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Tag: Aubrey Plaza

  • ‘Black Bear’ is Aubrey Plaza’s best performance to date | movie review

    ‘Black Bear’ is Aubrey Plaza’s best performance to date | movie review

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    A young couple’s relationship is thrown into turmoil when an enigmatic filmmaker moves in with them to try and complete her latest film in Black Bear.

    With its sharp script, interesting structure, and a watershed performance by Aubrey Plaza, Black Bear is a deliciously entertaining and satirical quasi-thriller romp about what it is to be a creative.

    Black Bear is streaming on Paramount+. You can subscribe here.

    Black Bear, which premiered in the NEXT section of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, invokes feelings of a cross between a relationship drama like Before Midnight and a meta satire like One Cut of the Dead. And if that combination sounds crazy, it kind of is. Black Bear could have easily felt like a party trick of a film where a mid-movie shift changes everything you know about the film. Still, it manages to be more than a clever gimmick. 

    While Lawrence Michael Levine’s careful direction and sharp screenplay help, it is Aubrey Plaza’s dynamite performance as protagonist Allison that does a lot of the work to pull the movie off. Allison at first comes off like an alternate version of Plaza herself. She is a writer, director, and actress who escapes to the mountain home of a friend of a friend to get over a bout of writer’s block—and she maintains the same dry deadpan wit that is patently Plaza. 

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    The homeowners who are hosting Allison, Gabe (Christopher Abbott—also in Possessor at the festival) and Blair (Enemy’s Sarah Gadon), are a long-term couple—important to note that they’re not married—who are expecting a child. They’ve been offering their isolated lake home to creatives hoping to help inspire them, as they are with Allison, a filmmaker trying to complete writing her latest film.

    From the start, it’s clear that there is some simmering tension between the trio. Blair and Gabe seem to constantly contradict each other and take subtle jabs that they know sting. At the same time, it’s clear that Gabe is attracted to Allison, which Blair picks up on. It leaves her in the odd position of hosting Allison while trying to steer her boyfriend in the right direction. 

    The tension that Levine derives is palpable, though something seems off. Things seem maybe a touch too perfect. Or maybe too dramatic? Perhaps it’s that the dialogue is hyper stylized? Or maybe too natural. Eventually the movie answers at least part of the question of what’s going on, but I will spare you the detail because the reveal is all a part of the trick that makes the movie work. 

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    Black Bear is about everything and nothing. Not that it doesn’t have a clear purpose, but because of its experimental structure its allegiances are unclear. There are threads for and against the creative process, relationships, and gender dynamics that could have all easily become overwrought. But because of the way the movie twists to a sharp, satirical tone that is at times uproariously funny you’re never left too deep in dramatic waters. Until the climax. 

    The only proper way to end this review is with a full paragraph of praise for Aubrey Plaza’s performance which I’ll begin with ARE YOU F#CKING KIDDING ME!? Plaza’s performance is mind-blowing in its complexity. Allison herself is a character that code switches depending on who she’s talking to, but at the same time seems susceptible to manipulation. Or is she? Her thoughts are opaque and oh so transparent at the same time to the point that you can at times see her thinking through how she should come off at any given moment. But when that scene happens, and you’ll know it when you see it, you know exactly what she’s thinking. Give her the damn Oscar. 

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    Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

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  • ‘Happiest Season’ makes the yuletide gay | movie review

    ‘Happiest Season’ makes the yuletide gay | movie review

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    Happiest Season follows a lesbian couple who go home for the holidays for the first time. One problem: Harper’s family doesn’t know she’s gay and that Abby is her girlfriend. Hijinks ensue.

    Happiest Season is filled with hilarious misunderstandings, more than one coming out pun, and a running joke about dead fish. However, at its core, it’s a character-driven dramedy that’s so rooted in the queer experience that, to be frank, is going to be a bit divisive. Whether you’re satisfied by the end, I’m not sure, it’s up to you. But the journey there is a jolly holiday treat.



    ▶︎ Streaming on Hulu

    The holiday romantic comedy is as much a staple of the season as a dysfunctional family argument at the Christmas dinner. Oh wait. Either way, there’s often a formula to our holiday entertainment. However, Happiest Season—now streaming on Hulu—looks to break the mold by focusing on a lesbian couple played by Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis. And while the story does hit some of the same familiar beats, it’s a largely subversive take that’s rooted in the queer experience. Still, there’s something for every member of the family to enjoy. 

    Abby (Stewart) and Harper (Davis) are a long term couple living together happily in Pittsburgh—they’re so happy in fact that Abby is ready to pop the question much to her best friend John’s (Schitt’s Creek’s Dan Levy) chagrin. After talking about Abby’s dislike for the holiday since her parents died—take a drink for the holiday movie drinking game—Harper makes the spontaneous decision to invite her to her conservative small town for her family’s annual Christmas party. However, on the way Harper reveals that she lied to Abby about coming out to her family and asks her to pretend to instead be her roommate until she can tell her family she is gay after the holiday. 

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    From there, Happiest Season has all the hijinks you’d expect as the pair arrive having set the ruse. Immediately it’s clear the Harper’s mother Tippy (Mary Steenburgen) has taken Abby’s status as an orphan a little too to heart as she looks down at her with sadness. Her father Ted (Victor Garber), on the other hand, is too focused on his campaign for mayor to pay too much attention to her. And of course, there are the kooky siblings Jane (Mary Holland), an awkward and nerdy holiday lover, and Sloane (Alison Brie), a perfectionist in constant competition with Harper. 

    Every member of the cast is superb in creating little ticks and moments with their characters, especially Holland whose performance as Jane very nearly steals the film. After a series of misunderstandings, more than one pun about being in a closet, and a subplot about dead fish, Happiest Season heads for more dramatic territory as the strain of hiding her identity weighs on Abby and strains her relationship with Harper. It doesn’t help either that Harper seems to be slipping into her at home “straight” persona a little too well and her high school friend Riley (Aubrey Plaza) hits it off with Abby. 

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    Therein lies the problem with Happiest Season. The very act of hiding oneself until you’re comfortable is completely valid—something I did too for some time. However, the movie is a little too heavy-handed with Harper’s betrayal of Abby to the point that it’s hard to root for the couple. However, Dan Levy’s gorgeously delivered third act monologue about the very personal journey about coming out infuses some understanding that saves the ending a bit—still it will be quite divisive. 

    Happiest Season has its problems but at the core, it is the exact kind of delightfully entertaining holiday rom-com that we’re looking for. There are moments that had me laughing, crying, and screaming with delight. And, of course, there’s the lesson. “I’m gay.” Why are those two words so difficult for so many of us queer people to say? Happiest Season aims to find an answer to that question while simultaneously delivering an entertaining holiday comedy filled with the nutty characters we all love—and love to hate.

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    More movies, less problems

    Hey! I’m Karl. You can find me on Twitter and Letterboxd. I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic.

    💌 Sign up for our weekly email newsletter with movie recommendations available to stream.

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