"If Beale Street Could Talk" and "Widows"

I had a difficult time connecting with Barry Jenkins' last film, "Moonlight," and initially I thought I was in for another struggle with his adaptation of "If Beale Street Could Talk."  However, I found the material far more accessible, and I was better able to appreciate what Jenkins was able to do with it. The story is a familiar one, even if the particulars are of a very specific milieu.  Girl and boy are in love, but fate separates them. The girl, Tish (KiKi Layne) is expecting a baby, but the boy, Fonny (Stephan James) has been falsely accused of rape and stews in jail. Her family is sympathetic, but his is not.  The film watches the situation develop, while flashing back to earlier events in Tish and Fonny's lives and courtship.

Like "Moonlight," this is a love story, and it's the way that the film gets us so invested in the relationship that I found remarkable.  The mood and atmosphere here are everything, the smoke curling from Fonny's cigarette as he regards a new woodworking project, the nocturnal intimacy of Tish and Fonny's first night together, and the warm kinship of Tish's family celebrating her announcement.  Jenkins is so adept at getting us inside the characters' heads, putting us in these private spaces - sometimes uncomfortably close. When Tish's mother Sharon (Regina King) hits a setback, her face fills the screen, her desolation inescapable. And then there's the chilling encounter with a white police officer played by Ed Skrein, where the discordant music and the queasy cinematography make him seem positively demonic from Tish's frightened perspective.  

Again, however, there were places where I found myself struggling with slower pacing or incidental moments that didn't work for me the way they were intended.  I still think there are a few cultural and stylistic barriers that kept me from enjoying this as much as I wanted to - and this time, I really wanted to. Romantic mood pieces may just not hold my interest as much as more plotty pieces of media, no matter how exquisitely executed.  And "If Beale Street Could Talk" is exquisite filmmaking through and through.

Now on to "Widows," which is admittedly more my speed.  Steve McQueen has assembled a sensational cast for a heist movie of rare ambition.  We don't just learn about the lives and motives of each of the women involved in pulling off the big job, but we learn a great deal about the social circumstances in which they operate.  Set in Chicago, against the backdrop of a hotly contested election, "Widows" initially sets up a juicy genre premise. A robbery, led by Harry Rawlings (Liam Neeson), goes wrong and all four of the men involved are killed.  The victim, a local crime boss named Jamal Manning (Brian Tyree Henry), goes after Harry's widow Veronica (Viola Davis) for the missing money. So she plots with the widows of the other robbers, Linda (Michelle Rodriguez) and Alice (Elizabeth Debicki), to pull off a heist of their own.

There are a lot of twists and turns in the story, but McQueen's primary interest is with character and setting.  We spend a lot of time with Jack Mulligan (Colin Farrell), one of the candidates in the election, whose involvement with the heist initially appears to be minimal.  However, through him we learn the ins and outs of South Side Chicago, its politics and its tensions. Veronica is constantly on the move, traveling all over the city for meetings with people in high and low places.  She's often elegantly dressed with her dog in tow, a figure of fortitude and power even though she's frequently underestimated. In her quieter moments, we watch her grieve for Harry as a woman still very much in love.  Alice, and to a lesser extent Linda and her friend Belle (Cynthia Erivo), are very well fleshed out, living their own lives and dealing with their own sets of problems and concerns.

I'd heard some complaints that all of this extra work got in the way of the actual mechanics of the heist film, but I didn't find this to be the case.  There's plenty of action and confrontation, and room for all the actresses to shine, Davis in particular. I will caution that it takes more time and patience to get there than your average heist film.  However, along the way you get to meet people like Jamal's brother Jatemme (Daniel Kaluuya), an enforcer with a sadistic streak, and Bash (Garrett Dillahunt), Veronica's loyal chauffeur. You get to see the sights and enjoy the view a little more, before the bullets start to fly.    

 

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My Top Ten Films of 1980

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.      

The Long Good Friday - Bob Hoskins delivers a career best performance, playing an ambitious London gangster who makes a doomed attempt at going straight.  Alas, respectability and real estate dealings aren't as easy as they looks. It's a wonderful character piece, full of colorful dialogue and hot-tempered altercations.  The jazzy score, slick violence, and trips into the darker corners of the London underground make this one of the most memorable of the '70s UK crime films. Helen Mirren also puts in a good appearance as Hoskins' girlfriend, a far from typical gun moll.     

