WLR #19

We Live In Time

Directed by Josh Crowley

In We Live in Time, Josh Crowley directs a delicate exploration of love, mortality, and memory. Rarely does a film navigate the waters of unabashed romance, terminal illness, and childbirth without succumbing to the kind of emotional manipulation that often tanks these movies. Here, however, we find a real, believable love story, buoyed by the immense star power of Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield, whose performances depict an emotional warfare that unfolds in a way that will make anybody feel. They’re good faith people fighting a good faith battle against an indifferent universe. Every fiber of you feels for them.

But what really elevates WLiT from the conventional romance into something remarkable is Crowley, the director, complemented by an editing and writing team that deftly weaves together a rapid-fire, nonlinear narrative. This approach mirrors the fluidity of memory itself, offering a kaleidoscopic glimpse into the lives of the lovers, bearing a back and forth that’ll conjure up memories of your own lived experience. It is a puzzle (an easy one), each piece revealing a fragment of their love story while asking a little of the audience, to reflect on their own dealings with love. The film plays with time and recollection in ways that few contemporary romances dare to attempt, transforming the act of watching into an intimate, immersive experience in that way it reminded me of Speak, Memory, one of my all-time favorite reads. A book Wendy Lee clearly takes from!

It's the Notebook for grownups but it’s more than that too. Crowley’s film may indeed tackle those “big feely feels” but he does so with a nuance that is both refreshing and rare, especially post-COVID (I just feel like this has been missing). It’s a movie that invites us to cry openly, and to embrace our emotions with honesty, as we recognize ourselves in the humanity We Live in Time so artfully portrays.

Three-and-a-half-stars-and-two-boxes-of-Kleenex

The Joker: Folie a Deux

Directed by Todd Phillips

This movie hated me. Truly, it fucking hated me, and, I have to admit, I LOVED it for that! I know what you’re thinking—Wendy Lee, why so cynical? ;) But for those of you who’ve read WLR #13 Deadpool x Wolverine, you totally get that Wendy Lee has a soft spot (or hard spot) for these kinda things.

At the cinema was comic book fans who (dressed in their DCU-onesies), after misinterpreting the first movie as a standard superhero movie—when it was just a sharp knock-off of Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy—are now forced squirm in their seats for OVER two hours. Todd Phillips takes great pleasure in upending their expectations at every moment, sometimes with a song, sometimes with a courtroom scene, and sometimes with something so utterly baffling that even Wendy Lee finds it impossible to describe!

And honestly, that’s where the entertainment is—in the relentless subversion and in the talent on the screen, both undeniable, regardless of whatever intentions the film may or may not have in freaking hating your guts! Joaquin Phoenix is (newsflash) an incredible actor. His Joker—no, scratch that, his Arthur Fleck—is turned upside down into a character that feels like a lounge-singing Johnny Cash in makeup. And as society, were still ungrateful of Gaga and her pipes. I loved the sheer misanthropy…? I loved its unapologetic disdain for humanity…? Wendy Lee! What does that say about you!?

Three Stars

A Different Man

Directed by Adam Schimberg

“A Different Man” aka shake what ya momma gave ya, offers a newly plasticized take on the dilemma of self-identity, with just enough flair and tonal dissonance to make it worth the price of a matinee ticket. Sebastian Stan undergoes a radical facial reconstruction surgery to resemble, well, Sebastian Stan.

A surrealist slice of b-movie ciney at its core, the film recycles narratives about the inescapable inner self with some unique execution. It’s ostensibly a dark comedy, though “comedy” in this sense is more an exercise in sardonic observation than humor. We already know, no matter where you go, you are who you are playa; but here, that message is wrapped in just enough aesthetic oddity to keep you engaged.

A minor success, a curious little reflection on vanity and identity done well…

Three stars, two faces, four bracelets