December Movies Part 5: Anyone but You, Migration, Ferrari, Kho Gaye Hum Kahan

Alright, it's time for a buffet of movie reviews to close out 2023. Do you want a raunchy romcom, an animated movie about some birds, a biopic about a man who made some cars, or a Bollywood drama about social media? Well, keep reading!

Anyone but You: I wasn't going to watch this movie. But then I discovered it was directed by Will Gluck (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Ilana Wolpert), and my interest was piqued. He directed the phenomenal Easy A, so I figured maybe this movie wouldn't be terrible. And oh man. It was splendid! Starring Sydney Sweeny and Glen Powell (two wildly attractive yet also thankfully personable actors) as Bea and Ben, this is a story of two people who had a disastrous one-night stand but now have to reunite at the wedding of Bea's sister and Ben's childhood best friend...in Australia. They hate each other, but they don't want to ruin the wedding weekend, so they decide they need to put up a front. Obviously, things don't go smoothly.

It's very tropey, but it's a classic, and the script has just the right amount of sizzle to make this a very R-rated comedy. Also, please note the couple's names: Bea and Ben. This entire movie is an ode to Beatrice and Benedict from Much Ado About Nothing, with references to the play sprinkled throughout the film as delightful nerdy Shakespearean Easter eggs. The tone is always light and breezy but also carries a great deal of heart, and the supporting cast are quite wonderful and unexpected and keep things moving along. If you've been pining for a classic romcom, your prayers have been answered. Get thee to this movie!

Migration: Do you want something more PG-rated? Then this might be the film for you. Written by Mike White (creator of The White Lotus, but don't expect any sexy shenanigans or murder here) and directed by Benjamin Renner, this is a charming movie about a family of mallard ducks that decide to migrate to Jamaica for the winter. They are led by patriarch, Mack (voiced brilliantly by Kumail Nanjiani), who is very anxious about leaving the comfortable pond they have always lived in. But he wants to please his wife, Pam (the equally brilliant Elizabeth Banks), who is longing for adventure, so they embark on this journey with their kids Dax and Gwen (Caspar Jennings and Traci Gazal) and Mack's grumpy uncle Dan (Danny DeVito). 

Unfortunately, they get a little lost, and instead of ending up in the Caribbean, they find themselves in the wilds of New York City. Here they befriend a pigeon (natch) named Chump, voice by Awkwafina, and many adventures ensue, some of which involve a very evil chef who wants to turn them all into dinner. It's a fun, diverting, entertaining movie, and the ideal treat if you're a New Yorker who loves seeing the city in animated form.

Ferrari: Written by Tory Kennedy Martin and directed by Michael Mann, I like to think of this movie as House of Gucci: The Sequel. Which is slightly unfair because it's not an awful movie. But because you can't even laugh at it, you're just left spending two rather dull hours watching non-Italian actors do their best Italian accents and deal with the dramatic fallout of mixing business with pleasure. 

Adam Driver plays the titular Enzo Ferrari, and we follow his strained relationship with his wife, Laura (Penelope Cruz), with whom he founded his company. It's 1957, they are having financial difficulties, their son Dino just died last year at the age of 24, and oh, Enzo has been having an affair since World War II with another woman, Lina (Shailene Woodley), with whom he has a son. So you know, typical Italian stuff. On top of this, we have lots of car racing, lots of drama with Ferrari's drivers, and the high stakes of the upcoming Mille Miglia race throughout Italy. This is a film about a man who is desperately trying to maintain control as every aspect of his life is evading that control, and I don't know. I didn't find it particularly compelling, I thought the actors were fine but only serviceable, and overall, it left me cold. But maybe if you're a huge fan of Ferrari and his legacy, this is exactly what you've been looking for? Your mileage may vary. Pun intended.

Kho Gaye Hum Kahan: Directed by Arjun Varain Singh (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Yash Sahai and my girls Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti), this is a vibey and solid Bollywood Netflix movie about the trials and tribulations of our modern age and everyone's smartphone addiction. We follow a trio of friends from boarding school: Imaad (Siddhanth Chaturvedi), who is a stand-up comedian and is a commitment-phobe who is constantly going on Tinder dates with women he will never meet a second time; Ahana (Ananya Pandey), who thought she was in a solid relationship with her boyfriend of two years, but is now floundering after he has unexpectedly asked her for a break; and Neil (Adarsh Gourav), a personal trainer who still lives at home with his parents but is desperate to build a business, get some celebrity clients, make a lot of money and live his best life. 