The Falls - One of Peter Greenaway's first features, and one of his most experimental.  The entire film consists of video entries for a fictional directory of the various victims of a sinister "Violent Unknown Event" or VUE that has greatly altered the world.  The 92 entries consist of short biographies and a brief listing of symptoms. Each offers hints about the nature of the VUE, which causes its victims to take on certain characteristics of birds.  The visuals are mostly photo stills and fanciful scientific diagrams, accompanied by the deadpan narration. It's bizarre and unforgettable.

The Blues Brothers - Any description of the film makes it sound too unlikely to exist.  So, I'll just express my deepest gratitude for the musical performances of Little Richard, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, and Cab Calloway, the epic car chase and resulting wreckage, Carrie Fisher, hating Illinois Nazis, Elwood Blues' appreciation of police cars, cameos by famous directors and puppeteers, getting the band back together, 116 parking tickets and 56 moving violations, Jake Blues' dining habits, everybody needing somebody to love, the great city of Chicago, and missions from God.   

The Elephant Man - An odd film for David Lynch, as it's one of his most straightforward features, and almost totally lacks his usual surrealist elements.  However, there's still an air of melancholy oddity to the black-and-white world of "The Elephant Man," and a directness and candidness about the deformities of John Merrick that keep it from ever feeling like a dry historical biopic or a lurid piece of exploitation.  The performances of Anthony Hopkins and John Hurt are wonderfully humanizing, and Christopher Tucker's makeup work, of course, is legendary.

Berlin Alexanderplatz - Is this really a movie?  I've seen enough film lovers count this fifteen-hour serial as a feature, even though it originally premiered on German television before its theatrical run.  So I'm comfortable putting it on this list, especially as it is one of the greatest achievements of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I admit I found many of the installments to be unrelenting studies in misery, and they were difficult to get through.  The finale, however, with its naked catharsis and fantasy sequences made the whole strange, fascinating trek through the hero's psyche worth it.

Gloria - Like all of Cassavetes' films, at its core "Gloria" is a character study of a very imperfect woman, played by Gena Rowlands.  However, I like Gloria more than I like the usual Cassavetes heroines. There's an admirable directness and toughness to her, and at the same time a very appealing vulnerable side.  Watching Gloria wrangle late-blooming maternal feelings while fleeing the mob is a joy. I admit that many of Rowland's other roles in Cassavetes films have a tendency to blend together in my mind, but Gloria stands apart as a tough cookie worth rooting for.  

The Shining - Kubrick's first and only horror film is a sensational sensory experience that turns the snowbound Overlook Hotel into one of the most eerie and unnerving cinematic landmarks of all time.  This was my first Kubrick film, and remains my favorite for its the unparalleled menace and psychological thrills. Jack Nicholson is somehow more charming the more unhinged he gets, and all the old horror cliches, from the jump scares to the smash cuts, are all magnificently effective thanks to Kubrick's exacting execution and and obsessive attention to detail.   

Kagemusha - One of Akira Kurosawa's final period epics sees Tatsuya Nakadai playing the double role of a beleaguered warlord and the lowly thief who becomes his decoy, and later his reluctant stand-in.  The impressive battle sequences are clearly a prelude to the all-out carnage of "Ran" a few years later, but "Kagemusha" stands on its own as both stirring drama and often overwhelming spectacle. With a narrative as potent as any Shakespearean tragedy, and Nakadai's excellent performance, "Kagemusha" is easily one of the highlights of Kurosawa's later career.   

Demon Lover Diary - A curious documentary, which chronicles the production of a '70s B-movie that goes terribly wrong.  The first time filmmakers behind the "Demon Lover" feature were clearly in over the heads, and as the film shoot spirals out of their control, and more details about their finances come out, the more jawdropping the situation becomes.  The documentary's filmmaking may be very mediocre stuff, with its whispered narration and many out-of-focus shots, but what the camera manages to capture is the stuff of cult movie legend.

The Empire Strikes Back - This is one of the foundational films of my childhood, and it honestly might not be here if I were able to be more objective about it.  Much of my continued admiration for the film comes from viewing it in context of the original "Star Wars." "Empire" was the film that really made the series what it is today, something darker and sadder, where the heroes don't win in the end, and disillusionment and doubt plague them at every step.  The effects work is still stunning, but here it's the deepening characters and ideas that make the movie special.

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"Suspiria" and "Bohemian Rhapsody"

I wasn't a big fan of the original "Suspiria," finding it too light on story and character to feel very substantial.  When I heard that Luca Guadagnino was going to remake it, I was hopeful that he would come up with something more to my tastes.  And boy, did he succeed.

