Movies to Watch or Skip Right Now

요약

From the daily newsletter: Richard Brody and Justin Chang review “Wicker,” “Klara and the Sun,” and more.

본문

You’re reading The New Yorker’s daily newsletter, a guide to our top stories, featuring exclusive insights from our writers and editors. Sign up to receive it in your inbox.

Fall has brought a rush of excitement to movie theatres. There’s Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s extraordinarily buzzy “You Can See Everything,” which left our critics Richard Brody and Naomi Fry with much to consider. Before that, Justin Chang dug into the “Digger” discourse and weighed in on “Primetime,” also directed by Oppenheim, which he called a “queasily compelling spectacle.” But the new releases keep coming, and it can be hard to know which films are worth the price of popcorn. Brody and Chang have seen them all (basically), and have some guiding thoughts to share, below. It’s a season of big swings—some of which also turn out to be big risks.

“Wicker”

Cute medieval muck. In an English seaside village where men are named for their jobs and women are identified as the daughters or wives of those men, a smelly but bighearted fisherwoman (Olivia Colman), yearning in vain for a husband, commissions one of wicker from the town’s basketmaker (Peter Dinklage). The tall, handsome, and well-endowed effigy (incarnated by Alexander Skarsgård) is no mere decoration—he’s alive, and the fisherwoman marries him. His good manners and romantic devotion make her the envy of the town’s women, who scheme to get hold of him. The script’s programmatic beats of joys and sorrows are matched by its bland humor; its one spark, the metaphysical one, is left unexplored.—Richard Brody

“Sense and Sensibility”

It’s been more than thirty years, but Ang Lee’s Oscar-winning 1995 adaptation of the Jane Austen classic still casts a formidable shadow—and the director Georgia Oakley’s new version, far from crawling out from underneath, seems content to linger in the shade. The colors are dour and muted, and the yearnings of the two elder Dashwood sisters—the self-abnegating Elinor (Daisy Edgar-Jones) and the passionate Marianne (Esmé Creed-Miles, a gimlet-eyed standout)—often play out in drearily candlelit rooms. The film itself, then, is more Elinor than Marianne; the earthy, quasi-Brontëan realism, which worked so well in Joe Wright’s “Pride & Prejudice,” here feels like more of a dutiful aesthetic pose. Even so, Austen’s precisely constructed roundelay of misunderstandings and epiphanies largely works its telltale magic, and Frank Dillane, as the reckless Mr. Willoughby, makes a cad to savor.—Justin Chang

“Klara and the Sun”

The film’s director and co-writer, Taika Waititi, who milked the Holocaust for laughs and tears in “Jojo Rabbit,” has now slipped a whoopee cushion beneath Kazuo Ishiguro’s melancholic science-fiction novel from 2021. In this staggeringly inane adaptation, Jenna Ortega plays Klara, a solar-powered android who stands on one leg, worships the sun, and takes in her surroundings with glitchy, wide-eyed naïveté. Purchased as an artificial companion for an ailing teen-ager (Mia Tharia), Klara becomes our uncomprehending guide to a post-Third World War rural dystopia whose class disparities have been exacerbated by élite genetic enhancements and high-tech toys. Ishiguro’s delicately interior prose asked what makes us human; Waititi’s stultifying pseudo-comedy makes everyone, human or humanoid, sound snarkily pre-programmed. It’s “Jojo Robot.”—J.C.

“Making Marie Antoinette”

Movies are the Coppola family business, and, in 2005, when Sofia directed “Marie Antoinette,” her mother, Eleanor, documented the behind-the-scenes work during filming at the Palace of Versailles. After Eleanor’s death, in 2024, Sofia edited the eighty hours of footage into this candid and incisive précis of the elaborate and exacting effort—and the warm and complex relationships—that went into the movie. The soft-spoken Sofia emphasizes keeping a calm tone on set while insisting that her intentions are realized. She copes with the shoot’s physical and logistical rigors and makes major decisions on the fly—in often uneasy awareness of Eleanor’s camera in her face as she does so.—R.B.

“The Only Living Pickpocket in New York”

Harry Lehman (John Turturro) is a walking anachronism. An old-school craftsman of petty crime, ever dapper in a long coat, he plies his five-finger trade in subways, on streets, and in parking lots, but has no cellphone, no computer, and no tech savvy. When he makes off with a valuable high-tech device that he doesn’t recognize, he gets into big trouble, endangering friends and family, too, and must maneuver desperately to spare them. Noah Segan, the writer and director, gathers a captivating cast—including Steve Buscemi, Tatiana Maslany, Giancarlo Esposito, and Jamie Lee Curtis—to accompany Turturro, who dominates the screen with pain-streaked, lifeworn wisdom. Unfortunately, much of the action comes off as skits on location; the streetwise twists, sentimental warmth, and outer-borough grit are set in an abstract void of jigsaw-puzzle screenwriting.—R.B.

Editor’s Pick

Image may contain Clothing Knitwear and Sweater

Alaska’s Senate Race Could Be Decided by Salmon

Candidates for Congress are expected to address a wide range of issues. But, as Zach Helfand reports, Mary Peltola, the Democratic candidate for Alaska’s Senate seat, mostly wants to talk about fish. And her strategy seems to be working. Read or listen to the story »

Our Culture Picks

A movie: In Lee Chang-dong’s “Possible Love,” a community’s devastation plays out through a documentary lens.
A Broadway show: “Paranormal Activity,” adapted from the hit film franchise, will continue its horrific frights well past Halloween. See what else our critics are recommending this week.
A book: “The Brightness,” Chad Harbach’s long-awaited follow-up to “The Art of Fielding,” is a novel of old-school ambition.