These are three well-rounded characters and as the film progresses, each gets a robust storyline that centers on how their constant reliance on their phones and the need to compare themselves to what they see on their Instagram feeds is fueling immense amounts of loneliness and insecurity. There's nothing revelatory in this movie, but it is well-told and hits very close to home, particularly when assessing the horrors of the modern dating landscape. This movie can get intense at times, but overall, you can let it wash over you and bask in its moody Mumbai vibe. In that way, it's just like doomscrolling through your phone.

December Movies Part 4: Anatomy of a Fall & American Fiction

Seeking some quality cinematic fare that's bound to get some awards love? Well then I highly recommend a tense courtroom drama/thriller that is partly in French, and a brilliant comedy about a Black writer who decides to write "a Black book". That's what we call range!

Anatomy of a Fall: Directed by Justine Triet (who also co-wrote the screenplay with Arthur Harari), this movie won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (Triet is only the third female director to win this award). It stars Sandra Huller as Sandra Voyter, a German author who lives in a remote house in France with her French husband, Samuel (Samuel Theis) and blind son, Daniel (Milo Machado Graner). The movie opens with Samuel's dead body outside on the snow, which Daniel discovers when he is returning from a walk. What then follows is an impeccable mystery and courtroom drama where we try to figure out the circumstances of this death and whether our heroine is a murderer.

This movie is simply brilliant. There's a crucial language component to it - a lot of this film is in English, because Sandra's French is not that good and she will speak English to her son or her lawyer, or eventually in court when the questioning is too complicated for her to have to deal with in French. It's fascinating to see how things sometimes get lost in translation - I'm sure there were numerous other examples, but I found it weirdly telling that at one point during questioning, Sandra replies (in English) that a particular passage in one of her books was 20 pages long, and the prosecuting lawyer says (in French), 27. It's not a material error, but still conveys how dangerous this woman's position is, going to trial in a country where she doesn't speak the language with ease and could easily have her words misinterpreted.

The real star though is Milo Machado Graner, who plays her young son, Daniel. He is precocious and wise, wears all his emotions on his face, and despite the extreme trauma of the events that are transpiring, does some significant detective work to help us reach a satisfying conclusion. It's an absolutely gripping movie, unfolding mostly in a courtroom, with increasingly tawdry revelations and red herrings. I was glued to the screen and I'm willing to bet you will be too.

American Fiction: What an incredible movie. Based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett and directed by Cord Jefferson (who also adapted the screenplay), this might be the funniest movie I watched this year. Funny with a great deal of satirical bite.

Jeffrey Wright plays Thelonius "Monk" Ellison, an English professor who is fed up with his woke white students and fed up with white publishers who won't publish his novels of literary fiction because they aren't "Black enough." As a joke, he sits down and writes a stereotypically Black novel, one full of slang and downtrodden characters, gun violence, clashes with the police and the other tropes that pop culture has taught us to expect from Black characters. He sends this to his agent, who is rightfully appalled, but Monk insists that the novel be sent out to various publishers under a pseudonym. The intention is for the publishers to realize it is a joke and that he is mocking them for their racist taste. But of course, turns out they love the book and want to buy it for substantial sums of money. 

What follows is insane and wonderful and thought-provoking. And utterly hysterical. Monk must now pretend to be the author of this godforsaken book, and the lie keeps building and building upon itself as the book continues to get more acclaim. Along the way, he is also dealing with some family drama, with folks like Sterling K. Brown and Tracee Ellis Ross playing his amazing siblings, as well as dealing with his anger towards another Black author that he deems to be a sellout, played by the wonderful Issa Rae. It's a wild ride, and the ending is particularly sublime. You absolutely MUST watch this film - it is incisive, funny, and moving, an absolutely heartwarming piece of magic that also has deeply cutting things to say about American society. Cord Jefferson miraculously balances the tone of this film with pitch perfect precision and Jeffrey Wright delivers the performance of his career - give them all the awards.

December Movies Part 3: Leave the World Behind & Wonka

OK, you want to go out for a movie and then come back and watch another one on Netflix? I have just the two films you seek.

