Pain Hustlers: By all accounts, 2023 is looking like it's going to be a productive year for Netflix's awards hopefuls as titles like Maestro, Society of the Snow and American Symphony were all warmly received on the fall festival circuit. But considering how many resources they throw into their pursuit of gold trophies, there's bound to be some whiffs along the way-even in a year that appears to have a higher-than-usual hit rate. Opioid Crisis crime flick Pain Hustlers is among those poor doomed souls that failed to achieve their prestige pic aspirations.
David Yates-who was let out of his Harry Potter comfort zone for the first time since 2014's The Legend of Tarzan-manages to create something kind of unfathomable: A capitalist greed saga that is too innocuous to have much of a perspective on its subject. While not going the somber drama route was probably the right call in the wake of Dopesick's success, electing to make a not particularly comedic or dramatic, surface-level exploration of sleazy assholes getting rich off selling an addictive painkiller that they've billed as a baggage-free miracle drug for people dealing with cancer treatments or any form of severe pain is just puzzling. Making a movie about people in the medical industry who made millions of dollars pushing a drug that ripped apart the lives of so many desperate, suffering people that is filled with such pervasive indifference is a clear indictment of how little vision Yates has as a filmmaker. Its starry, magnetic cast headed up by Emily Blunt, Chris Evans and Andy Garcia as the primary drug-pushers, elite production design/makeup work that brings dilapidated strip mall doctor's offices and the low-rent hacks the practice medicine out of them to life with brilliantly scuzzy detail and the inherently interesting hook of a small-time pharmaceutical company suddenly making a ton of money before their newly-formed empire comes crashing down in the blink of an eye are able to elevate things to an extent, but the complacent mediocrity that is being practiced at the top of this project is ultimately just too much to overcome.
Grade: C+
Priscilla: Releasing Priscilla a little over a year after Elvis is pretty much the perfect unintentional artistic rebuttal. Where Baz Luhrmann's film (mostly) distilled Elvis Presley's life down to a sparkly fable about his larger-than-life presence as an entertainer and the shady manager that stole his money and got him addicted to drugs, Sofia Coppola made a quiet, grounded film about Priscilla Presley, her relationship with Elvis and how impacted it her life. You'll never guess which film feels like a more balanced portrayal of the Presley's!
What makes Priscilla work is Coppola's ability to naturally transport the viewer into Priscilla's shoes without casting any judgement towards her actions. She understands why Priscilla fell under Elvis' spell, was alright with spending years of her life alone at Graceland while Elvis made movies in Hollywood and toured internationally and eventually, grew sick of the whole charade and left. The streamlined, sequential approach Coppola uses to tell Priscilla's story provides an almost-real time look at her evolution that values her humanity and agency over showmanship and glamour at every turn, which makes the whole thing feel like an equally intoxicating and horrifying snapshot of her life with Elvis. Coppola has not been this locked in as a writer/director since Lost in Translation and it was awesome to see her at the top of her game after all the up-and-downs her career has been through in the past two decades.
As for the stars, Cailee Spaeny and Jacob Elordi do tremendous work as Priscilla and Elvis. Spaeny nails Priscilla's transformation from naïve isolated teenager who met and fell in love with Elvis before she got the opportunity to really discover who she is to a grown woman who finally gets the courage to blaze her own trail after years of being manipulated and taken advantage of by Elvis while Elordi perfectly balances Presley's signature charm and magnetism with the insecure, controlling man that existed underneath his shiny exterior. Their performances are exactly what Coppola's simple, human approach to this story called for and a big part of why it worked so well. While I'm far too early in my awards movie journey for 2023 to make definitive declarations about any category, Coppola, Spaeny and Elordi at least deserve strong consideration for their efforts in helping make this film so great.
Grade: B+
The Holdovers: The Holdovers is sort of a back-to-basics exercise for Alexander Payne after the massive critical and commercial failure of Downsizing. This 70's-set Christmas dramedy about an ornery hardass teacher (Paul Giamatti), a cook (Da'Vine Joy Randolph) whose grieving the recent loss of her son in Vietnam and rebellious teenager (newcomer Dominic Sessa) who are forced to spend their holiday break together at a Massachusetts bordering school while the rest of their fellow peers and students have left to spend time with their families is exactly the type of straightforward, character-driven movie that helped Payne rise to prominence. And quite frankly, it's the best one he's ever made.
There's nothing about The Holdovers that's particularly unexpected or revolutionary, it's just a story about lonely, broken people developing an unlikely bond at a time of year where it hurts the most to be sad and alone that's handled incredibly well. The arcs for all three leads as well as the development of their relationship are compelling, believable and driven by a real connection, the performances are all incredible as each performer knows what notes they need to hit in each given scene (Sessa's work is particularly impressive as he had never acted in anything but school stage productions prior to this) and the ending manages to be warm without disregarding the unfair fragility of the ecosystem that these characters operate in. Movies like The Holdovers are an increasingly rare breed these days, which is why it was particularly delightful to watch something that uses humor, heart and shared humanity to earn its status as a crowdpleaser. It opens nationwide this Thursday night and I highly recommend you go check it out ASAP.
Grade: A
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