Sleeping With Other People, directed by Leslye Headland
(R, 101 minutes)
One of the highlights of last year's Tribeca Film Festival, Sleeping With Other People is exactly what a romantic comedy should be.
It starts out a little shakily by asking us to buy its 30-something leads, Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie, as virgin college students Jake and Lainey as they get to know each other in 2002. The movie soon flashes forward to the modern day as Jake and Lainey have gone their separate ways, but are experiencing similar problems with monogamy.
Refreshingly, from the very beginning Jake and Lainey understand that they're tremendously attracted to each other. But they suspect that sex would ruin their relationship, and neither is willing to risk that. As broad as the concept may seem, it's underpinned by a realistic sense of human frailty. As lewd and rambunctious as it can be, the movie never gives up its sense that all its characters are real, vulnerable people with hopes and insecurities that make them susceptible to self-deception.
Unlike most romantic comedies, Sleeping With Other People doesn't fall into predictable rhythms. It's about complicated, decent people trying to work through the sort of realistic problems most of us encounter at some point. It's funny, sexy and amazingly irony-free.
The Visit (PG-13, 94 minutes) Director M. Night Shyamalan's first found-footage horror effort concerns 15-year-old wannabe filmmaker Becca (Olivia DeJonge) who, along with her younger brother Tyler (Ed Oxenbould), decides to spend time with the grandparents -- whom they've never met -- in a remote farmhouse in order to give their single mom (Kathryn Hahn) some time with a new boyfriend. Turns out that those grandparents fall short when it comes to family nurturing skills. Look for jittery hand-held camerawork and the director's signature unpredictable twist at the end.
The Walk (PG, 123 minutes) The breathtaking documentary on this subject, 2008's Man on Wire, could hardly be better. So it's not clear why anyone chose to make this narrative drama concerning French high-wire artist Philippe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose ambition is to succeed at a totally illegal walk on a wire between the towers of the World Trade Center in 1974. Nevertheless, it's plenty exciting. Gordon-Levitt absolutely owns the lead role, and the often-abused use of 3-D is amazingly good. With James Badge Dale, Ben Kingsley, Clement Sibony; directed by Robert Zemeckis.
Sicario (R, 120 minutes) A violent, ruthless thriller in which a committed FBI agent (Emily Blunt) is brought in by an elite government official (Josh Brolin) to aid in the war against drugs along the U.S.-Mexico border. The action increases considerably when a mysterious and unstable consultant (Benicio Del Toro) becomes part of the team. With Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan; directed by Denis Villeneuve with cinematography by Roger Deakins.
Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (R, 93 minutes) Body-function raunchy, often funny, and energetically uneven, this comic horror thriller somehow stands out in the zombie crowd with its story of three pals who battle the undead in order to save their town. Keep an eye on those zombie cats. With Tye Sheridan, Cloris Leachman, Logan Miller; directed by Christopher Landon.
Infinitely Polar Bear (R, 90 minutes) Quirky Boston blueblood Cameron (Mark Ruffalo), whose manic-depressive affliction causes the disintegration of his once-idyllic relationship with wife Maggie (Zoe Saldana) and forces him to move into a halfway house, struggles to stay relevant to his daughters -- a struggle that escalates when Maggie decides to pursue a master's degree in business administration in New York and Cameron moves back into their home to take over the day-to-day care of the girls, with funny and chaotic results. Its rather desperately upbeat tone belies the seriousness of the subject matter. Directed by Maya Forbes.
Experimenter (PG-13, 90 minutes) An uncomfortably hard-to-believe true story is the basis of this compelling, thought-provoking film set in 1961, in which social psychologist Stanley Milgram (Peter Sarsgaard) of Yale University observes the unexpected responses of everyday people who are asked to send painful electrical shocks to a stranger. With Winona Ryder, Anton Yelchin, John Leguizamo; directed by Michael Almereyda.
MovieStyle on 01/08/2016