Your first period. Your first crush. Your first training bra. What do these things have in common? They are all hallmarks of adolescence for young girls. Even as the years have passed and what it means to be a young woman has continued to change and evolve, many of these experiences have remained all too relatable — a background hum in the life of a teenage girl.

There are few people who understand this as acutely as Judy Blume, the bestselling author of over 50 young adult and middle-grade novels, all of which deal with the different obstacles that children and young adults face as they come of age. One of her most successful novels is “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,” a tale of girlhood and adolescence that was published in 1970, but has remained an influential story for generations. Decades later, it has finally received the film adaptation that it deserves, and the movie certainly did not disappoint. 

Viewers first meet Margaret Simon (Abby Ryder Fortson, “A Dog’s Journey”) as she’s getting off the bus from summer camp in New York City, greeted by her mother Barbara (Rachel McAdams, “Disobedience”) and grandmother Sylvia (Kathy Bates, “American Horror Story”). Margaret is a carefree kid, overjoyed to be home with her family after an incredible summer, but her happy bubble is quickly popped when it is revealed that she will be moving to New Jersey due to her father’s (Benny Safdie, “Licorice Pizza”) new job. Just like that, eleven-year-old Margaret is uprooted from her home and friends, forced to start over at a new school with brand new kids … essentially the worst nightmare of any adolescent girl.

Yet, Margaret adapts. She finds new friends, with whom she bonds over the plights of being a young woman. She convinces her mother to take her bra shopping so that she can be seen as “mature.” She impatiently awaits the arrival of her first period (watching in agony as everyone around her gets it first), even going as far as to purchase pads in order to “practice” putting them on, a scene that had myself and the rest of the theater laughing out loud. She tries to impress her new crush, Moose Freed (Aidan Wojtak-Hissong, “I Am Not Okay With This”), who, to Margaret, is the definition of an older, mature guy. I mean, he has hair under his arms, so that must mean he’s grown up, right?

The eleven-year-old even undertakes a school project about religion, determined to decide whether she should be Jewish, like her Dad’s family, or Christian, like her Mom’s family. Though her parents have decided to raise her secularly, constant reminders from her paternal grandmother that she should be Jewish, along with the absence of her maternal grandparents — who kicked their daughter out because she married a Jewish man — have only increased her curiosity about religion, causing her to beg the titular question: Are you there, God? It’s me, Margaret.

Here, the film effortlessly portrays the whirlwind of wonder, doubt and impatience that accompanies adolescence: the unbearable urge to just grow up already, because surely if you got your period, or had perfect boobs or scored the hottest boyfriend, everything would make sense, right? To Margaret, the answer is undoubtedly yes, and it is Fortson’s honest, hilarious performance that reminds the audience (especially the older viewers for whom adolescence is already in the rearview mirror) that even though these problems may seem small to us now, they are quite literally everything to an eleven-year-old girl who just wants to feel comfortable in her own skin. Each scene where Margaret clumsily tries to take another step toward womanhood reminds us what it felt like to yearn to escape the binds of childhood, and each scene where Margaret takes another step in her religious journey reminds us just how much we wanted things to be black and white as a child — woman or girl, Jewish or Christian — even though things are rarely that simple.

Under the guidance of award-winning writer Kelly Fremon Craig (“The Edge of Seventeen”), Fortson manages to portray puberty and adolescence with striking accuracy, but she is not the only character that wins us over. Unlike in most coming-of-age stories, Margaret’s parents and grandparents are not duds, but are awarded character arcs that allow them to grow and develop along with Margaret. In the case of Barbara, she seems to recognize that Margaret needs to discover things on her own, keeping to the sidelines as her daughter explores friendships and boys. Not only does this lead to a more healthy and loving relationship between mom and daughter, but it also allows Barbara to grow. She spends the duration of the film not simply fussing over Margaret, but also deciding whether or not she should settle into her new role as a suburban housewife, or further her passion for teaching art. Rachel McAdams remains a versatile and reliable actress, and portrays Margaret’s mother truthfully and poignantly, transforming her into a multifaceted, dynamic character — a welcome venture from the novel. This is helped along by Forston and McAdam’s A-plus chemistry. The two bounce off of each other beautifully, portraying the awkward yet loving relationship that exists between mother and daughter.

My favorite member of Margaret’s family, however, has to be Sylvia (Margaret’s grandmother), who goes through a journey of her own over the course of the film. She is forced to accept that — with Margaret a whole state away — she cannot be the overbearing force she used to be in her family’s life. She grovels at first, but over time, begins to expand her horizons and forge relationships outside of her family. Sprinkled in with regular phone calls and the occasional weekend visit from Margaret, Sylvia begins to find happiness. In fact, she might just be one of the most likable characters in the whole film. This is, of course, greatly helped along by Bates’s hilarious portrayal of the character. She took the role and ran with it, giving Sylvia a charming spunk that the book did not have nearly as much of. She reminded me (somewhat eerily) of my own overbearing, well-meaning Jewish grandmothers, who tend to have an opinion on just about everything. 

