Female Film Critics 24/375
Some films are just plot fodder, some lift up characters. Some represent a genre, and when that type usually has little appeal, the film has to call you with something else that makes watching seductive. Swan Song is that film. It nestles into the world of science fiction, and if that’s a type you ordinarily avoid like the plague, here is a reason to watch it: Mahershala Ali.
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Written and directed by Benjamin Cleary, making his feature film debut after winning a 2016 Oscar for his short film Stutterer,”this story is set sometime in the future, when advertising artist Cameron Turner (Mahershala Ali), who has been suffering headaches and seizures, is diagnosed with a terminal illness. Acknowledging his fatal prognosis is the first step, according to Dr. Scott (Glenn Close), who offers Cameron a unique opportunity to shield his family from grief.
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In Swan Song, Cameron Turner is dying of cancer, but rather than reveal his diagnosis to his wife, Poppy and son, Cameron opts to undergo an experimental new treatment to clone himself and let the replicant continue living his life. During the final stages of the treatment under the supervision of Dr. Scott, Cameron has to face the reality of his decision and confront whether he’s ready to say goodbye to his loved ones — and life as he knows it.
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In his first starring role, Mahershala Ali hopes Swan Song trumpets his talents as a leading man for quite a while. In this near future thriller, Ali plays a loving husband and father diagnosed with a terminal illness who secretly clones himself to save his family the grief of losing him…and giving the viewer lots of moral and ethical questions to ponder.
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Very little about Four Good Days is easy to watch — not drug addiction, mother/daughter tension and distrust, or justifiable anger against Big Pharma. The title refers to the wait before the user can get a shot that will help her break her addiction, but those four days are horrific for her, her mother, and her mother’s husband. And the audience.
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“Poverty porn” suffuses Hillbilly Elegy as does self-aggrandizement (see the cards and rotogravure with the credits). Hillbilly Elegy skims the surface of the book to focus on family more than politics, resulting in a tolerable film. Thankfully, it’s not Hee-Haw, but it’s not Barbara Kopple’s iconic documentary, Harlan County, U.S.A. either.
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J.D. Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis is about his chaotic childhood. It’s been termed “poverty porn,” detailing his mother’s chronic drug addiction, pivoting from personal “down home” recollections to inevitable culture clashes. In the film adaptation, it comes across as a family drama, a resonant slice of rural Americana.
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When J.D. Vance’s 2016 memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, landed on best-seller lists just months before Donald J. Trump would become our 45th president, it was treated like portal into the mind set of those in the disenfranchised white underclass who supported him.
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The eighth time might be the charm for Glenn Close at the 2020 Academy Awards. The seven-time Oscar nominee will star in Paramount’s big-screen version of the Broadway musical adaptation of the screen classic Sunset Boulevard, reprising the role she’s played twice on Broadway in productions that were more than 20 years apart.
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The Wife is coming home — which means, of course, that the award-winning film is releasing on home video, making it more readily available to the wider range of viewers who should see it. It’s a film that celebrates the strength of its central female character, and the DVD release is a good time to celebrate the women who brought the compelling story to the big screen.
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