Two new films put family dynamics under a microscope: In A Little Prayer, they're tender; in The Roses, they're explosive. The chaos continues with 1990s New York crime families in the Darren Aronofsky-directed Caught Stealing. All three are in theaters this weekend.
The Roses
In theaters Friday
This trailer includes an instance of vulgar language.
The mayhem is grander and the vibe a bit sweeter in this latest cinematic reimagining of The War of the Roses, novelist Warren Adler's dark, comic tale of divorce. Olivia Colman plays budding restaurateur Ivy Rose, Benedict Cumberbatch her celebrated architect hubby Theo Rose — initially a mutually supportive, loving couple. But after a reversal in their work fortunes — her restaurant gets raves, his most prominent building collapses (dramatically enough to become an in-movie meme) — they're reduced to a bickering, sniping pair of monsters. Director Jay Roach, whose previous films include the Austin Powers series and Meet the Fockers, gives the proceedings a rom-com gloss, and the bickering's funny for a while — with the leads playing it brightly, as if they'd been handed a freshly unearthed, obscenity-laced script by Noël Coward.
But when the going turns dark, the playing stays bright, which compromises what was, in the 1989 Michael Douglas/Kathleen Turner incarnation of this story, a ferocious final act. SNL alums Andy Samberg and Kate McKinnon do what they can with underwritten supporting roles. But the marital dynamics have been updated, without much thought about what those updates would do to the story's impact — given the ending, for instance, someone should have considered the consequences of making the kids pre-teens, rather than college students. But the biggest problem is that these new Roses need more thorns. — Bob Mondello
Caught Stealing
In theaters Friday
This trailer includes instances of vulgar language.
In Caught Stealing, Hank (Austin Butler) is a sad sack bartender in an East Village dive bar in the 1990s. When his British punk neighbor (Matt Smith) asks him to cat sit, Hank finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, and gets brutally beaten up by a bunch of criminals led by Bad Bunny. A sympathetic detective played by Regina King informs him that he's become entangled in a war between various crime families, including one that includes two Orthodox Jewish brothers, played by Vincent D'Onofrio and Liev Schreiber. Hank's life proceeds to unravel as the criminal underworld becomes convinced he knows where a huge cache of stolen cash can be found.
It's a throwback film, the kind they don't make anymore — and given the sheer amount of Screenwriting 101 cliches that pile up (including, but not limited to, Save the Cat!) — you can't help thinking that might be a good thing. It's directed by Darren Aronofsky, who's made great films like Requiem for a Dream, The Wrestler and Black Swan, but who most recently made a very, very terrible film called The Whale. In Caught Stealing he's working within a rigid narrative formula that's effective enough, in a pulpy way. Which is weird: Aronofsky's a director who historically challenges his audience; here, he's serving them up a perfectly serviceable genre exercise.— Glen Weldon
A Little Prayer
In theaters Friday
In the twilight of his life, Bill's family has come home to roost. An upright family man and Vietnam veteran, Bill (David Strathairn) and his wife (Celia Weston) have done everything they can to help their son David (Will Pullen) since he returned from his own military service. They've fixed up a guest house out back where David lives with his wife Tammy (Jane Levy), and set David up in the family business. And when Bill's frazzled whirlwind of a daughter Patti (Anna Camp) shows up, having left her opioid-addled husband, they set her up with her six-year-old daughter in a spare room.
It would be a lot for anyone. And in Angus MacLachlan's tender, modestly-scaled family portrait, all of this is complicated by the fact that Bill thinks he knows best and can't help interfering where he probably shouldn't. When he suspects his son of having an affair with a coworker (a radiant Dascha Polanco), his first instinct is to protect daughter-in-law Tammy, and Strathairn lets you see what it costs him to do the right thing, even when that might make matters worse. — Bob Mondello
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