But wait, have we forgotten that this film takes place in the 1970s? If the answer is yes, no need to worry, because the film’s production design team certainly did not. They managed to strike the perfect balance between reminding us that we are in fact in the 1970s — Margaret’s world is stuffed full with rotary phones, wood-paneled station wagons and bell bottom pants — while relying on its ensemble of capable actors and actresses to remind us that though this may be taking place in a different decade, the emotions of the characters are universal across time and space. This is impressive considering that it likely would have been far easier to plop Margaret into the year 2023 with an iPhone and a Netflix account, even if it would have tarnished the eleven-year-old’s passionate curiosity. I mean, what would have happened to the awestruck Margaret we know if she had the answer to any question at her fingertips? 

With an incredible ensemble of dynamic, likable characters, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” manages to steal the hearts of its audience with its direct and honest portrayal of puberty, adolescence and finding oneself amidst the chaos. Fortson’s hilarious performance makes Margaret an awkward yet relatable character who is easy to root for and love, and the 1970s aesthetic managed to land itself at a perfect sweet spot. So, if you’re looking to take a light-hearted journey back to your awkward phase, “Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret” might just be the perfect film for you.

Daily Arts Writer Rebecca Smith can be reached at rebash@umich.edu.

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Horror is often an effective film genre to artistically explore major themes of the struggles of being human. By personifying the terror of the worst parts of the human experience, viewers can immerse themselves and experience the catharsis of watching the characters on-screen wrestle with humanity’s monsters. Other times, however, these attempts at using the genre for this kind of reflection can go a bit too far. And nothing could be more true in describing Ari Aster (“Midsommar”) and A24’s new thriller, “Beau is Afraid.”

Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix, “Joker” and Armen Nahapetian, “The Orville”) lives in constant fear as a tenant in a neighborhood populated by tattooed mongrels, violent beggars and the infamous Birthday Boy Stab Man (Bradley Fisher, “Westworld”), who reporters describe as a “circumcised white man.” All begins to go wrong (as if things couldn’t get worse) when he misses a flight to visit his mother (Zoe Lister-Jones, “A Good Person” and Patti LuPone, “Company”). Through a series of elaborate and increasingly ridiculous situations —including the death of his mother, being hit by a car and getting chased by a crazed former soldier (Denis Ménochet, “Inglourious Basterds”) — Beau finds himself stumbling through a life that just won’t stop getting worse.

If that synopsis made no sense, don’t worry. The film didn’t make much sense either. While the film attempts to create a wild artistic representation of paranoia, its ridiculousness often goes beyond striking the audience with its message into pure confusion. Yes, having every stereotypical “bad neighbor” walk into and trash Beau’s apartment as he watches helplessly from across the street is a comically horrifying scene to watch as a representation of paranoia, but continuing to put Beau in a long string of similarly absurd situations begins to desensitize the audience and stray from the metaphor. So while preposterousness in representing paranoia or other mental health conditions can be effective in thrillers like this, “Beau is Afraid” overuses it to the point of boredom for viewers. The film’s three-hour length doesn’t help as viewers continue to ask, “Is it over yet?” before being met by yet another wild situation for Beau to tackle.

This isn’t to say that the film is entirely bad. As previously stated, the actors’ performances knocked it out of the park. Phoenix, in a daunting leading role, truly bears the weight of the character’s horrific situation. Seamlessly transitioning from panicked confusion to resigned numbness, viewers can’t help but feel awful for him. Armen Nahapetian (“The Orville”), playing Beau’s teenage self, picks up Phoenix’s mannerisms flawlessly, finding and bringing focus to the childlike aspects of the older actor’s performance. 

Other standout performances include Nathan Lane (“The Producers”) and Amy Ryan (“Birdman”) as married couple Roger and Grace, who hit Beau with their car and proceed to nurse him back to health in the comfort of their own home. Roger, a “respected surgeon” and the pinnacle of white dads, is portrayed with perfect comic timing by Lane, who embraces the stereotype with hilariously delivered lines like “Beddy-by for the Rog man!” Ryan, meanwhile, expertly balances her kind mom facade with a genuine fear for this poor man’s situation and a desperate longing for her late son, named Nathan. Speaking of stereotypes, their daughter Toni’s (Kylie Rogers, “The Whispers”) slow descent into madness due to her parents’ focus on the strange man who has entered their home goes from bratty teenage girl to helplessly crazed child in a beautiful performance.

The film is also a feat of cinematography. From foreshadowing through precise framing and defying the conventions of continuity editing to a combination of animation, theatrical sets and live footage of Beau, cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski (“Midsommar”) creates a gorgeous film that almost makes up for the nonsensical handling of major themes and plot. Furthermore, the sound often stood out, for example, through the regular use of muffled dialogue, as if the viewer is missing out on something important (a much more effective evocation of paranoia). The score by The Haxan Cloak (“Midsommar”) also benefited the film, often becoming discordant and adding to the film’s unsettling nature through the use of lilting vocals and dissonant harp.

Big names like A24 and Ari Aster often set expectations high, and while “Beau is Afraid” met those expectations in some regard, it disappointed in others. Its ridiculousness in representing paranoia (and the ensuing dread of assuming the worst) becomes so constant to the point where audiences are left bored, waiting for the shockfest to end. It is unclear whether its assets in the form of effective actor performances and beautiful cinematography make up for its flaws, but it’s safe to say that “Beau is Afraid” is certainly a unique experience, for better or for worse.

