I watched a lot of movies this past week on streaming, so I figured I’d write some blurbs about them.
Two Friends (1986), directed by Jane Campion. I liked this, it was a TV movie originally in installments about two teen girl best friends, Louise the straight-laced A student, and Kelly the punk rock girl from a troubled background. The story is told backwards, so the movie starts with them already drifted apart and Louise reading a letter from Kelly, and the events told in reverse show how their friendship fractured but began as very close, with a lot of little moments and tensions that ultimately drove them apart. I thought it was nice, I like hearing NZ accents, and the storytelling was creative, it was cool to see an early film of Campion’s. It’s on Criterion.
Leave No Trace (2018) directed by Debra Granik. I’ve seen this a couple of times, and found it very touching and affecting. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie play father and daughter, who are unhoused and live in a woodsy park in the Northwest, where Foster is a widowed army veteran who is struggling with PTSD and mental health issues, and his daughter feels safe with him living off the land, until they are discovered and social services puts them into custody and are trying to put them into government housing, but Foster is distrusting of the government and keeps taking him and his daughter on the run. She loves her dad, but is getting worried about his mental health and need to constantly be on the move, at the risk of her own health and safety. I liked how this movie was an intimate character study of a father and daughter who love each other, but have a complicated relationship. And that some people are more comfortable living a rural nomadic life on their own than being forced into general society, though it was coming at the risk of his health as well. It’s just a really great movie, and McKenzie’s star has risen further after this film, being in Jojo Rabbit and Last Night in Soho. It’s on Hulu.
The Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love (1995) directed by Maria Maggenti. I hadn’t seen this since I saw it on Bravo way back when I was a teen, and it held up pretty well as a cute story of first love between two teen girls. It’s a romance between Randy (Laurel Holloman), a white working-class tomboyish girl working at her aunt’s gas station and living with her lesbian relatives, and Evie (Nicole Ari Parker) a well-off preppy Black girl with a boyfriend. They develop a cute relationship, but face a lot of homophobia from Evie’s mom and friends, as well as school peers and the husband of a woman cheating on her husband with Randy (the movie doesn’t linger on the fact that the woman is a sex offender by preying on a minor, even if 17 could be the age of consent). I’m glad this got onto streaming, it’s a sweet and funny movie about first love between two queer teen girls. It’s on Criterion.
Night and the City (1950) directed by Jules Dassin. Richard Widmark stars in this noir as a hustler who gets involved in the wrestling scene in London to make fast money in schemes in the underground world, and gets in over his head dealing with shady and crooked types. I couldn’t get into this much, I didn’t find it very compelling. There is an effective scene of two wrestlers fighting to the death, and Widmark’s rat-like self getting double-crossed and his face having a “oh shit” look on it, like he’s marked for death, but otherwise I just couldn’t connect with this. It’s not bad at all, just not for me. It’s on Criterion and Hulu.
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