The New Yorker Radio Hour
Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season
Tue, 3 Dec 2024
If “Wicked, Part I” and “Gladiator II” are not getting you into the theatre this weekend, Justin Chang, The New Yorker’s film critic, offers three other films coming out this holiday season which are “among the most thrilling that I've seen this year.” He recommends “Nickel Boys,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead and directed by RaMell Ross; “The Brutalist,” starring Adrian Brody; and “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh. These are heavy subjects—not traditional holiday fare—but “I returned to the words of Roger Ebert,” Chang tells David Remnick. “No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.”
Chapter 1: What are the holiday movies discussed in this episode?
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The two movies facing off for the big holiday weekend at the box office are Wicked Part One and Gladiator Two. The New Yorker's critic Justin Chang reviewed both of them the other day, and his review is a terrific read.
But I wanted to hear from Justin what else I should be excited about in the crop of movies that comes out toward the end of the year.
During this time of year, people want a kind of prototypical holiday movie, something that will make them feel good. And I'm always sorry to disappoint people every year, but my favorites are probably best described as downers. These are not upbeat movies. No elf? Santa! Oh, my God! Santa here? I know him. Oh, I love Elf.
Chapter 2: Why does Justin Chang recommend downer movies for the holidays?
I love Elf.
It's a staple. I am taking my eight-year-old to Moana, too, so I am hopeful about that one.
Well, since my kids are now too old for that, and I'm waiting impatiently, impatiently for grandchildren, I'm going to sit that one out. But meanwhile, you've got three picks for us this season that you think will, in some way or another,
make us happy. Yeah, it's funny. I return to the words of Roger Ebert, who once said, no good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing. And so, These are not happy movies, but they are among the most thrilling that I've seen this year, and I recommend them in a theater wholeheartedly.
The first movie is Nickel Boys, which is an adaptation of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead. This is the story of two young Black men, played by Ethan Harisi and Brandon Wilson. in 1960s Florida, who are sent to a reform school, which is putting it very charitably.
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Chapter 3: What is the story behind 'Nickel Boys'?
And I can't say this better, of course, than Colson Whitehead himself, who has this to say about the place and its real-life inspiration.
Immediately, you know, three years into its being opened, there were kids as young as six being shackled, put in solitary confinement. Every 15 years, there'd be an expose and talk of reform, and nothing happened until it finally closed in 2011. And I was shocked when it hit the national media. They found unmarked graves. They dug up the bodies and found kids with
shotgun pellets in their skeletons, blunt force trauma to their skulls. I felt that if there's one place like this, how many other stories are we not hearing about?
So this is obviously incredibly fraught, painfully difficult material that was inspired by a real place and by real stories.
i i want to say too that what makes the movie extraordinary is the way that the director ramel ross uses the camera and he and his cinematographer joe mufre they basically adopt a first person point of view approach meaning that at any given point in the story you're seeing this story through the eyes of one of the two lead characters and
It's a risky choice, and there's a reason why most narrative films are not shot this way. Although it's not unprecedented. Yeah, but it comes off. It touches chords of feeling that I think a more conventional telling wouldn't have achieved. And I should also mention that...
This movie features a really, really great performance from Anjanue Ellis-Taylor, who has, I think, been doing really terrific work all her career, but especially recently and especially in film. Like, she was in Origin last year. She has another movie in which she's very strong in this season called Exhibiting Forgiveness.
And in Nickel Boys, she plays the grandmother of one of the boys who is sent to this reform school. And it's a beautiful performance, and it lifts you even as you are watching this extremely, extremely painful story.
I'm really glad to hear that. I'm on team Colson Whitehead. You know, as much as I admired Underground Railroad as a novel, I wasn't completely sold on the film version. And to hear that Nickel Boys works and more, that's really uplifting. What's your second choice?
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Chapter 4: What makes 'The Brutalist' a significant film?
Chapter 5: Who are the key performances in 'Nickel Boys'?
Chapter 6: What themes are explored in Justin Chang's movie selections?
This movie features a really, really great performance from Anjanue Ellis-Taylor, who has, I think, been doing really terrific work all her career, but especially recently and especially in film. Like, she was in Origin last year. She has another movie in which she's very strong in this season called Exhibiting Forgiveness.
And in Nickel Boys, she plays the grandmother of one of the boys who is sent to this reform school. And it's a beautiful performance, and it lifts you even as you are watching this extremely, extremely painful story.
I'm really glad to hear that. I'm on team Colson Whitehead. You know, as much as I admired Underground Railroad as a novel, I wasn't completely sold on the film version. And to hear that Nickel Boys works and more, that's really uplifting. What's your second choice?
My second choice is The Brutalist. And this is the third feature directed by the actor-turned-filmmaker Brady Corbett. It stars Adrian Brody in probably the greatest role and performance he's had since he won an Oscar for The Pianist. That was a long time ago. And in this film, he is again playing a Holocaust survivor, this time a man of Hungarian Jewish descent,
who before the war was a very accomplished brutalist architect. And the movie is all about how he comes to America and encounters in Pennsylvania a wealthy benefactor played by an absolutely terrific Guy Pearce. It's this hugely ambitious, big swing of a movie from...
a 36-year-old director who is aiming for the rafters like a young Orson Welles or Paul Thomas Anderson, making this really big movie about capitalism, about immigration, about Jewish assimilation, and eventually the exploitation of Jewish genius and labor in post-war America. And so there are a lot of really big themes swirling around this movie. It handles them very assuredly.
I should also note, David, for everyone, this movie is three and a half hours long, including a 15-minute intermission. But I hasten to add, it flies by. It's incredibly absorbing. Don't be put off by the running time. Go and see it on the big screen, in 70mm if you can, because it's going to be showing in that format.
I have no problem with those lengths. I really don't when they're good. I just spent a Saturday watching straight through Patrick Radden Keefe's Say Nothing. I think it was nine episodes, so there must have been seven hours of film. And I was one happy boy. And what's your third and final choice? Because you've got me twice into the theaters already.
My third movie is called Hard Truths. And this is the latest picture from the English filmmaker Mike Lee of movies like Topsy Turvy and Vera Drake. And Mike Lee, it's worth noting, he has a very particular style. He works very closely with his actors in a very rigorous and somewhat mysterious workshop process.
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