DRAMA: “Showing Up.” / “True Things.” / “Hope Lost.”

“Showing Up” (2022, Amazon Prime). This little movie from indie hotshot A24 is billed comedy-drama but I didn't see any funny sequences at all although I finished watching it. 

      This movie actually won several awards and was nominated for Cannes’ Palme d'Or in 2022. And was included in 2023's Top 10 independent films by the National Board of Review.

       The film follows a sculptor managing the competing attentions of her art, job, family, and friendships. The artist, Lizzy, is always fine to watch Michelle Williams; directed by constant collaborator Kelly Reichardt. Also in the movie is the always fine to watch Hong Chai as Jo, also an artist.

       Lizzy and Jo separately work on their craft but in the same building (that Jo owns); Lizzy deals with divorced parents and a kind of weird brother. Meanwhile, Lizzy's cat attacked a pigeon which Jo rescued and Lizzy also took care of. The pigeon is the story, I think. 

       I guess, this is what indie is all about. Nothing really happens because it is low-budget as $4 million is “low.” (Earned $1.2 million) But never mind, the performers are fun to watch. Still, an interesting movie.

       By the way, the watercolor paintings in the opening credits and tiny sculptures that were supposedly Lizzy's art are by real artist Cynthia Lahti. 🎥💻📽

“True Things” (2021, Hulu) British psychological drama, based on the 2010 novel True Things About Me by Deborah Kay Davies. Story: Kate works in a benefits office in the English coastal town of Ramsgate. She is sleepwalking through life when a chance sexual encounter with a charismatic stranger awakens her. High on infatuation, she finds herself inexplicably drawn to this mysterious man. Hoping he will provide the escape she so desperately desires, she embarks on an emotionally dangerous journey that slowly begins to consume her.

       Ruth Wilson is Kate. Tom Burke is the mysterious dude known only as Blond. Ruth and Tom's fluid chemistry is pretty much the movie that threatens to snooze along the way. Fine acting but I find it unrealistic that Kate doesn’t know Blond’s real name. 🎥💻📽

“Hope Lost” (2015, Roku) sex trafficking thriller. A young Romanian woman from a small town meets a man claiming to be a film director and he convinces her to come to Rome for auditions. This is a ruse and she is instead lured into a life of prostitution in Italy and then sold by her pimp to a man who intends to torture her and another young woman in a snuff movie.

       Although the movie centers on trafficked women Sofia and Alina, both actresses who channel them, Francesca Agostini and Mischa Barton lack the magnetism or charm. So we instead suffice with what we expect of bad dudes Danny Trejo, the perennial Latino badass, and Michael Madsen, the perennial “I just woke up” badass. 🎥💻📽