Daily Arts Writer Max Newman can be reached at jqnewman@umich.edu.

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“I grew up on Bollywood cinema and on Hong Kong kung fu, and they both have this shared … love of the spectacle,” screenwriter and director Nida Manzoor explained in an interview with The Michigan Daily.

Her film “Polite Society” embodies the concept of spectacle — it’s not just a movie, but rather an entire visual and aural experience. “Polite Society” is a whirlwind of color, action, comedy and heart. 

It’s simultaneously lighthearted and profound. There are comedic moments of levity between the two sisters at the heart of the story and also a more subtle satirical social commentary on misogyny in the movie. It features heart-stopping action sequences that fit hand in hand with unique twists on graceful, traditional Bollywood-style dance scenes. Its score calls back to sound effects that would be at home in a wrestling match and also includes the fast and furious drumbeat of more traditional Desi music. Everything is both in tune with each other and its exact opposite, epitomizing the concept of dichotomy. “Polite Society” exists in dualities, containing multitudes that will ensure viewers leave the theater satisfied. 

The film, first released at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, is primarily about Ria (Priya Kansara, “Bridgerton”), who wants nothing more than to be a stuntwoman in the vein of her hero Eunice Huthart. Ria’s closest confidante and best friend is her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya, “Red Notice”), and the film is an ode to their sisterhood. Their relationship is messy and crazy and intense, just as all sister relationships are. One scene finds them in a physical altercation, exaggerated to the point that they seem like boxers in a ring rather than sisters merely feuding. And for anyone that has a sister, you know that’s how real sisters exist: almost violent in all their interactions, both positive and negative. 

When Lena gives up on her artistic passion and finds herself instead taken by the neighborhood charmer Salim (Akshay Khanna, “Grace”), Ria is terrified that she is about to lose her sister to the daunting, exacting rishta process and marriage as a whole. From that moment on, Ria sets out to sabotage the burgeoning relationship between Lena and Salim, going as far as following Salim at the gym, planting dirt on him and breaking into his house. Needless to say, she goes a bit far. However, it soon becomes clear that she isn’t too far off in assuming the worst about Salim and his mother Raheela (Nimra Bucha, “Ms. Marvel”). As the events unfold, viewers get an idea of Ria’s vulnerability, an understanding of her hopes and fears: She just wants to see her sister by her side. The notion of Lena running off to Singapore with Salim is terrifying to her — to lose her best friend and biggest cheerleader in one fell swoop is something she just isn’t prepared for.

And while the sisters’ relationship is the heart of the movie, there’s so much more for viewers to enjoy. Set to the background of the rishta process and the somewhat archaic aspects of finding a suitable spouse in Desi culture, the film is also an eerily accurate, yet also satirical, commentary on misogyny and sexism. It hyperbolizes the issues at hand related to marriage, inflating them to a degree that makes it even easier to see what is wrong with how some people view women and expect them to behave. 

“(The movie) really resonates the kind of specificity of (Desi) culture,” Manzoor said. “I wrote it when I was in my early 20s, when I was really feeling the pressure from my parents to sort of settle down, not follow my career, get married, and I was really pissed off.” 

That innate rage, and the power that comes with it, is visible — almost tangible — in the film. It’s not surprising to note that “Polite Society” was somewhat inspired by things that Manzoor was really feeling, as it feels like an intimate portrait of a South Asian woman’s anger and confusion, her messy but real, true feelings. 

“I felt like I could feel a burden of … their expectation,” she admitted. “You know, as a young woman, you’re supposed to get married, you’re supposed to provide grandchildren or whatever, (but I thought), ‘No, man, I want to do other stuff.’” It’s because of this dichotomy between what was expected and what she really wanted that Manzoor decided to “basically take a hammer to” the stereotypes and expectations that existed. 

Manzoor created a film that effortlessly celebrates the specific experiences of South Asian women while also serving as a kind of blank slate for any woman to find solace and relatability. While there are moments where “Polite Society” brushes up against science fiction and contains some almost thriller-esque elements that are certainly less likely to be found in a woman’s real-life experiences, even these more far-fetched concepts become something to look toward for an understanding of womanhood. 

Between witty, at times almost dark, humor and aesthetic moments of color and wonder, the film touches on something real. A tale of sisterhood and womanhood, “Polite Society” is nothing short of magical. 

Daily Arts Writer Sabriya Imami can be reached at simami@umich.edu.

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I may not be a filmmaker, but I don’t think it should really be that hard to create a good romantic comedy. And I’m not saying that because the rom-com genre is “lesser than” other genres or so “simplistic” that it can’t be hard to create something “meaningless.” 

No, no — on the contrary, I love a good rom-com. And that’s why I know it shouldn’t be hard to create one: because so many good ones have been made in the past. From “You’ve Got Mail” to “Clueless” to “How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days,” rom-com history has been made, time and time again. Those classics are the movies that people all over the world turn to in their times of need, cuddled under blankets with popcorn or ice cream as their staunch companions. Older stories or more modern ones — it doesn’t matter. As long as you have the heart, you have the movie.

