical, considering the last … six months of the current administration … to see someone lead with empathy and choose that as a governing principle.”