Wonka: Directed by Paul King (who also gave us the whimsical Paddington movies) from a script he wrote with Simon Farnaby, this is an utterly charming confection of a film that imagines the origins of Willy Wonka and his magical Chocolate Factory. Timothee Chalamet stars as Wonka with a supporting cast that is stacked with incredible actors like Olivia Colman, Hugh Grant, Keegan Michael-Key, Rowan Atkinson, and quite a few of the comic troupe from Ghosts. The British folk are putting on their best panto performances, dialing it up to 100 and cackling with evil glee if they are villains, or helping our hero with eager cheer if they are the good guys - or dancing a silly dance and begrudgingly saving the day if they are an Oompa Loompa, like Hugh Grant. 

I had no idea this movie was a musical, so from the opening bars I was hooked by its splendor and silliness and impeccable production design. I also left the theater in dire need of some chocolate. I won't give away any plot because you need to just let the theatrical hiijnks unfold in front of your eyes, but you would have to have a heart of stone to not end up with a big grin on your face. It's a frothy, fun film that is perfect for the holidays and should be added to your watchlist immediately. 

Leave the World Behind: Knowing that this movie was coming out on Netflix, I sought a copy of the novel by Rumaan Alam from my local library and devoured it in a few days. I really enjoyed the novel, but also couldn't quite fathom how someone could turn it into a good movie. Well writer-director Sam Esmail has tried to adapt it, and the result is...middling.

Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke do a fine job playing Clay and Amanda, a couple from Brooklyn who rent a Long Island vacation home with their two younger children, Rose and Archie (Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans). But then as weird things start to happen, the family have to let in George (the wonderful Mahershala Ali) who owns the house, along with his daughter, Ruth (Myha'la). As the film progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that something is very wrong in the world, and we might be on the brink of an apocalypse. Yeah, I know, it's a lot to deal with.

Esmail has a great visual style and there are some jaw dropping set pieces in this movie that are appropriately shocking and creepy and manage to convey the goosebumps that this book gives you as you read it because everything starts out so ordinarily but then devolves in utterly incomprehensible ways. However, I really did not appreciate the major change he made from the book, i.e. turning the character Ruth into George's daughter, instead of his wife. In the book, the two are an older married Black couple, and they have an interesting dynamic with Amanda and Clay who are liberal white folk. Instead, by turning Ruth into George's daughter, Esmail unnecessarily sexualizes the character, making her an object of lust for the teenage son, Archie. It is nice to have a young Black woman who doesn't mind calling Amanda out directly on her racist bullshit, but you could have just as easily done that with an older woman. Also, Amanda is written as a complete misanthrope, while in the book she's just a career woman trying to take a break and get some quality family time. Esmail did such a great job writing the male characters (Hawke is particularly excellent at conveying Clay's abject uselessness in this state of affairs) but then, like too many male directors are wont to do, he reduced the women to absolute caricatures.

I certainly did not hate this movie, and if you're the type of person who can't be bothered to read, you will probably still get a good sense of what the novel was like if you watch this film. Despite all my quibbles about Esmail's script, I was charmed by the final scene of the movie, for very particular reasons. To me it did end up capturing the essence of the novel (be warned, it's an ambiguous ending), and was an audacious way to end after all the creeping dread of the preceding two hours.

December Movies Part 2: The Archies, Family Switch, Mr. Monk's Last Case

It's cold, it's rainy, why bother going out? Stay indoors and check out some streaming movies! Whether you're looking for some Christmas, Bollywood, or murder comedy, I've got something for everyone.

The Archies: All I knew about this film was that it was directed by Zoya Akhtar and was based on Archie comics. Zoya is my favorite Indian director and I devoured Archie comics as a kid so this film was supposed to be a slam dunk, right? Unfortunately, I did not realize that a bunch of nepo babies had been cast in the lead roles: Archie is played by Amitabh Bachchan’s grandson, Agastya Nanda, Veronica is Shahrkuh Khan's daughter, Suhana, and Betty is Sridevi’s daughter, Khushi Kapoor, who, to be fair, is the only one I actually liked in the film). Rounding out the cast we have Mihir Ahuja, Vedang Raina, and Aditi "Dot" Saigal as Jughead, Reggie, and Ethel. But the supporting cast is largely superfluous because of course the main story is about the love triangle and Archie messing around with Betty and Veronica. Dude would have really loved dating in 2023 and all the ethical non-monogamy. 

