Several movies are opening today, a traditional day of moviegoing, including “Marty Supreme,” “Song Sung Blue,” “The Testament of Ann Lee,” The Choral” and ‘No Other Choice.” I’m rolling out my quick takes on these and other feature films that are currently available in cinemas (a couple of them are also streaming.) A surprising number of these new movies are related to live theater in some way – as direct recording (Merrily We Roll Along), adaptation (Wicked for Good), subject (Hamnet), or because some or all of the characters are theater artists/performers (Marty Supreme, The Choral, Sentimental Value, Song Sung Blue.)
When completed, my reviews will be organized in descending order from those I most enjoyed.
Merrily We Roll Along
This a recording of the live 2024 Tony-winning Broadway production that turned the Stephen Sondheim and George Furth musical from a notorious 40-year-old flop into an acclaimed hit, the stuff of Broadway legend.
The strength of the show has always been in Sondheim’s clever and tuneful songs. The strength of this production in particular rests on its three talented leads. The book has always been the weakest aspect of the musical. It tells the story of three old friends — Jonathan Groff as composer turned movie producer Franklin Shepard Jr, Lindsay Mendez as novelist Mary Flynn, Daniel Radcliffe as lyricist and playwright Charley Kringas — in reverse chronological order, from 1976 to 1957. They “start” off cynical and estranged and “end” up nineteen years earlier and eight scenes later at the birth of their friendship, idealistic and collaborative.
If the film offers a different experience from the stage musical – I’m not crazy about some of the editing choices — there is something worthwhile in offering a chance at experiencing such a show to theater lovers who didn’t make it to New York or couldn’t afford Broadway prices.
Hamnet
The scenes from the play “Hamlet” will make you cry in this latest film from Oscar-winning director Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”), but there is a catch. The scenes don’t occur until more than 90 minutes into “Hamnet,” after a story that focuses on a free-spirited woman named Agnes. Her story becomes a romance, then a family drama, then a study of grief, all during which, somewhat coyly, the name “William Shakespeare” is never uttered. We only hear it after the movie moves from the fields and farmhouses of Stratford to the playhouse in London.
But it may well be necessary to sit through these lyrical, leisurely, sorrowful 90 minutes to experience Shakespeare’s words the way the director intends. After the death of their son Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), Agnes (Jessie Buckley) visits London for the first time to see a play by Will (Paul Mescal.) As she watches, a range of emotions play out on her expressive face; she is won over at last by the actor who portrays Hamlet. So are we. The actor is Noah Jupe, and, not coincidentally, he is in real life the older brother of Jacobi Jupe. It is a quite brilliant piece of casting, and a payoff to which purists might call sentimental, but only after they’ve wiped away their tears.
Song Sung Blue
Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson star as aging would-be entertainers who find each other and form a Neil Diamond tribute act – they call themselves Lightning and Thunder — that leads to unexpected success, at least in their hometown of Milwaukee, where Pearl Jam asks them to be their opening act. Although based on the true story of Mike Sardina and Claire Stengl (who were the subjects of an earlier documentary), the movie starts off as a comedy that treats its characters with mocking affection, reveling in their chintzy world of show business. Fisher Stevens portrays Mike’s dentist who is also his agent, Jim Belushi is a tour bus driver who becomes their manager. But suddenly a bizarre tragedy strikes, and the movie abruptly changes tone. Some of the scenes, especially those that diverge from what really happened, veer toward melodrama. But the film winds up offering an uplifting story, and a study, of resilience.
The casting helps. Yes, Hugh Jackman is exactly the right performer to deliver the 20 or so Diamond hits and lesser known melodies, including the title song. But he nails his character from the opening scene, when there is a close-up of his explaining his show business career, until the camera pans out and we learn he is addressing a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous on his 20th “sober birthday”
Wicked: For Good
“Wicked: For Good,” has made almost as much money at the box office as “Wicked,” but it’s not as good a movie, and both parts of this movie adaptation of Stephen Schwartz’s Broadway musical don’t work as well for me as the original, which is still playing every day at the Gershwin Theater, telling the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West at what now seems a brisk two and a half hours (plus intermission.)
Yes, Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande are still grand, and I enjoyed the inventive first scene, where Elphaba sweeps down to liberate the huge ox-like animals being exploited in the construction of the yellow brick road. But part 2 won’t make sense to anyone who hasn’t seen part 1, and a total of five hours is just too much for a story that already depends on your prior knowledge of the wonderful world of Oz. This is especially true since most of the memorable songs are in Act I, and the weakest aspects of the musical are in Act II, which the greater length now emphasizes – the scenes involving Dorothy that turn this supposed “prequel” into an inferior retelling of the beloved tale, and the strained and convoluted effort to affix a happy ending.
The Testament of Ann Lee
Amanda Seyfried stars in the title role as the impassioned and persecuted 18th century leader of the Shakers, a Christian sect probably best-known now for their belief in universal chastity and for their furniture. The film is directed by Mona Fastvold and co-written by her and Brady Corbet, the same writer-director couple who brought us last year’s much better “The Brutalist.” If “The Testament of Ann Lee” is seemingly just as earnest in its depiction of similarly severe tribulations, I couldn’t help wondering whether it’s actually a Monty Python-like put-on. It is, first of all, the strangest movie musical you’ll ever see, featuring more than a dozen musical numbers that we’re told are based on actual Shaker hymns, with the performers executing choreography by Celia Rowlson-Hall that resembles collective seizures (hence the name “Shakers.”) On the ship taking them from their native Manchester, England to settle in New England, the Shakers’ relentless singing causes the ship’s crew to curse them out and try to shut them up; you may find it just as annoying.
And then there are the decidedly non-spiritual scenes. The torture porn that would make Mel Gibson proud. The lingering shot of a man’s smooth naked rump, as his bedmate rises up to embrace Ann’s call for chastity, saying “You’ve been such a friend to me, Jacob.” The confrontation by Ann’s husband, portrayed by Christopher Abbott, hot as ever, who is understandably frustrated that Ann has refused to “live in sexual cohabitation,” as he puts it, for the past six years. She apologizes and starts to explain, but he angrily interrupts: “The more you talk of ‘the exuberant bliss of Divine intercourse’ the more I shall drink and not stop myself until I am dead.”