“Love Again” does not have the heart.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas (“Baywatch”) stars as Mira, a woman who’s having a hard time with love after the death of her boyfriend. In theory, that would make her an almost instantly sympathetic character. However, the opening scene of the movie features Mira and her boyfriend John (Arinzé Kene, “The Pass”) just seconds before his untimely death (he gets hit by a car in broad daylight right in front of her; I am not making this up). The few seconds of their relationship that viewers see are not enough to offset the absurdity of John’s death, especially considering the sheer lack of emotion gracing Mira’s face as he died. In fact, had we never met John, never seen Mira’s lack of reaction to his death, we might have been better off — she might have been a more believable mourner. But that’s not the case. In short, the movie starts off poorly and doesn’t get much better. 

The film picks up two years after John’s death, with Mira deciding to text him as her way of coping with his death. Enter the plot: Rob Burns (Sam Heughan, “Outlander”), a music journalist, starts getting mysterious texts to his new work phone. We’ve got all the makings of a rom-com, sure, but it doesn’t hit. It doesn’t work.

A good rom-com needs two characters that are easy to root for, both separately and together. Mira and Rob are both shockingly one-dimensional characters individually and have zero chemistry, making them similarly uninteresting as a couple. This feels like such a disappointment, such a failure, on the part of the filmmakers — how can you make a rom-com with a couple that has zero chemistry? The main thing they bond over is sneakers. … That’s what half their conversations are about. Not to mention, their first interaction takes place an hour into the film, ensuring that there simply isn’t enough time to see them together for the audience to find them believable.

One of the only shining moments in the movie is when, out of nowhere, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’ real-life husband makes a cameo. Yes, Nick Jonas (“Camp Rock”) appears in this movie. He plays a guy that Mira meets on a dating app, and he’s a terrible date, going so far as looking for a new girl on his dating app even as they sit in the car together. It’s not really even his character that’s funny, though, so much as the fact that this married couple is depicting a pair of characters who could not be more wrong for each other. The context of their real marriage within this not-so-romantic movie is a point of hilarity — I’ll give it that much. 

Besides that, there isn’t much else of humor, much less substance, in the movie. Céline Dion (“Muppets Most Wanted”) plays herself in what is truly a bizarrely large role for such a weak film; she serves as a sort of love guru for Rob, offering sage advice and wisdom of the heart when he needs it most. Dion isn’t bad at all, but her presence and role just feel random and out of place. Her songs do offer some moments of brief respite in a movie that is otherwise uninteresting at best and mind-numbing at worst. 

The credits are actually the best part, with the actors all dramatically lip-syncing to Dion’s hit “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Heughan even appears on a hillside wearing an “I Heart Céline” shirt and a matching kilt. Seriously, I’m not making this up.

In short — don’t go see “Love Again.” There are so many better offerings in the rom-com genre that deserve love, respect, admiration and most importantly, your time. 

And look, if you just want a healthy dose of Céline Dion, stream “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now.” Don’t put yourself through watching this film. It’s just not worth it.

Daily Arts Writer Sabriya Imami can be reached at simami@umich.edu.

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To quote essayist Ro Ramdin: “Fuck John Mulaney.” Yeah, that’s a bit of a tone-setter, but this is the stage we have to set before we give Mulaney (“Documentary Now!”) the spotlight. To be clear, I refer not to the parasocially fueled drama of his personal life, but more specifically to his very public decisions, like his choice to feature comedian and “old man yelling at the trans community” Dave Chappelle (“What’s in a Name?”). It’s why I hope this article will not serve just as another platform for Mulaney but as a necessary addition to the conversation because now that the stage is set, audience laughter is what rings in his latest special, “Baby J.” As the lights slowly fill Boston’s Symphony Hall, Mulaney opens by acknowledging his past years of tumult, stating: “The past couple years, I’ve done a lot of work on myself.” He then very appropriately adds, “And I’ve realized that I’ll be fine as long as I get constant attention.”

Of course, the largest source of upheaval for Mulaney’s life and the main subject of this special is his experience with drug addiction. The first seven minutes give no indication of this, however, as he follows up his introduction with a tangent on attention-getting in elementary school and the deaths of grandparents. Comedy is tragedy plus time, but even before Mulaney broaches the comedic potential of his personal tragedies, he presents himself above his problematic peers — not repeating tired transphobic tirades or taking shots at the women in his life, but still just being funny as he deconstructs the mechanics of who gets to sit in the beanbag chair during reading time. After a short self-aware a cappella song, Mulaney apologizes for the aside and begins the meat of his special with a simple, “Here’s what happened.” It then cuts to an extended intro credits sequence and makes you wonder if Mulaney’s comedic confessions will be skipped — as well as be shocked that David Byrne (“The Last Emperor”) is scoring it.

It’s at that point that the intentionality of the special’s editing is evident. In addition, its multi-camera setup has some placements for extremely specific shots. The camera moves closer or farther from Mulaney depending on if his physical self-caricaturization needs to be captured. The comedian’s back is shown as he addresses the audience directly and their role in his comedy. One very low shot in particular that captures a ceiling spotlight forming a halo behind Mulaney’s head as he states, “They think I’m dirt. I’m not. I’m God.”