Interestingly, the movie is set in the 1960s, in an Anglo-Indian community in India called Riverdale that was established by a British general who loved the country and decided to stay after Independence instead of going back to London. The production design and costumes are gorgeous and this is a wonderful movie to look at. There is also a song almost every minute, which is excessive even by Bollywood standards, but that soundtrack is ridiculously infectious and my fiancé still keeps humming, “Archie, Archie, everything is politics!” weeks after we finished watching the film. But the script is rather basic and the acting performances from these newbies do nothing to elevate the material. This movie is certainly a charming way to while away an afternoon, but don’t expect anything revelatory.

Family Switch: Written by Victoria Strouse and Adam Szytkiel, and directed by McG, this was my first Christmas movie of the year. Ed Helms and Jennifer Garner star as Bill and Jess, two loving parents who are trying to manage their angsty teenage kids, CC and Wyatt (Emma Myers and Brady Noon), along with their new baby and dog. When the family go to an observatory to take a holiday photo, they all get into a fight, with the son accusing his father of knowing nothing about his interests, the mother and daughter bickering about how neither one understands the other, etc. You know, standard family drama. But, of course, when they wake up the next morning, they discover they have all switched bodies - the father is now in the son’s body and vice versa, and ditto for mother and daughter. And then shenanigans ensue.

We’ve all seen many movies like this. You’ll probably be able to predict every beat from start to finish. But it’s a Christmas movie and we don’t watch those for surprises and unpredictability! We watch them for silliness and jollity! This movie is dumb and will not be entering my list of movies I rewatch every year. But did I regret watching it this year? Not for a single instant. Ho ho ho!

Mr. Monk’s Last Case: I have not seen an episode of Monk or thought about this show for more than a decade. But back when it was airing on USA, my parents and I would sit down and religiously watch it every Friday night (yeah, I was a wild and crazy youth). So, imagine my surprise when I got an email from Peacock telling me that they were now streaming a Monk movie about what happens when Adrian Monk (the always wonderful Tony Shalhoub) has to help his stepdaughter whose fiancé dies in a bungee jumping accident on the day before her wedding. Could it be - gasp - murder?!

Obviously, it IS murder and for 90 minutes we get a diverting mystery involving a Bezos-esque corrupt tech billionaire and some familiar faces from the old show. This is all taking place post-pandemic so there are some fun jokes about how everyone is now sanitizing their hands and behaving like Monk, but as you can imagine, the pandemic was an absolute disaster for his mental health. In fact, there’s a rather dark thread throughout this film about Monk’s state of mind and it definitely didn’t jibe with the comic tone of the rest of the proceedings. But ultimately, this was a good nostalgia watch - I don’t think it will mean anything to people who never watched the show, though the mystery was quite fun to follow, but if you did regularly watch Monk in the olden days, this might scratch an itch you never even knew you had.

Documentary Binges: Beckham & The Super Models

Do you want to watch something more substantial than a movie but less time-consuming than an entire season of a TV show? Well, might I recommend two riveting celebrity documentaries that shine the spotlight on some people who have already been in the spotlight for their entire lives.

Beckham: Directed by Fisher Stevens (you might recognize him as Hugo from Succession and have to adjust your brain to the idea that he is also an Oscar-winning documentarian!), this is a brilliant biography of David Beckham, the man, the myth, the legend. I have always been aware of Beckham's existence, but mostly because of Bend It Like Beckham, and not because I actually ever watched him play football. And of course, to me he mostly existed as Posh Spice's husband. 

But in this series, we get four hours that chronicle his childhood, with a father who molded him to become a footballing machine; his relationship and marriage to Victoria; the absolutely vitriolic treatment he received from the British press and the British public when he was unfairly blamed for England losing the World Cup; and the many ways in which his career kept morphing. This is a man with a singular dedication to his sport, and he almost refuses to say a bad word about anyone or even acknowledge his own mental health struggles in pursuit of this blinding ambition. 

