Doing the Hulu again

While Hulu is no longer a staple of my streaming diet, I do find it worthwhile to toggle my subscription on and off several times a year.  I’ve highlighted their large back catalog of classic tv series, but also praised their selection of recent foreign films, which I feared would cease with their acquisition by Disney.  So I’ll start with a reassuring number of those.
 
The Quiet Girl (MC-89) is a sad and lovely Irish film about an adorable but neglected 9-year-old colleen with three older sisters and several younger siblings, a feckless father, and an overburdened mother.  She’s sent to stay on her mother’s cousin’s farm, where the Irish-speaking couple is still dealing with the grief and confusion of losing their young son.  Emotional defenses yield to mutual affection over the course of a summer, in this quietly moving and superbly acted film by first-time writer-director Colm Bairéad, which deserved its Oscar nod, and even more acclaim.  Exquisite and heart-breaking -- see it to believe it.  Could be my favorite film from 2022.
 
It’s odd for me to be as far from the critical consensus as with Saint Omer (MC-91), the Alice Diop film about a Senegalese immigrant to France accused of murdering her infant daughter.  Mostly in frontal real-time testimony or argument, seemingly taken from an actual trial transcript, the ambiguous motives for the admitted act are explored.  As a filmgoer I’m usually willing to eat my spinach, but I expect more nourishment than this film delivered.  Maybe my problem is that I am neither an immigrant nor a mother.
 
I have to recuse myself from judging Broker (MC-77) because I nodded off momentarily at several points, which may in itself be a judgment.  But in my somewhat-blinkered viewing, I have to say that great Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda failed to translate the sublime success of Shoplifters into this South Korean film about a similarly suspect “family” of lowlifes, in this case baby stealers who make off with an infant abandoned in a church’s “baby box.”  In attempts to sell the child, they are joined by his mother, who has worse crimes to worry about.  They are being followed and set up by a pair of investigators, two perpetually snacking women on stakeout.  I missed Kore-eda’s trademark warmth and humor in dire situations, and shockingly failed to feel much for his characters, so for me this does not join his roster of masterpieces.  (P.S.: To support the contention that “even Homer sometimes nods,” I caught up with another Kore-eda non-masterpiece, the odd and uncharacteristic Air Doll (2009, MC-67, CC), about a Pinocchio-like sex doll who yearns to be a real girl, with a charming lead and some touching moments but overall quite misguided.)
 
I went into Official Competition (MC-79) under the mistaken impression it was an Almadóvar film, because it stars Penelope Cruz and Antonio Banderas (along with the less-familiar Oscar Martinez).  Though made in Spain, it was written and directed by a group of unknown-to-me Argentines.  I enjoyed it as a send-up of the pomposities and idiocies of film folk, from producer to director to stars, as they rehearse a movie in cavernous empty modernist spaces, managing to take advantage of the Covid constraints of production.  It’s very much an inside game, delicious for cognoscenti, boldly designed and played, surprising and funny, but perhaps overlong.
 
I’m glad that Hulu still offers international films such as Both Sides of the Blade (MC-72), but it didn’t do much for me.  I’ve never really bought into the appeal of highly-esteemed director Claire Denis, but I certainly respond to the appeal of Juliette Binoche, so I was content to watch as she, playing a Parisian radio host during Covid, wavers in affairs with two men who are business partners.  Denis establishes a mood, but hardly constructs a story or delves into character.
 
Turning to recent English language films, I most enjoyed Rye Lane (MC-83), a brilliantly entertaining rom-com by Raine Allen-Miller, much in the walk-and-talk, getting-to-know-you vein of Before Sunrise (one of my very favorite films).  In this case, the well-met couple are Vivian Oparah and David Jonsson, two extremely appealing Black Britishers, and the neighborhood they perambulate is increasingly-hip South London, from galleries to open-air markets to karaoke bars.  It’s getting hard to find a first-class rom-com these days, but this one fits the bill.