Once again, an American dancer, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson), comes to Berlin to join a prestigious dance company.  Under the guidance of her instructor, Madame Blanc (Tilda Swinton), she flourishes. However, other students have been experiencing strange ailments, and there have been several sudden departures and disappearances.  One missing girl, Patricia (Chloe Moretz), was seeing a psychiatrist, Dr. Josef Klemperer (Lutz Ebersdorf), who takes it upon himself to investigate Patricia's claims of the dance company being run by witches.

Where the 1977 was a brightly colored Technicolor phantasmagoria, the 2018 edition chooses a more subdued, autumnal palette.  The imagery, however, is no less shocking and gruesome. There's far more emphasis on the dancing this time, and it's actually used as the source of some very potent body horror.  Susie's dreams are full of provocative imagery, and the makeup department clearly had a lot of fun turning several of the lovely actresses into monstrous grotesques. And I so appreciate that Guadagnino and company took advantage of modern effects and laxer content restrictions to really show us the full, weird, macabre glory of the witches and their depravity.  The horror elements are all top notch.

The story is much more coherent and easier to follow, though there were clearly pains taken to preserve the hallucinatory, dreamlike nature of the original.  There are also new thematic elements in the mix, with the story set in 1977 during a period of social unrest, and a power struggle going on within the coven. The characters are stronger and more complex, particularly Susie, and the performances are likewise more enjoyable.  The only disappointment I had is the music. I'm usually a fan of Thom Yorke, but I didn't think his selections worked with many of the bloodier sequences. And, frankly, nobody is ever going to match up to the Goblins.

Speaking of great music from the '70s, "Bohemian Rhapsody," the Freddie Mercury biopic, is an unabashed good time, thanks largely to its soundtrack of famous Queen songs and the performance of Rami Malek as Mercury.  We follow the life and times of Queen from the band's formation in the early '70s to the iconic Live Aid performance in 1985, and Mercury's evolution from an Indian-Arab college student named Farrokh Bulsara, to international rock star.

This long-awaited film has survived years in development purgatory and the firing of the credited director, Bryan Singer.  It gets some things very right, like the casting of the band members, the ending recreation of nearly the entire Live Aid performance, and the acknowledgement of  Mercury's heritage and difficult sexual awakening. However, it's also already notorious for playing fast and loose with the timeline, being a bit too kind to surviving band members, and essentially making a lot of things up.  There's a whole section of the film where Mercury breaks up Queen to become a solo artist that simply did not happen. However, "Bohemian Rhapsody" doggedly sticks to its "Behind the Music" formula, and I have to admit that it's all terribly entertaining.

I give a lot of credit to Rami Malek, who only bears the vaguest resemblance to Mercury, and is saddled with a very unfortunate dental prosthetic in many scenes.  He does a fantastic job in the performance recreations in particular, getting across Freddie Mercury's famous stage presence and charisma. The more intimate details of his private life may be largely fabricated, but Malek is convincing enough to evoke some real pathos for Mercury when he hits his low points.  The rest of the cast doesn't get as much to do as they probably should, with so much of the spotlight going to Malek. However, I still can't get over what a dead ringer Gwilym Lee is for the young Brian May.

"Bohemian Rhapsody" is at its best when the film focuses on the music - either the band performing or creating and recording iconic songs like the title track.  I wonder if Queen's recording of "Bohemian Rhapsody" by itself would have been enough to sustain an entire feature by itself. That part of the film certainly has the best moments of humor, cinematic creativity, and there's good use of the full ensemble.  As is, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is a good time at the theater, but this could have been considerably better.

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"The Good Place," Year Three

Spoilers for the whole season ahead.

There's no getting around that "The Good Place" lost a couple of steps this year, having ditched its original premise, location, and modus operandi several times over for something a lot more free-form and untethered.  There were still plenty of good moments and a couple of great episodes, but I was a lot less invested in this season than the previous ones.

I think a big part of my criticisms have to do with the show's shift from Eleanor to Michael as the main protagonist.  Michael is the one who knows what's actually going on the whole time and is able to pull many of the strings, first orchestrating the reunion of the four humans on Earth, and then directing their existential adventures as they bounce from one arbitrary goal to the next.  As much as I enjoy Ted Danson, and as much as Kristen Bell is still a big part of the season, Michael's just not as compelling a lead as Eleanor. Her moral development is still ongoing, but largely backgrounded, and the love story isn't prominent enough to feel like the stakes are equally as important.  Michael, after last year's change of heart, isn't really growing or changing much anymore.