Mulaney’s self-exposure is at points very obviously uncomfortable, but he still acquires comedy from this uneasiness, earning repeated laughs from his tales of addiction. That particular line above is Mulaney recalling his coke-fueled train of thought while committing h(igh)jinks, but it’s definitely not the last of his memorable writing from the special. What stands out the most is when he drops the stand-up act to be sincere — acknowledging that even through his absurd actions at his “star-studded intervention,” his friends saved his life, or the very sobering (pun unintended, I promise) realization that “When I’m alone, I’m with the person who tried to kill me.” Of course, this is a comedy special, so things can’t stay serious for long as Mulaney exclaims, “What, are you gonna cancel John Mulaney? I’ll kill him! I almost did.”

What really is funny is that as unhinged — almost Kanyesque — as these statements sound in writing, Mulaney’s delivery is transformative, his oft-discussed “boyish charm” now tinted with a certain edge. He elevates his writing to some of the best punchlines he’s ever struck, all while doing very important work in destigmatizing addiction and condemning his self-destructive actions. What’s complicated, however, is that Mulaney’s public, “cancellable” acts — like the one referred to at the start of this review — aren’t things that harm only him, something he could escape from by sardonic threat of suicide or by the claim that they’re just jokes. He and the rest of the stand-up community wrapped up in their commentary on cancel culture miss or just don’t care about the material reality of the marginalized groups they can harm; the same way my own puns just now do nothing for addicts and the mentally ill, their material forms the national culture on how we perceive vulnerable people. 

This drapes the special in another layer of discomfort, one that can’t be escaped through comedy alone. Even as the set is called “a wide-ranging conversation,” it doesn’t address his responsibility to at the very least make sure his audience feels safe seeing and supporting him. One of the special’s last statements and the punchline that defines its teaser was his self-cognizant conclusion for that cocaine story mentioned earlier: “As you process and digest how obnoxious, wasteful and unlikable that story is, just remember, that’s one I’m willing to tell you.” I still want to be told more. And maybe that’s what he wants.

Summer Managing Arts Editor Saarthak Johri can be reached at sjohri@umich.edu.

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Near the end of “Oeuvre, Unfinished,” a film created by Business graduate student Madeline Sun Woo Kim, protagonists Anna (graduating Music, Theatre & Dance senior Alyssa Melani) and Leo (graduating Music, Theatre & Dance senior Atticus Olivet) sing to each other in front of a campfire. The screen is mostly dark, their faces lit only by the flames. Leo plays the guitar while they sing quiet lines from “This Is It,” a song composed by Evan Chung (graduating College of Literature, Science and the Arts senior) and Bredan Dallaire (Music, Theatre & Dance class of 2025) for the film, broken by laughter. The scene transitions to a dance sequence. Leo and Anna remain the only subjects in the darkness. The dance is slow. They simply hold each other in the firelight. 

In the film, which premiered on April 19 at the Michigan Theater, this is the most moving scene. It draws out what the entire film aims for: the connection between two people who meet by chance — first in an art gallery in front of the fictitious painting after which the movie is named and then similarly in parallel universes. The campfire scene takes place in one such parallel universe.

The film is an impressive debut for Kim. The production and music by rising Music, Theatre & Dance senior Ryo Kamibayashi both help, but Kim’s writing and the actors who bring it to life are what make the film meaningful. Melani and Olivet’s chemistry is as believable when they first meet in front of the painting as when they play an 1800s artist and his muse. It is also there when they play modern-day high school students telling each other about their dreams (which feature the same artist and muse dynamic). Kim’s writing gives this chemistry somewhere to run with lines that are often sweet and funny. Anna shyly tells Leo that she thinks there’s a reason she is drawn to the painting. Leo responds with a question: Does she think that, if everything happens for a reason, there’s a reason they met? She is caught off guard but admits that there must be. They build a little world of these exchanges — the words of two people who hardly know each other but feel inexplicably like they should. 

The film is not rife with drama or conflict, but it doesn’t need to be. It reads more like a painting itself than a typical narrative. It is a picture of Anna and Leo, of their worlds and their love.

I must return to the campfire scene because the film never succeeds at painting this picture more beautifully than in that scene. The scene is simple, no fanfare. Leo and Anna are the only people there. They aren’t in a public space. They aren’t in a city. They aren’t having an adventure. They aren’t running under streetlights yelling to each other and lighting up the night with their joy and love. It is a gentle, quiet, isolated moment, just between the two of them. The outside world may as well have ceased to exist. Kim trusts their love to hold its own without a big set piece. Instead, it consumes the scene. 

I consider it a mark of success if a film so viscerally depicts something as to make the audience deeply desire it for themselves. This could be a metric by which to weigh art about romance especially. Any good art about romance (or romance we are rooting for; we can ignore any stories of misguided love here) should make the audience long for what the characters have — to have someone you love as much as they do, to be with someone who would sing with you by the fire. With this scene, with Melani and Olivet, with this film, that is what Kim has done.

Daily Arts Writer Erin Evans can be reached at erinev@umich.edu.

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Ann Arbor is home to the world’s oldest experimental film festival and the fourth-oldest film festival in North America. This year, the Michigan Daily once again sent the Film Beat to cover the insightful and complicated medium that is experimental filmmaking at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. From collections of short films, to surrealist experimentations in cinematography, to silent character studies, join us as we take part in the 61st year of this historic festival.