I credit Richard Brody of The New Yorker for hipping me to Pinball (MC-64), which has gone largely unnoticed, but ranks as another first-rate rom-com, though as a faux-documentary it has the subtitle The Man Who Saved the Game.  Roger (played by Mike Faist, having made a splash as Riff in Spielberg’s West Side Story) is a fledgling writer in 1970s NYC, who turns his passion for pinball into a magazine article, then a book, and then a political mission to overturn the city’s ban on the machines.  The older Mr. Sharpe (Dennis Boutsikaris, familiar from Better Call Saul) is being interviewed for the “documentary” and steps into the frame with his former self to correct the filmmakers’ misrepresentations.  Crystal Reed is the delightfully different love interest.  This is the clever and amusing debut feature of the writer-director team “The Bragg Brothers,” of whom great things may be expected.
 

For me, Linoleum (MC-80) falls into the category of interesting misfire, giving off a comic sci-fi vibe before turning into something totally different in its final scene.  Writer-director Colin West’s film is clever and ultimately quite moving, with fine actors led by Rhea Seehorn and Jim Gaffigan, but might have benefited from another hand, an eye from outside.  If you like films that are baffling till a final plot twist, then this might appeal to you.  [Spoiler alert!]  All the film’s enigmas and inconsequentialities are resolved by the perhaps-insufficiently-telegraphed ending, where we find out the foregoing was all transpiring in the mind of a dying man with dementia.  Maybe it would help to know that going in.
 
Buried on Hulu you can also find some highly-rated documentaries, most recently Riotsville USA (MC-82) and Hold Your Fire (MC-82).  The former focuses on archival footage of a mock town created in the Sixties for military training in response to civil disturbance, largely racialized, but drags it out with polemical narration.  I do wonder, however, if the military is now similarly training to combat white supremacist violence. 
 
The latter is also racially based, about a Dog Day Afternoon-like standoff in 1973 between NYC police and four Black men holed up in a sporting goods store from which they were attempting to steal guns.  In Stefan Forbes’ extremely effective film, thriller-like yet reflective, the hostage negotiator emerges as the hero, but many voices are heard and a multi-dimensional perspective on the event emerges, with wider implications.  Despite identical MC ratings, Hold Your Fire is an immeasurably better film in exploring the legacies of civil unrest.
 
Moving to FX-on-Hulu original series, I start with two new seasons of shows that made my best of 2022 list, a reboot of one from my all-time top ten, and a sleeper likely to make my list for 2023, which cumulatively are keeping me subscribed for longer than expected.
 

There was a question about the second season of The Bear (MC-92) – how could they keep up the pace?  The pace of a fast-food restaurant, the pace of the performances and direction, the pace of family dysfunction.  The genius decision of show creator Christopher Storer was to tear it down and start all over again, with the phoenix-like emergence of a new restaurant, and with a broader canvas of characters and situations.  As the NYT critic noted, the first season was a foxhole war story set in a kitchen, and second is a sports story set in a kitchen, all about a team training together for excellence, and to be their own best selves.  All the former players return, with broader roles, along with a host of new characters, many cameo-ed by startlingly-familiar faces (word must have gotten out that this was a show to be part of.) Appropriately, this season starts with the title card “Part Two,” since it’s clear they were conceived as a totality (with much more to come, we hope).  The show is as fast-paced and funny as Succession, but with a much warmer heart despite the family craziness, which rings all sorts of bells for this Italian-American.  I found the whole series well worth a second look, to unpack some of the situations and dialogue that go flying by.  Two particular grace notes are the music choices and the interludes of Chicago sights, enhanced by drone footage in the second season, plus a side trip to Copenhagen.  See this one, if you possibly can.

The much-acclaimed third season of Reservation Dogs (MC-95) is currently underway.  By the final update of this post, I’ve seen all of the series except the final two episodes, and feel confident proclaiming its greatness.  The fact that it’s an all-Indigenous production just adds spice to the depth of its characters and intricacy of its storytelling in presenting a portrait of a community.  The ethnic difference is illuminating, but the feelings are universal.    Funny and penetrating, like The Bear, this is a show that requires attention and rewards a second viewing.  [Prior seasons of these two shows reviewed here.]
 
