The English - Directed by Hugo Blick
Chaske Spencer and Emily Blunt in The English
Prime Video and BBC’s new Western drama, The English, starts with an unhurried voiceover from Emily Blunt’s Lady Cornelia Locke. As the camera pans over a tidy room that doubles as a shrine to her former adventures, she softly narrates, “Without you, I’d have been killed right at the start. That’s how we met. That’s why we met. It was in the stars.” She steps out of her Victorian London mansion, dressed in garb fit for a funeral, clearly reflecting on her past crusades with a special someone. The monologue acts as a harbinger of the dark story about to unravel, promising intrigue, suspense, action, and romance.
Series creator Hugo Blick’s direction, aided by cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer and production designer Chris Roope, is hypnotic, and the show is visually gorgeous as it jumps from the dreary hues of 1890 London to a sunnier, arid American desert in 1875 to fill in the blanks.
There is an in-depth, poignant tale hidden with The English as Eli and Cornelia struggle with retaining parts of their identities after experiencing tragedy. It’s actual the balance of narrative and visual atmosphere that made it such a landmark of last year. Few films or series really dedicate as much time to both and the result here is unique and wonderful. Especially with a star-making turn from Spencer and arguably a career-best performance from Blunt.
The English is streaming on Amazon Prime.
Strange World - Directed by Don Hall and Qui Nguyen
In recent years, the parade of family friendly animated films has seemingly stumbled upon two paths diverging in a wood. On one side are the heavily merchandised, brightly colored, fart-joke-infused films geared at elementary school kids. On the other are the weepy, melancholic tales of loss, supposedly made for kids, but that feel much more like they’re the internal monologues of 40-something screenwriters. But now, Disney’s latest animated feature Strange World has hit the scene, bivouacking into uncharted territory. For the first time in Disney history they have centered a story around a gay character.
The LGBTQ+ character in question is Ethan Clade (voiced by The Daily Show’s Jaboukie Young-White), a teen boy hungry for adventure. Ethan is constantly embarrassed by his sweetly dorky and overly involved dad, a farmer named Searcher Clade (Jake Gyllenhaal). Searcher is a local celebrity in the gorgeous but secluded land of Avalonia, for discovering electricity in the form of Panto, a plant he unearthed while on a fateful mission with his father Jaeger Clade (Dennis Quaid). Jaeger, a career explorer dead-set on making it over the mountains that surround Avalonia, abandoned Searcher during one such quest, never to be seen again. Shortly into this film the Clade’s learn that their power supply is dying and they must travel into an unexplored region to save their world.
In many ways, Strange World feels like the kind of fun romp that’s become scarce in recent days. With gorgeous animation, inventive creatures, and plucky voice performances, it’s a high-stakes adventure à la The Rescuers or Monsters Inc. Unlike classic Disney, however, the cartoonish villain is replaced by more thoughtful psychological drama, diversity is at the forefront, and a message of sustainability and caring for the planet sits at the narrative’s center. Strange World feels like a new iteration of Disney, one that is more thoughtful and inclusive without sacrificing any of the humor or fun.
X - Directed by Ti West
Ti West’s best films have explored the tension between old and new; his one-two breakthroughs House Of The Devil and The Innkeepers were steeped in the form and technique of horror subgenres from decades past but executed with a skillful, contemporary sensibility. His new film, X, embraces that idea more literally and more confidently. The story of a group of filmmakers who encounter more than they bargain for during an adult film shoot, West’s latest exploits two familiar scenarios simultaneously while offering a rejoinder to the moralistic gender and sexual stereotypes that defined older horror scenarios.
West possesses a unique ability to utilize the rhythms of a familiar narrative or stylistic blueprint and contemporize them so that they don’t feel like a retread of the films that came before. Here he exploits the audience’s knowledge of sex travelogues and hillbilly horror to first make them laugh and then undermine their expectations.
With her button nose, freckles, and roller disco style, Mia Goth feels perfectly cast as a ’70s porn starlet, and the actress continues to lend an effortless complexity to characters that don’t necessarily need it. She and Brittany Snow amplify West’s respectful depiction of their characters’ vocational exposure by exuding not just a fearlessness but almost a mundane comfort with their bodies that too many films that fictionalize porn (or quite frankly elect to include nude scenes) fail to capture. Both actresses embrace an empowered and sex-positive attitude that’s mirrored by the film.