— Zach Loveall, Film Beat Editor

Films in Competition 2

The Ann Arbor Film Festival’s series of short film competitions showcases the beauty and unique nature of experimental film. The festival’s Films in Competition 2 session featured seven films ranging from five minutes to around half an hour. Each film was completely different in style and theme, requiring me to constantly readjust. From the pastels of “Roses, Pink and Blue” to the startling acoustics of “South Los Angeles Street” to the microscopic visuals of “2cent / 10coil,” I attempted to create meaning through my own interpretations, story-searching in the darkness of the Michigan Theater.

Read more from Laura Millar here.

“Diòba”

This is my second year watching a film in the “Feature in Competition” category for the Ann Arbor Film Festival. It is also the second year I’ve had no idea what was going on in the film I watched. “Diòba,” by debut filmmaker Adriana Rojas Espitia, focuses on small moments in the days of an old woman’s life. The viewers, however, are not given much information about this woman. We don’t know why she lives alone in the forest. Much is left up to interpretation, and the film’s abstractness leaves too much unexplained. I never fully connected with the main character, Elba (Inés Góez Cortes, Debut), because I knew as little about her at the end of the film as I did in the beginning. 

Read more from Zara Manna here.

“Up The River With Acid”

Hutter chose a deeply personal subject for his first feature: his mother (Francine-Y Prévost) and father (Horst Hutter). “Up The River With Acid” follows Horst, a former professor who suffers from dementia, in his retirement in his wife’s French village. Francine is a poet, and the audience is privy to some of her moving words that carry profound longing and tenderness. In our brief conversation after the film’s screening, she was as wise and lovely as she appears on-screen. 

Read more from Maya Ruder here.

“Super Natural”

Have you ever been forced to watch a meditation video against your will? Gathered in a room and told that if you watch this 15-minute video, all of your problems might go away? It works for a while. You take a moment to relax, stop everything and breathe. But then it goes on for a bit too long. You start worrying about all the things you have to get done, and you end up more stressed than when you began. “Super Natural,” a film by Portuguese filmmaker Jorge Jácome (“Past Perfect”) playing at this year’s Ann Arbor Film Festival, is the 85-minute version of that experience.

Read more from Mitchel Green here.

“Darkness, Darkness Burning Bright”

When I walked into the auditorium of the School of Kinesiology for the Ann Arbor Film Festival’s showing of “Darkness, Darkness Burning Bright,” I expected to watch a movie. Little did I know that I was in for a 70-minute experimental compilation of the natural world, distorted beyond recognition, plot lines be damned. The exhibition of wild cinematographic techniques was set to an eerie, clanking score akin to a creepily unorthodox rendition of “The Conjuring.” “Darkness” prioritized exploratory film design over any sense of a moral or message. It was the most boring masterpiece I have ever seen. 

Read more from Abigail Goodman here.

“Berbû”

“Do you think it will be war?” young bride-to-be Gûle (Kajeen Aloush, debut) asks her older sister. A pause. 

“It already is war,” her sister replies. 

So begins “Berbû,” Sevinaz Evdike’s dazzling directorial debut, which had its American premiere this Thursday at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. 

“Berbù,” which clocks in at just 70 minutes, is a deeply personal portrait of the ongoing Syrian civil war. The film is set in Serekaniye, a Syrian border town constantly besieged by neighboring Turkish forces. The film opens in Gûle’s tidy family home, where preparations for her upcoming wedding are in full swing. The everyday bustle is brought to a halt when her fiance and his family arrive to pose a single question: Has the war become bad enough to postpone the wedding?

Read more from Lola D’Onofrio here.

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It’s well established that Marvel has maxed out on its long reign as the go-to family favorite action series — the only good movies to come from the company in recent years are “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” “Shang-Chi” and maybe the upcoming Spider-Verse movie. Thankfully, “Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves” marks the beginning of new fantasy franchise potential, with almost infinite D&D lore to draw from. 

Chris Pine (“Wonder Woman 1984”) is once again cast as the lovable douchebag who’s working on himself, this time as main character Edgin, a bard father to his daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman, “65”). After he and his partner-in-crime Holga (Michelle Rodriguez, “F9”) escape from prison for grand larceny, Edgin searches for conman Forge (Hugh Grant, “Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery”), whom he entrusted to keep Kira safe. 

However, Forge is now the Lord of the city Neverwinter, who reigns alongside Red Wizard Sofina (Daisy Head, “Shadow and Bone”) and refuses to let Edgin and Holga have Kira back. So, Edgin and Holga assemble a team with sorcerer Simon (Justice Smith, “Sharper”) and druid Doric (Sophia Lillis, “Gretel & Hansel”), and, receiving help from paladin Xenk Yendar (Regé-Jean Page, “Bridgerton”) to take down Forge and Sofina, rescue Kira and retrieve the Tablet of Reawakening, a magical item which Edgin hopes will revive his late wife Zia (Georgia Landers, “The Girl Before”).

