Susan Granger At The Movies

Yellowjackets

Without doubt, “Yellowjackets” on Showtime is the most provocative new show of the season. Combining the classic premise of “Lord of the Flies” with the skittery, supernatural spookiness of “Lost” and the horror thriller “Alive,” it’s about teenage girls on a New Jersey high school soccer team.

After qualifying for the 1996 national championships, they board a private plane to fly to the state of Washington. But there’s an accident, and they crash-land in a remote forest somewhere in the Canadian Rockies.

Apparently, some of them were eventually rescued — because we meet them again — 25 years later — in 2021. They’re now adults, but they’re all traumatized, haunted by what happened in the 19 months during which they became feral, foraging, farming and, basically, struggling to survive.

Most of the savage drama of the first season revolves around young Shauna (Sophie Nelisse), Taissa (Jasmin Savoy Brown), Natalie (Sophie Thatcher) and Misty (Sammi Hanratty) … and their adult counterparts: Shauna (Melanie Lynsky), Taissa (Tawny Cypress), Natalie (Juliette Lewis) and Misty (Christina Ricci).

Initially, tension erupts between insecure Shauna and her popular best-friend, team captain Jackie (Ella Purnell) because, apparently, Jackie’s boy-friend Jeff (Jack Depew) was not only unfaithful but impregnated Shauna just before the plane departed. Now — in present time — Shauna is married to Jeff (Warren Kole) and they have a teenage daughter, Callie.

Back in the woods, there’s also deeply religious Laura Lee (Jane Widdop), spiritual Antler Queen Lottie (Courtney Eaton), and hard-hitting Van (Liv Hewson), along with Coach Ben (Steven Kreuger), Travis (Kevin Alves) and Javi (Luciano Leroux).

Showrunners Ashley Lyle and Bart Nickerson, along with Jonathan Lisco, have concocted an eerily disturbing, ongoing mystery that’s not only sinister (hinting at cannibalism) but constantly surprising. Before long, you’re hooked — and it’s horrifying!

And Ashley Lyle has confirmed that other survivors are out there — somewhere — and will appear next season.

 

A Hero

Iran’s official Academy Award submission as Best International Film is “A Hero,” a drama/thriller by two-time Oscar-winning filmmaker Asghar Farhadi (“A Separation,” “A Salesman”), who sent critics (like me) a letter stating:

“Over the years, with the films I wrote and directed, I have always tried to create empathy between the audience and the characters on the screen; empathy, not only with one group of characters, but with both protagonists and antagonists. In ‘A Hero,’ I continue on the same path with a simple story that gradually turns into a complex situation.”

He goes on to add: “I believe empathy with characters puts the audience in an emotional state that causes them to make a fairer judgment about the characters and, hopefully, themselves.”

Set in the Iranian city of Shiraz, the film follows sign painter/calligrapher Rahim (Amir Jadidi), a divorced father imprisoned for debt, who is given a ‘furlough’ of 48 hours to convince his dour creditor, Bahram (Mohsen Tanabandeh) who runs a copying/printing store in a shopping mall, to drop the charges.

To consult with his brother-in-law Hossein (Alireza Jahandideh), Rahim climbs the scaffolding-covered Naqsh-e Rostam, a mountain necropolis containing the royal tombs of Persepolis, including the remains of Xerxes the Great.

A short time later, conscience-stricken Rahim decides to return a lady’s lost handbag containing 17 gold coins. His humanitarian gesture turns into a full-blown media event, catapulting him, his family and prison authorities into public scrutiny. It’s reflective of our contemporary ‘cancel culture’ — when somebody becomes famous for doing a good deed, others try to bring the hapless hero down.

The complex narrative explores universal themes of honesty, honor and the price of freedom by showing how half-truths and lies can erode the soul and exposing how insidious judgment by social media is increasingly prevalent.

In competition for the Palme d’Or at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, “A Hero” won the Grand Prix.

 

The Tender Bar

Directed by George Clooney, “The Tender Bar” is a gentle, coming-of-age story that revolves around J.R. (played as a child by Daniel Ranieri, then by Tye Sheridan), growing up in Manhasset, Long Island, during the late 1970s/early 1980s with his single mother Dorothy (Lily Rabe), cantankerous grandfather (Christopher Lloyd) and affable Uncle Charlie (Ben Affleck), who proudly drives a stunning blue-green Cadillac convertible.

A beloved figure at his working-class bar, The Dickens, philosophizing Uncle Charlie offers naïve, vulnerable J.R. unconditional love, promising: “I’m never going to let you win, and I’m always going to tell you the truth.” Insofar as “the male sciences” go, he cautions: “Don’t ever hit a woman. Even if she stabs you with scissors.”

Uncle Charlie encourages his ambition to become a writer, knowing that J.R. will inevitably track down his deadbeat dad (Max Martini), a radio disc jockey known as “The Voice” who never wanted him and doesn’t care about him.

Based on Pulitzer Prize-winner J.R. Moehringer’s 2005 memoir, it’s somewhat superficially adapted by screenwriter William Monahan, who follows J.R. to Yale, where he falls in love with a classmate (Briana Middleton) and ignores his mother’s desire for him to go to law school in favor of becoming a journalist.

(In recent years, Moehringer collaborated with Andre Agassi and Nike co-founder Phil Knight on their autobiographies and worked with Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, on his, scheduled for later this year.)

FYI: A bar known as The Dickens — with a fading likeness of Charles Dickens painted on the side of the building — was a real Long Island establishment but, for the film, the setting was re-created in several Massachusetts towns.

Not surprisingly, the Screen Actors Guild nominated Affleck as Best Supporting Actor for this film. It’s been a productive year for Affleck, who was also almost unrecognizable as the villain in Ridley Scott’s “The Last Duel.” FYI: Affleck won an Oscar in 1997 for co-writing “Good Will Hunting” with Matt Damon.

 

Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.

As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.

During her adult life, Susan has been on radio and television as an anchorwoman and movie and drama critic, syndicating her reviews and articles around the world, including Video Librarian. She has appeared on American Movie Classics and Turner Classic Movies. In 2017, her book 150 Timeless Movies was published by Hannacroix Creek Books.

Her website is www.susangranger.com. Follow her on Twitter @susangranger.