Got your summer vacation travel plans booked already? If not, the movies could help and convince you that you need to go to Italy. And now.
The hotspot for culture, wine, scenery and all that sinfully delicious food shows off its two very different sides in two very different movies.
First up comes the “traditional” tourist tour of Italy in the form of “Book Club: The Next Chapter.” The second is aimed for the more epic adventurer wowed by the Italian Alps, where “The Eight Mountains” is set.
Which is the better film? Read this week’s roundup to fine out.
“The Eight Mountains”: What a shame it would be to watch Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s breathtaking beauty on an itty-bitty screen. It’s a visual feast that all but declares: Go to the movie theater already! The soul-stirring cinematography of Ruben Impens is matched by the epic storytelling about two boyhood chums in Italy and their bond that strengthens and shifts over the years. Both directors take care in replicating the evocative, pared-down crispness of author Paolo Cognetti’s award-winning 2016 novel, which serves as “Mountains” basis.
The decades-spanning film opens with an uncertain Milan boy named Pietro summering in the nearly deserted and remote Grana village where he soon befriends the gregarious, adventurous Bruno, whose father is a brutish bricklayer. Over the years, the two take different paths — the wandersome Pietro (Luca Marinelli) all but extricating himself from the family fold while Bruno (Alessandro Borghi) remains in Grana and carries on the family tradition.
They eventually reunite amidst events that shake up their lives and their friendship, as they encounter adversity and love, and have their own perceptions challenged.
At nearly 2½ hours, “The Eight Mountains” is in no rush to tell its story, but the time is well spent, allowing us to soak up the sweeping natural beauty of those mountains. It’s staggering to take it all in; so is the profundity of this story about two flawed individuals who develop a once-in-a-lifetime friendship that shapes both of them. Details: 4 stars out of 4; opens May 12 at the Kabuki in San Francisco and expands into more theaters including the Smith Rafael Film Center on May 15.
“Book Club: The Next Chapter”: The Italian Tourism Bureau should express deep amore to Bill Holderman for directing this congenial but tepid sequel to the surprise 2018 hit with the terrific Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen. It’s too bad that, given the talent and scenery on display, there’s not much else to admire. In “Next Chapter,” the quartet of friends travels to Rome, Venice and Tuscany on a whirlwind bachelorette party (Fonda’s steadfastly single character Vivian is the one walking down the aisle). Minor road bumps occur — stolen luggage, a surprise encounter with an old flame and an ooh-la-la hot cop — and all of it breezes by as if you’re spending a tipsy day under the Tuscan sun. While the four leads are game and the screenplay hints at something more substantial to say by framing it around Paulo Coelho’s classic “The Alchemist,” the dialogue is overstuffed with predictable laugh-track-ready one-liners — some come across as flat as week-old uncorked prosecco. Even the charms of Don Johnson and Andy Garcia as love interests get sidelined in a production that fails to take full advantage of the scenario or the stars. Details: 2 stars; in theaters May 12.
“BlackBerry”: How did the first smartphone, the one everyone expected would rule the world, rise to the top and then crash to the ground like Icarus? Matt Johnson’s pitch-perfect feature jauntily shows us what went right and then wrong with the BlackBerry, from its kooky, nerdy origins to its ascendancy and, ultimately, its demise. It all makes for a massively entertaining ride with two main actors steering the action, and one just stealing the entire movie. Glenn Howerton triumphs as tantrum-prone Canadian businessman James Balsillie, who carves out a huge slice of the company pie and shouts and bellows with the best of them. His confrontational style of business is the very antithesis of founder Mike Lazaridis (played well by Jay Baruchel), an OCD brainiac with techie know-how. Filled with great period details and told in a docudrama-like way, “BlackBerry” is simply irresistible. Details: 3½ stars; in theaters May 12.
“1,000% Me: Growing Up Mixed”: W. Kamau Bell, a media bright light, best-selling author and Bay Area treasure, drops in on local mixed-race families to chat about how they define themselves and how others perceive and try to define them. The responses prove to be thoughtful, heartwarming, incisive and, since kids are often the ones responding, quite funny and on pointe. While it’s just shy of an hour, it raises — as does all of Bell’s work — important points and issues that hopefully will spark even further conversations. Details: 3 stars; available now on HBO Max.
“Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie”: Director Davis Guggenheim (“An Inconvenient Truth”) takes a frank, energetic and creative approach that mirrors the standout qualities of its subject — the lovable sitcom and movie star Fox. His scrappy early days in Hollywood and his battles with fame, booze and ego along with his love for his wife, family and living in general come across in Guggenheim’s account, with the actor staring straight into the camera and talking about the realities of having Parkinson’s Disease and how he tried to hide from others that he had it. It’s a revealing documentary about a man who was once one of the busiest actors in Hollywood who has learned in transition to appreciate the loved ones around him even more. Details: 3½ stars; available May 12 on Apple TV+.
“Monica”: Supposedly, you can’t go home again, but sometimes you just have to go. That’s the predicament for Monica (Trace Lysette) who leaves her messed-up Los Angeles life behind to help care for her terminally ill mother Eugenia (Patricia Clarkson). Estranged from both her mother and her brother (Joshua Close), Monica’s return isn’t greeted entirely with open arms. Why that is becomes more apparent in director Andrea Pallaoro’s lament on unraveled family ties that ever so delicately can be stitched together by a succeeding generation. Lysette handles the sometimes tough material well and gives us a piercing, multi-hued portrait of a trans woman struggling with herself and against outside forces over which she has no control. Pallaoro refuses to tell this story, co-written by Orlando Tirado, in a conventional and tidy movie-of-the-week manner, which is evident even in the framing of individual shots where main character’s faces are sometimes cut off. It’s an interesting decision, one of many made here, and it’s also another auspicious directorial turn from the Italian filmmaker. Details: 3 stars; in theaters May 12.
“The Restless”: Belgian director Joachim Lafosse debunks the average drama dealing with mental illness, being less touchy-feely about the topic and burrowing into what it is like to be bipolar and be with someone who is bipolar. As Damien, an artist and father of one, Damien Bonnard is painfully authentic, showing an acceleration of emotions and tearing into one family’s fabric. Refusing to take his medication and putting others in risk, Damien’s frenetic actions wear down his wife Leila (Leila Bekhti), who has been down this road probably one too many times. “The Restless” never sanitizes what this family is confronting, and by doing so, rips your heart out and provides no easy solutions. It’s a remarkable work that never rings false. Details: 3½ stars; available exclusively on Film Moment Plus.
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.