Then there's the plotting.  The first part of the season takes place on Earth, giving us a chance to see how the humans use their second chances at life.  However, Michael and Janet's machinations to get everyone into the same academic study in Australia feels like a lot of work for a premise that doesn't really pay off in a satisfying way.  New character Simone (Kirby Howell-Baptiste) has exactly one good scene, then a whole lot of nothing. Then, several episodes are spent with everyone making up with their estranged family members - the first time it's felt like "The Good Place" has had filler.  It's only in the last five episodes that a really interesting new mystery emerges, and the show goes back to its cliffhanger endings. And in the end, everyone is right where they started - with a few new variations, of course.

I've always liked the ambitious, big-concept, "anything can happen" nature of "The Good Place," and this season had some good examples.  The "Janet(s)" episode with D'Arcy Carden pulling a Tatiana Maslany was a fun digression. The visits to Accounting, the Good Place Correspondence Center, and Doug Forcett's place do a good job of worldbuilding.  However, other big ideas like Tahani dating an overlooked Hemsworth brother, the Good Place bureaucracy being made up of useless time-wasters, and the humans deciding to band together to be do-gooders, didn't really land.  It's the more character based episodes that I found the most impressive. By far, the season highlight was "Jeremy Bearimy," where everyone finds out about the Judge's experiment, and William Jackson Harper's straitlaced Chidi goes temporarily off the deep end.

I found a lot of the humor more hit-or-miss this year too.  The chili made of junk food and the terrible wine T-shirt in "Jeremy Bearimy"  worked. I didn't find much amusing about the Florida episode though. And a ton of the call backs and references to in-universe in-jokes scattered throughout the season fell flat.  I always loved the show's absurd eatery names and background visual gags, but it felt like there were too many of them this year, awkwardly shoehorned into too many scenes. Especially when the characters were on Earth, there was often such an atmosphere of comic-book zaniness that it was distracting.  The prior flashbacks to life on earth clearly took place in sitcom world, but it was a sitcom world with a more grounded sense of reality.

Still, the show is consistently more entertaining and thought-provoking than not.  I admire and appreciate that "the Good Place" has committed to seriously exploring moral philosophy, going so far as to having Michael and Eleanor spend an entire bottle episode debating over the existence of free will, and turning Doug Forcett into an example of a "happiness pump."  The resolution over the mystery of the point system makes total sense, and is perfectly in keeping with what the show is doing thematically. I suspect a lot of the ups and downs of this season where due to the creators trying to find ways to explore more material in this vein. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but I'm glad that they're still trying new things and new storytelling devices.    

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"Burning" and "Beast"

Let's get away from Hollywood for a bit today.

Lee Chang-dong is one of my favorite filmmakers, and "Burning" lived up to my very high expectations for it.  A young man named Lee Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in), estranged from most of his family, falls in love with a dreamy, childlike young woman named Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo).  He looks after her apartment and pet cat while she's traveling. When Hae-mi returns with a sinister new acquaintance, Ben (Steven Yeun), Jong-su continues their friendship, but worries over the new relationship.

"Burning," much like Lee's last film, "Poetry," is full of ellipses.  There's a mystery that plays out in the second half of the film, one that none of the characters discuss directly, but which has devastating consequences for everyone.  Our hero is has to decide whether Hae-mi is trustworthy, and if a crime happened that he has no real evidence for. On a more existential level, he has to decide whether it's worth spending so much time and attention on things of dubious tangibility.  Should he keep coming around to feed a cat who never shows himself? Should he keep working on a novel that may never materialize? Hae-mi herself is frequently elusive, a young woman with no connections, a flighty temperament, and an unstable position in society.

I adore Lee Chang-dong films because the storytelling is so cinematic.  The pace is slow, but the narrative hums along, giving us plenty of character-building moments, and setting up many elements that pay off in satisfying ways.  Jong-su isn't much for conversation, so the majority of his investigations and realizations play out silently. We watch him take care of his absent father's farm, and then a scene later he wanders into the back of a courtroom, where we learn more about his father's fate.  Ben's wealth and status are made apparent long before Jong-su pegs him as "The Great Gatsby," his coldly spacious apartment contrasting with the cluttered homes of Jong-su and Hae-mi.