My favorite part of this documentary is how we get to watch players watch themselves in important matches. It's one thing to see them just chatting about their lives. But the minute Fisher Stevens turns on a match and then the camera focuses on their faces, it's like their eyes get extra-focused and steely and this smile blossoms on their faces, and that's it. This is who they are, and they seem to remember every match like they just walked off the pitch. It is also gloriously entertaining to hear Victoria's Beckham's side of the story, and the many indignities she had to face as a footballer's wife. Sure, she might have been Posh Spice, but once she had some kids, her main concern was, "how am I going to keep these kids in school?!" While the documentary briefly addresses rumors of infidelity (with nothing actually being admitted, because that's what happens when your documentary subject is also serving as the producer), this is ultimately a story about a couple that fell in love when they were super young and exposed to startling levels of worldwide fame, who have now built a life together that seems to have worked out well. It's a delightful biography, compellingly told, and now I finally understand what all the fuss was about.

The Super Models: Directed by Roger Ross Williams and Larissa Bills, this is an excellent documentary about Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, and Cindy Crawford, four women who became models in the 80s, and then became so famous that they officially became supermodels. As someone who is not remotely into fashion, I knew these names, of course, but nothing else about these women, so for four hours I was spellbound by their stories.

Each of these four women has a unique history, and the first episode is all about their family backgrounds and how they made it into the business. It was astonishing how naive their parents were, sending out these teenage girls into auditions and then global international campaigns with absolutely no supervision. The women talk about the different modelling agencies at the time, some of which treated the girls like family and ensured they had strict rules to follow so they didn't get in trouble, while others were lax and treated these girls simply as the means to making a boatload of money. Sadly, there are of course some tales of abuse, and we also see some rather horrifying talk show interviews, where the women are asked about their weight, and simply treated as pretty objects to throw a dress onto, with no thoughts or ideas of their own. It's also incredible how they describe the current state of modelling versus what they were doing in the 80s and 90s - they didn't have the ease of Photoshop and digital cameras, so they had to work diligently with their photographers to come up with these iconic photos with no touch-ups or special effects.

It's a compelling and wonderful series that highlights the glamor and grittiness of the profession, and it is fascinating to see how all four women had very different career trajectories and ideas about how they wanted to live their post-supermodel lives. Throughout, there is a wonderful thread of sisterhood and support, a reminder that the true key to a woman's success is to have other women championing her along the way. It's amazing to see these women brought back together in this documentary and note how their friendship has endured and how easily they fall back into the old rhythms as they pose for a photoshoot when they're now in their 50s. Turns out these models are still pretty super.

Literary Binges: The Other Black Girl & Lessons in Chemistry

I recently caught up on two adaptations of books I absolutely loved. I exhort you to actually read these books, but if you can't be bothered, these eight-episode adaptations have done a pretty great job of bring the world of these novels to life on the small screen.

The Other Black Girl: Based on the novel by Zakiyah Delilah Harris, who serves as co-creator of this show with the formidable Rashida Jones, this is an incisive and surprisingly hilarious thriller about a Black woman trying to make it in the very white world of publishing. Sinclair Daniel stars as Nella, a Black woman who works at Wagner Books as an editorial assistant and is keen to become an editor. When a new editorial assistant, Hazel (Ashleigh Murray), joins the firm, Nella is excited that she will finally have one other Black colleague. 

However, things start to take a disquieting turn - Hazel seems to be very supportive of the sisterhood, but then also quietly undermines Nella at key moments, and things just feel a little bit off. And then a mysterious stranger approaches Nella and tells her to watch out for Hazel. Which leads to a whole investigation of who this woman is and how exactly her story is intertwined with that of a Black author from the 80s who served as Nella's inspiration for getting into this business in the first place.

This is a fantastic adaptation that captures the essence of the novel in every scene and walks that tightrope between horror and hilarity with every step. The book was like a literary answer to Get Out, and the TV adaptation is a worthy successor to that film, fully capturing the many facets of the Black experience, and how a person can be too Black for the white world, but then not Black enough for the Black world. The story takes some wild and outrageous twists, but you just have to hang on for dear life and go on this ride. It is funny, it is ridiculous, it is sublime. 

Lessons in Chemistry: Based on the novel by Bonnie Garmus, this adaptation was created by Lee Eisenberg and stars Brie Larson as Elizabeth Zott, a female chemist in the 1950s who faces misogyny at every step in her career but then finds an unexpected partnership and romance with fellow chemist, Calvin Evans (Lewis Pullman). 

Of course, the course of true love never did run smooth, and the film is mostly focused on what happens with Elizabeth and her daughter Mad (people mistakenly think that stands for Madeline, but it's just Mad) as they try to build a life for themselves and also learn more about Calvin's origins. While a lot of this show is about Elizabeth's struggles in the scientific community, there's also the crossover when she becomes the host of a popular cooking show, that turns into a feminist rallying cry for women all over the country who have stifled dreams and ambitions.