“Honor Among Thieves” is as much comedy as it is action. Edgin’s stupidity and authenticity add to his charm, and although not all of his dad jokes about the impossibility of their mission are funny, most of the jokes stick a wobbly landing. The balance of personalities and capabilities in this unlikely friend group is essential to the humor’s success — Simon always calls Edgin out on his bullshit, Holga’s roughness contrasts with Xenk’s lack of ability to understand sarcasm and Doric’s rightful skepticism of the group’s plans to infiltrate a well-guarded castle represents exactly what the audience is thinking. 

Even though I have only played exactly half of a D&D campaign before, elements of D&D worlds create stronger characters and action scenes. Sofina’s power as a Red Wizard is more compelling than even that of Thanos, even though the audience gets too few scenes with Sofina for her to be a perfect, prototypical villain. Thanos’s Infinity Stones with lackluster names and supposedly infinite power can’t compete with Sofina’s mission to recreate the Beckoning Death, historic villain Szass Tam’s plot to turn people into his zombie-like minions. Doric has the coolest abilities as a druid, shapeshifting into whatever she needs to be, which beats out every other fantasy creature. The helmet of disjunction, which allows the wearer to break through all nearby spells, and the hither-thither staff, which allows the user to teleport to any other place in their field of vision, are magical artifacts that benefit from the same imaginativeness present in D&D lore.

Any good fantasy series features the most infuriating main character who is relatable because they have weaker abilities than all of their sidekick friends but an ability to spearhead the whole adventure, driven by their sad backstory. While Edgin is on the more likable side of the infuriating, weak main character scale, screenwriter-director duo Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (“Game Night”) miss many opportunities to bring life to the rest of the band of thieves. 

Everyone except Edgin is introduced in relation to their motivation to take Forge down, and they are lacking in complete character arcs that fit well with a complete backstory. Doric, who joined because her family was wiped out by Forge’s troops, never returns to see them, nor is there any elaboration on why Forge was after them in the first place. Holga is, in part, trying to get over her divorce with ex-husband Marlamin (Bradley Cooper, “Nightmare Alley”), whom she meets up with while on the way to Forge’s castle. We don’t see a proper ending to her love life, nor do we really know what emotions she experiences besides her typical barbarian qualities of using brute force rather than words to solve problems.

Still, don’t be put off by my criticism. This film is the most fun I’ve had in a while. The group of thieves as a whole was easy to root for, which made it easy to look past the one-dimensionality of some characters. Sofina is probably one of my favorite villains in a long time. That is enough reason to watch it. 

Alignment charts in D&D are categories used to figure out what action a character might take next, ranging from lawful to chaotic and from good to evil. The characters in “Honor Among Thieves” fit into these boxes somewhat clearly because they all make decisions according to their own moral compass, which is mostly consistent throughout the movie. Even though there are already (official) alignment chart placements for these thieves as NPCs, I decided to make my own.

Daily Arts Writer Kristen Su can be reached at krsu@umich.edu.

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“Evil Dead Rise” is by no means the first film to attempt to update a beloved, older property for newer audiences — it isn’t even the first in this franchise to do so, following in the footsteps of the successful 2013 “Evil Dead” remake. Intellectual property is big in Hollywood right now, and the industry will milk anything they can for a couple of extra dollars. So we’re treated to the fifth installment of the “Evil Dead” franchise (sixth if you count the “Ash vs. Evil Dead” TV series), the first in a decade.

The series got its start in 1981 with the shocking, gory and low-budget “The Evil Dead,” which spawned two sequels in its wake over the next decade: “Evil Dead II” and “Army of Darkness.” What makes the series’s original run so special is Sam Raimi’s (“Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”) distinct filmmaking style, full of dynamic, frenetic camera movement, unique and off-putting angles and slapstick visual comedy. The series leans far more into comedy after the first film — James Cameron (“Avatar: The Way of Water”) supposedly described “Evil Dead II” as creating the genre of the “horror cartoon” — but in the last two iterations, the series has tried to shift back from the straight comedy of Raimi’s latter efforts.

Raimi stepped away from behind the camera after “Army of Darkness,” and though he has still remained involved in a producing role, successive filmmakers have tried to find a way to put their own stamp on the series. “Evil Dead Rise” writer-director Lee Cronin (“The Hole in the Ground”) wanted to take the franchise as far away from its “cabin in the woods” origins as possible. In a virtual college roundtable with The Michigan Daily, Cronin said, “If you’re going to break the mold, you’ve got to break the mold.” “Evil Dead Rise” takes the series from the isolated danger of the woods to the theoretical comfort and safety of an apartment complex in Los Angeles.

Cronin noted, “You can’t really get farther from a cabin in the woods than the top story of a high-rise building in Los Angeles.”

In order to take the series in a new direction, Cronin felt he needed to move away from the series’s typical context and characters. He does this by focusing in on a family drama as the core of the narrative, with far more depth given to characters than in previous installments. The story and characters in the series’ earlier films are almost an afterthought, as their dynamics and motivations are rushed through to get to the fun parts when all hell breaks loose.

“There are family touches in previous Evil Dead movies,” Cronin remarked, “but this is about going inside the home … This was actually a family sitting at home, essentially minding their own business, and the evil comes knocking on their doorstep,” Cronin said. This recontextualization of the series adds an emotional core that isn’t there in the original films. 