And then there's the spiritual and emotional journey that Jong-su goes through - all the ups and downs of his mostly one-sided romance with Hae-mi and his doubts over what to do when Ben appears in their lives.  Steven Yeun does a fantastic job of playing Ben as a cold-blooded, careless elite, who slowly reveals the extent of his sociopathy. However, it's Yoo Ah-in who delivers the most memorable performance. There's such an intimacy to the story and to Yoo's work.  The ending is terrifically bizarre and unexpected, but it makes complete sense for the character.

A similar, but more bluntly realized film is Michael Pearce's debut feature "Beast," a thriller set on the British island of Jersey.  A young woman named Moll (Jessie Buckley) works as a tour guide and lives at home with her wealthy parents, in order to help look after her ailing father.  However, Moll chafes at the social expectations and familial obligations placed on her by her overbearing mother, Hilary (Geraldine James), and police office brother Harrison (Oliver Maltman).  One night, she's helped out of a bad situation by a poacher, Pascal Renouf (Johnny Flynn), and they become romantically involved. However, Pascal is suspected of being involved in a series of disturbing murders.

"Beast" is a winning mix of the usual tropes of romance and crime films, anchored by a fierce performance from Jessie Buckley.  I wasn't sure what kind of story it was telling at the outset, and the various twists and turns left me guessing up until the end.  However, I was always fully invested in Moll's growing pains, her tensions with her family, and her rising guilt and inner turmoil as the investigation goes on.  I think it's her difficult family dynamics that are really the key to the picture, since it gives us clear antagonists to root against, and provides additional stakes to the romance.  Also, Geraldine James makes a wonderfully hateable evil screen mum.

Pearce's filmmaking has a few rough edges, but he does some interesting things with the editing and sound design, and takes plenty of advantage of the gorgeous Jersey scenery.  There's nice handling of the different tones, as the movie shifts from romance to thriller. Moll has occasional nightmares that add just the right amount of ambiguity and lurking violence to the mix.  At the same time, the portrayal of the romance is lovely and sensitive. This is a great start for Michael Pearce, and I look forward to seeing more.

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"Luther," Series Five

It's been four years since we last saw "Luther," the longest gap in the series yet.  I was surprised that the show had returned, since the leads have been busy with other projects, and the last season wasn't nearly as well-received as the previous ones.  However, everyone is back, including the show's creator and main writer Neil Cross. And the latest adventures of our favorite black British detective are some of his most satisfying so far, and well worth the audience's time.

DCI John Luther (Idris Elba) is still working in London, chasing crooks under the supervision of DSU Martin Schenk (Dermot Crowley), with a new officer working under them, Catherine Halliday (Wunmi Mosaku).  Their newest case involves a grisly series of murders that appear to be connected to a psychiatrist, Vivian Lake (Hermione Norris), and her her surgeon husband, Jeremy Lake (Enzo Cilenti). Luther is also being menaced by local crime boss, George Cornelius (Patrick Malahide), who suspects that Luther had someting to do with the kidnapping of George's son.  So, our hero is already busy when Alice Morgan (Ruth Wilson), his serial killer ex-lover/ex-enemy, crashes back into his life.

Unlike previous series of "Luther," there's no being coy about Alice's involvement.  She's an integral part of the show this year, and her complicated relationship with Luther sees major consequences that have been long overdue.  Ruth Wilson's performance has always been one of my favorite parts of "Luther," and here she gets lots of screen time and the opportunity to really get to dig into the character in a way that she hasn't since the first series, way back in 2010.  Elba is certainly still compelling as Luther, trying to keep ahead of all the different crises that eventually start feeding into each other, while battling his own demons. It's also helpful that there's only one police investigation going on this year, and it's one that plays out over all four episodes of the series.  This year feels less like a typical police procedural and more like a character-based thriller.

There's also a nice sense of continuity and progression to the writing.  Alice isn't the only familiar face from Luther's past to show up, and there are references to other prior events and departed characters.  Much of the new storyline is built around Luther dealing with the ongoing issues created by all of his prior adventures, many of which have been compounding for years.  Idris Elba is graying noticeably, and his scenes with Wunmi Mosaku see Luther getting comfortable with an older mentor role. And at the end of the final episode, it's suggested that there are many more places the series could go, and much more that you could do with the character of John Luther.  I'm very excited about hints that the next series (and there will be a next series) might move away from investigations altogether. The over-the-top serial killers have always been the least believable part of this show - or at least, the frequency of them.