In my all-time Top Ten of TV series, Breaking Bad took the #1 spot by coming back as Better Call Saul, and both Deadwood and Borgen cemented their places with subsequent revivals.  Sorry I can’t say the same about Justified: City Primeval (MC-79).  Detroit is prime Elmore Leonard territory, but doesn’t have the flavor of Harlan County.  Timothy Olyphant scores again as Raylan Givens, even if inserted into a story that is not his, but this time his adversary is a straight psychopath without the charm of Walton Goggins as alter-ego.  No Joelle Carter as the woman between them, and as the teen girl in the story Olyphant’s daughter is no match for Kaitlyn Dever.  But the missing secret sauce may be the originating showrunner Graham Yost, rendering this series just another reasonably well-made cop show and not a justifiable reboot.  (Here’s where I left the series back in 2015.)  And now I’ve grudgingly watched to the end, resenting the betrayal of one of my favorite shows, and the criminal misuse of the appealing actress from another (Adelaide Clemens of Rectify).  This is a limited series in every sense of the word, and I won’t be back for more, even with the teasing conclusion.  Let’s let Raylan retire in peace, and not traduce his memory any more.
 
After a number of Emmy nominations, and announcement of a second season arriving in September, I caught up with Welcome to Wrexham (MC-75), which I had imagined to be a pale imitation of Ted Lasso, with American stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny buying a Welsh soccer team.  Many of the pleasures are the same, true, but this documentary series is definitely its own thing – imaginative, funny, and moving.  I never expected to watch all 18 episodes, but I did and now look forward to the second season.  With variable runtimes of 20-47 minutes, each episode marches through the season but branches off into different personalities and situations, with the two stars providing a through line but fading into the background of many different characters, all exploring the passions of British football in a manner that was more engrossing than I could have guessed going in.  After one episode, the second season promises to build upon the first in must-see fashion.

Two more Hulu original series were made watchable by their lead actresses.  Kathryn Hahn, always so likably unlikable, is at the center of Tiny Beautiful Things (MC-73), based on the sort-of-memoir by Cheryl Strayed - subtitled Advice on Life and Love from “Dear Sugar” - in which her life unfolds in comic but pointed counterpoint to her advice column for the lovelorn.  Also with Merritt Wever, this spinoff from the book and film Wild passes the time enjoyably enough but is not worth seeking out.

 
Likewise, Beth Powley anchors A Small Light (MC-83), a worthy but uninspired retelling of the Anne Frank story from the perspective of Miep Gies, an employee of Otto Frank (Liev Schreiber) who helped the family survive in hiding.  It’s a quality television production, but short of cinematic in approach.
 
Disney+ happened to be a cheap add-on to Hulu for one month, so I took the opportunity to watch the latest Oscar-nominated Pixar animation, Turning Red (MC-83), a fairly broad metaphor for a Chinese-Canadian girl getting her period, as she turns into a giant red panda whenever her emotions are stirred.   Domee Shi breaks ground as the first solo female director for Pixar features, following her Oscar-winning success with the short Bao (also on Disney+), and proves a compelling new voice.
 
I also enjoyed Rise (MC-74), the story of how Giannis Antetokounmpo and his brothers completed a long journey from Nigeria through Greece to NBA stardom.  Well acted, with credible hoops action, it shows how the sweet Freak became Greek, and went on to become one of the most admirable of sports stars.
 
Aside from a couple of shorts, I didn’t find much else new to see on Disney+.  After checking out the trailers, I couldn’t bring myself to watch either the highly-regarded Andor or Wakanda Forever – just not my thing.  But if you ever choose to bundle Disney+ with Hulu, don’t miss Hamilton or the Beatles’ documentary Get Back.  The ad-free option of Hulu itself certainly warrants a month’s subscription now and then, and it’s easy to pause for up to 12 weeks at a time and recover it whenever you want.