By delving into the characters’ personal lives and exploring their real and relatable struggles, the audience now cares more for the characters, which drives up the tension when they are put in potentially deadly situations. It also allows the film to break free of the associations with the “Evil Dead” franchise. Certain hallmarks are still there, like the chainsaw used in the final fight and the strange camera angles — a recurring shot of the possessed Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland, “Vikings”) through the apartment peephole is both creative and intense as the viewer’s field of vision is significantly reduced while the sounds of terror and violence can still be heard. But “Evil Dead Rise” takes a different enough approach to the series that Cronin’s unique voice is able to escape the shadow of Raimi’s influence.

This is the key problem facing many new Hollywood releases: When you are given the opportunity to tackle a property with such a strong existing association with a certain artist, do you simply try to recreate their work as closely as possible? If this is the approach, you typically run into the same issues Gus Van Sant did when remaking Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho.” As film critic Roger Ebert said about Van Sant’s remake, “The movie is an invaluable experiment in the theory of cinema because it demonstrates that a shot-by-shot remake is pointless; genius apparently resides between or beneath the shots, or in chemistry that cannot be timed or counted.” 

Recreation of already great art — adding nothing that hasn’t already been said by an existing work — is a worthless endeavor. It’s a tough balancing act to take the cards you’ve been dealt and find a way to twist them in such a way that you’re adding more elements to the property, but that does not completely alienate the built-in audience who is simply coming to your film for more of the same. Cronin has done an admirable job. That said, a viewer’s personal reaction to “Evil Dead Rise” will still be based on how far they are willing to stray from the franchise’s formula. It’s good to break formulas when they become stale or irrelevant to modern audiences, but when a formula works and it’s been 30 years since we last saw that formula used, sometimes it can be good to get back to basics.

Daily Arts Writer Mitchel Green can be reached at mitchgr@umich.edu. 

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From constant closeups of 1980s products to an overbearing early ’80s soundtrack — one that includes not one, but two Violent Femmes songs — “Air” fits right into the current trend of capitalizing on ’80s nostalgia. “Air” is next in a 40-year-long line of films pandering to ’80s kids. Why does it kind of work?

“Air” shoots low and succeeds. It’s a classic star-studded mid-budget crowd-pleaser aimed at adults, a type of film we don’t really get anymore in theaters. It doesn’t try to make any grand statement on consumerism or change the myth of Michael Jordan — a myth solidified and made untouchable by the docuseries “The Last Dance.” It aims only to please. Some may find the film trite or say its story didn’t need to be told. They wouldn’t be wrong. But “Air” isn’t cynical in its approach. The cast and crew’s apparent excitement radiates off the screen, and this makes the film endearing.

The all-star cast smartly does not try to impersonate their real-life counterparts. Matt Damon (“Stillwater”) does his normal Matt Damon schtick, not an evocation of Sonny Vaccaro, which will play better to audiences coming for the star power as opposed to the Nike/basketball obsessives who know how Vaccaro acts and sounds. The rest of the cast acts likewise. Does it matter that Ben Affleck (“Deep Water”) doesn’t capture Phil Knight? No. At least not when it’s so much fun to see Affleck and Damon on screen together. The two friends have (as they always have when starring together) a palpable chemistry and it gives their banter a natural, pleasing flow.

“Air” doesn’t aspire to do much more than casually entertain. Despite all its crowd-pleasing charm, the film is devoid of substance. The film is background noise, something to have on television while you do chores around the house. But it’s hard to be frustrated when it succeeds at exactly what it sets out to do. “Air” is a film of fun moments, the climactic pitch to Michael Jordan being a particular high point as it feels like everything is finally coming together, but that makes it easy to come in and out of the movie as much as the viewer wants. It never does anything worthy of the viewer’s whole attention.

Shouldn’t we expect more from art? “Air” shares few narrative or aesthetic elements with the latest IP-driven blockbuster, but it shares one key similarity: This film is a product. It’s easily consumable and inoffensive to a fault. Narrative choices feel cheap and calculated, formulaic to the point where you can guess everything coming next, down to the songs on the soundtrack — the final “Where are they now?” montage set to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” is telegraphed earlier in the film when Vaccaro and Rob Strasser (Jason Bateman, “Game Night”) discuss the song’s meaning. The film, shot by frequent Quentin Tarantino collaborator Robert Richardson (“Once Upon a Time … In Hollywood”), looks as glossy and pristine as you would expect from a film that isn’t exactly a commercial, but does feel like one. The worst part of “Air” is that none of it is bad. The film sets such a low bar for itself that it all works. It’s just painfully dull.

Hollywood doesn’t make middlebrow adult dramas like “Air” anymore, at least not like they did 30 years ago. These films used to be a larger part of the industry, but now these stories usually end up as television series, if they are made at all. In that sense, “Air” is slightly refreshing; it exists in an industry disinterested in original stories. But if getting more movies for adults means more middling, pandering stories, do we really want that? Sure, this is better than a popular culture dominated by content for children, but shouldn’t we demand more films that take risks and get people out of their comfort zones? Adult audiences deserve better than feature-length Nike commercials.

Daily Arts Writer Mitchel Green can be reached at mitchgr@umich.edu. 

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