The core point of belonging “nowhere and everywhere all at once,” as the filmmaker put it in a recent interview with NPR, lines up well with her previous film, 2019’s The Farewell. Lulu Wang’s new Prime Video miniseries Expats explores the intersecting stories of three women from different backgrounds as they navigate the challenges of living as expatriates in a Hong Kong teetering on the cusp of societal upheaval. Drive My Car is a honest-to-god masterpiece and a film you owe it to yourself to embrace with your full attention. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve listened to “ Drive My Car (Kafuku)” while cooking, writing, reading, and yes, driving my car down the highway. But what really sticks out to me the most in hindsight is the film’s elegiac score by Eiko Ishibashi.
Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s film is built from complex emotional stakes, brilliant and patient cinematography, and masterful editing. Grieving the loss of his wife Oto (Reika Kirishima), with whom he shared a complicated yet loving relationship marred by a shocking secret, Yūsuke forms a bond with Misaki (Tōko Miura), his reserved driver, and Kōji (Masaki Okada), a brash young actor who knew Oto earlier in his life. Emma Thompson and Lashana Lynch highlight the adult cast as the monstrous Miss Trunchbull and the serene Miss Honey, in the kind of lavish movie musical that rarely gets made anymore.Cast: Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tōko Miura, Reika Kirishimaĭrive My Car does several things miraculously well, among them transforming a 179-minute run time into an experience that feels like no time at all, weaving together a multi-layered drama about grief, love, art, hope, and the confounding complexities of human intimacy powered by a moving lead performance.īased on Haruki Murakami’s short story of the same name, Drive My Car tells the story of Yūsuke (Hidetoshi Nishijima), a renowned stage actor and director who accepts a residency in Hiroshima to direct a multilingual production of Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. Musical theater fans will appreciate young Alisha Weir’s star-making performance as the title character, a precocious young girl with telekinetic powers who takes down the evil headmistress of her draconian school. The songs by Tim Minchin are catchy and energetic, and director Matthew Warchus stages dynamic musical numbers with a fluid visual style. The movie brings the successful stage musical to the screen, capturing all the appeal of the West End and Broadway hit without feeling stage-bound or overbearing.
Watch on Netflix Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-RabbitĪlisha Weir as Matilda in Roald Dahl's Matilda the MusicalĪuthor Roald Dahl takes a bracingly cynical approach to children’s literature, and this adaptation of one of his most popular novels retains that delightful mean streak, while also delivering a crowd-pleasing musical. Cricket, and the result is a melancholy story about the fleeting nature of life, within the structure of a sweet animated fable. Ewan McGregor brings depth to the role of Pinocchio’s protector Sebastian J. Director Guillermo del Toro, known for dark genre films like The Shape of Water and Pan’s Labyrinth, easily shakes off those comparisons with his Oscar-winning film, a gorgeous, complex stop-motion animated take on Collodi’s story, co-directed with Mark Gustafson.ĭel Toro shifts the story to World War II-era Italy, offering a political allegory about the rise of fascism as he tells the tale of the puppet Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) who longs to be a real boy. (L-R) Gepetto (voiced by David Bradley) and Pinocchio in Guillermo del Toro's PinocchioĪlthough Carlo Collodi’s 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio has been adapted many different times, the Disney animated version looms so large that it often overshadows any other interpretations.