Conversely, West creates counterparts in Howard and Pearl who are more fully realized than most horror “antagonists.” He doesn’t go as far as trying to make us sympathize with them, but he presents their perspective in a vaguely empathetic way, even if they happen to express it more homicidally. And West actually does aspire to explore some concepts that are deeper and more complicated than survival or having sex on film. In particular, he examines the way that youth in others seems to bring out the feeling and impact of age in ourselves, not to mention how we resist or respond to that when it happens.
X is streaming on Showtime.
Pearl - Directed by Ti West
A prequel to West’s terrifying X —Pearl tells the bloody and tragic origin story of its sexually charged, identity-starved title character, played by Mia Goth, in a performance worthy of movie star status. By mining Pearl’s history, a violent (and at times intentionally Grindhouse-y) cautionary tale about the dangers of suppressing one’s desires, both carnal and otherwise, West taps thematically rich veins in ways that few of his contemporaries have ever explored in this space. Working with a script co-written by Goth, West effortlessly wields Pearl’s trauma-laced backstory like a scalpel while his star slashes her way through the film’s 102-minute run time, catapulting Pearl into the ranks of horror’s most satisfying and unsettling marriages of character-first storytelling, as well as making it one the year’s best movies of any genre.
Pearl trades in X’s gritty, late-’70s porno visual aesthetic for a technicolor palette as West draws back the curtain on the origins of Goth’s very old, very murderous iteration of Pearl in X. Her violent downfall starts at the end of World War I, in 1918, when Pearl’s attempts to flee an insular life on a Texas farm lead to a Tinseltown eager to prey on dreamers like her. Pearl’s obsession with movies blurs the boundary between aspirations she wishes were real and a reality she seems incapable of accepting. Her husband wages trench warfare abroad while she’s stuck at home with an emotionally abusive German mother (Tandi Wright) and a creepy, wheelchair-bound father (Matthew Sunderland).
It’s a delicate and tricky tightrope that West walks here, trying to create sympathy for a hero destined to become a ruthless villain. Much of Pearl’s greatness rests on Goth’s talented shoulders. She is fiercely committed to every frame of Pearl’s movie-like fantasy world, which makes her performance all the more haunting and haunted as that fantasy unravels. Violence in the world of Pearl is as inevitable and immutable as gravity, West suggests. But unlike X’s dusty fun, a melancholy atmosphere looms over the carnage, all underscored by West’s fascination with the tragic ends that come from building future hopes upon the shakiest present realities. If only more horror movies dared to dream as big with such emotionally charged results.
Pearl is available to rent from most streaming platforms.
Till - Directed by Cinonye Chukwu
Emmett Till was kidnapped, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 because he whistled at a white woman. In Till, that black mark in American history is told best in a grave and concise moment that shows his mother, Mamie Till Mobley, standing over his mutilated body and declaring “My son’s body returned to me reeking of racial hatred.” The film starts with Chicago native Till (Jalyn Hall) as he prepares to leave for Mississippi to visit his cousins. His mother Mamie Till Mobley (Danielle Deadwyler) worries about the visit because she understands how Black people are treated in the South. “Be small there,” is her advice to him. We know what happens next. The film does not show the lynching—not a spoiler since it’s outlined in the marketing and a director’s statement—but rather what happened before and after.
Centering the film on Mamie is the right decision, and Deadwyler absolutely delivers—she’s heartbreaking from literally her first moment on screen, able to demonstrate not just a mother’s love but also her resilience. Wherever Chukwu places her camera, Deadwyler’s face makes us understand not just what Mamie is going through but rather the reality of what this country does to its Black citizens. It’s a performance of quiet strength and loud emotion, though Deadwyler is never loud or histrionic. She just simmers with profound pain. Chukwu has personalized Till, or “Bobo” as he’s lovingly referred to by family, so that he’s not just a symbol. He’s flesh and blood, he’s a boy who enjoys teasing his mother, hanging out with his cousins. More importantly, he’s full of joy. That joy defines the last few days of his life, and Hall leans into showing it so that the audience feels the acute pain of his absence.
The moments that are most powerful in Till are those where Chukwu concentrates on people’s faces filling the screen, both actors and extras. After all, history is told by the people who witness it.
Till is available to rent on most streaming platforms.