This is a decent adaptation and is certainly well-acted, with impeccable production design and costumes that beautifully capture that 50s aesthetic. But the show also inserts additional plotlines that weren't in the original novel and takes away other elements, so your mileage may vary if you were a big fan of the book. I can certainly understand why they made these changes and the show stands well on its own, but I did feel like it paled a little bit in comparison to the novel. It's still a wonderful story though, and if television is your preferred medium for storytelling, this is certainly a delicious story to treat yourself to for eight hours. 

December Movies Part 1: The Killer, May December, Dream Scenario

It’s time to kick off the month with a collection of oddball films that are all a little bit strange and a little bit intriguing. I can’t say any of them were my favorite movie of the year, but each one was thought-provoking in its bizarre little way.

The Killer: Directed by David Fincher and written by Andrew Kevin Walker, based on a French graphic novel series by Alexis Nolent and Luc Jacamon, the film stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous killer. He is an elite assassin for hire, and we are treated to his interior monologue on how to do this job ruthlessly and efficiently. It is important to be cool, calm, and calculating, without an ounce of empathy or human feeling that could get in the way of this very dispassionate job. However, the movie opens with a botched assassination, and what follows is a twisty thriller that is gory but also kind of funny, where we are following this very self-serious man who has such confidence in his ability to get every little detail right…except now all those details are going wrong. I’m not sure I ever got fully invested in what was happening in this movie (the fact that I watched on Netflix meant that it was also a fairly distracted viewing), but this is probably a good lazy afternoon movie, something to get the blood pumping, with a few unexpected chuckles. It might be too dark and bloody for some folk, but if you like a stylish action thriller and wish Fassbender did more movies, this should be right up your alley.

May December: Written by Samy Burch and directed by Todd Haynes, this is a story about a woman named Gracie (Julianne Moore) who slept with her 13-year-old student, Joe, was arrested, gave birth to his child in prison, and then subsequently married him years later when she got out of prison and he was old enough to consent to this (the adult Joe is played wonderfully by Charles Melton). Now, a movie is being made of her story and a famous actress named Elizabeth (Natalie Portman) comes into town to shadow Gracie and interview her friends and family about her life and the impact to her community. But what follows is an extreme and weirdly campy story about an actress who goes way too method, an emotionally disturbed woman who still has no sense that she did anything wrong, and a man who is coming to grips with the fact that maybe his relationship is a little bit screwed up and he missed out on his entire childhood. 

I honestly don’t know what tone this movie is going for. It’s mostly a bit dark and icky, but the score is kind of absurd and feels like you’re in a heightened soap opera. Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore are turned up to 100, while everyone around them is muted and more in touch with reality. Ultimately, I came away feeling the most sympathy for Joe, and Charles Melton's performance, especially in the final scenes, was startlingly moving. I ended up doing a deep dive into the real-life Mary Kay Letourneau case that this whole movie is loosely based on, and was shocked how so many of the details were identical. It’s a disturbing tale, disturbingly told, so…bravo?

Dream Scenario: Written and directed by Kristoffer Borgli, this is a very weird, funny, and sad movie about what happens when an ordinary man named Paul (Nicolas Cage, in yet another odd but remarkable role) randomly starts showing up in the dreams of people all around the world. In these dreams he is usually just walking by, being extremely passive, not doing a thing. At first this is an oddity, but as more people start to realize they have seen him in their dreams, he goes viral. And he, being a bit of a loser who has always aspired to greatness, mistakenly thinks that he will be able to leverage this fame in a way that will serve him. But of course, that is not how the world, and social media, work, and he soon finds himself stirring up a maelstrom. 

This movie goes all over the place but it is a tight 100 minutes that is thought-provoking and entertaining. Some of the dream sequences can start to feel like a horror movie, so be prepared for some nightmares, but overall, Cage’s central performance keeps this film on firm ground. You feel for this shlub who got carried away by the promise of Internet fame, and the films proceeds relentlessly, adding in numerous twists to his predicament and making a larger commentary on influencer culture and our capitalist world. It is very funny but also tinged with plenty of melancholy. Isn't that exactly the mood you want for a December film?