The supporting cast is especially strong this time out, helped out by the serialized nature of the series giving everyone more screen time.  Mosaku is very appealing in the greenhorn role (and it's about time we saw another major black character on this show), Cilenti and Norris are memorably awful as the Lakes, and Patrick Malahide makes an excellent mobster.  However, I was happiest to see Dermot Crowley getting so much more of the spotlight as Schenk. He's the only cast member, aside from Elba and Wilson, to have been with "Luther" since the beginning, and has always felt underutilized.  This is the first time he's gotten in on the action in any meaningful way, and I hope it's not the last.

There's been talk for a while now about a standalone "Luther" feature film, and I can see the appeal of the idea.  However, I'd much rather see more "Luther" series like this one, because it would allow for a more complex narrative and the ability to take more advantage of the universe that  Neil Cross and company have built up over nearly a decade now. Sure, a "Luther" film would probably be great, but it just wouldn't be the same.

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A Middling Stay at the "El Royale"

I very nearly didn't write a review for "Bad Times at the El Royale."  It was one of my most anticipated films of last year because Drew Goddard was writing and directing.  When I finally saw the film, however, it wasn't what I was expecting, and not in a good way. Instead of a broad ensemble action film full of colorful characters, this is a moodier, twistier piece of noir that takes itself more seriously.  The characters are plenty colorful, but not nearly as much fun as I'd hoped, and the humor I associate with Goddard's work is toned way down. I like the film, ultimately, but can't help feeling disappointed too.

The El Royale hotel, an establishment of declining fortunes, sits on the border between California and Nevada.  One fateful night in 1969, a priest, Father Flynn (Jeff Bridges), a travelling salesman, Laramie Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a soul singer, Darlene Love (Cynthia Erivo), and a mystery woman (Dakota Johnson), check into the El Royale.  There is only one employee, a nervous young man named Miles (Lewis Pullman). Everyone is hiding things, and the motley group will soon be joined by another young woman, Rose (Cailee Spaeny), and the charismatic and very dangerous Billy Lee (Chris Hemsworth).

"Bad Times at the El Royale" has a lot in common with Quentin Tarantino's "The Hateful Eight" and Martin McDonagh's "Seven Psychopaths."  These are all films that try to tell a collection of different stories about its various shady characters, and all of them end in violence and mayhem.  They also share a few major flaws, the most prominent being that there's not enough time to give all these characters and their stories their due. In the case of "El Royale," I kept being frustrated by interesting characters being killed off before we could learn more about them, or little hints of bigger storylines happening offscreen.  The movie ended with loose threads of plot hanging everywhere, to my frustration.

The two main characters are Father Flynn and Darlene Love, who manage to become something like friends during their brief stay at the El Royale.  It's a relationship punctuated by betrayals, assaults, and gunfire, but it actually plays out in a rather heartwarming fashion. Jeff Bridges is a lot of fun here, and Broadway star Cynthia Erivo makes her big screen debut as Darlene - and she's a total delight.  If the film kept itself focused on the two of them, I would have been much happier with "El Royale" overall. However, there's also the messy history of Dakota Johnson's character, Emily, a subplot involving a secret film of an affair, and a very late twist that might have worked better if it didn't feel so rushed.

I liked the first two thirds of the movie fine, and there are certain sequences that are very memorable and impressive.  Goddard does suspense very well, and it's enjoyable watching the various mysteries being set up, and some of the reveals playing out.  I like that the pacing is leisurely and takes its time. The opening sequence is a fantastic little mini-movie in and of itself, detailing another dark episode in the history of the hotel.  There's a rehearsal sequence with Darlene that slowly expands into something far more sinister. I love a lot of the little stylistic touches, like the movie being split into Tarantino-esque chapters, all the period details, and the fantastic look of the El Royale.  It's one of the only film locations in some time that I would visit if I could.

However, I think "El Royale" takes a bad turn in the last act, roughly when Billy Lee shows up.  Chris Hemsworth is fine, but the character doesn't gel with the rest of the movie well, and there's so much of that long, simmering build-up that just doesn't pay off.  I don't know if it was an editing problem or if the writing doesn't hold up, but the ending came off so badly that I left the film wondering if there had been major scenes left on the cutting room floor.  I wish I liked "El Royale" more, because it has some wonderful things in it - Lewis Pullman turns out to be the film's secret weapon - but its missteps were bad enough that I can't give it a pass.

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