Movie Review: The Assessment (2024)

Genre: Dystopian Drama  

Director: Fleur Fortuné  

Starring: Elizabeth Olsen, Alicia Vikander, Himesh Patel  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: In a dystopian future, parenthood is strictly controlled due to environmental limitations and mastery of life-prolongation. Couple Mia and Aaryan (Elizabeth Olsen and Himesh Patel) apply to become parents and qualify for an "assessment" to be conducted by stern government worker Virginia (Alicia Vikander). She arrives to live with them for seven days and observe all their behaviours and interactions, but also to test their limits.

What Works Well: The imaginative premise is intriguing, and the plot reveals it's environmental details with practiced patience. Yielding control of the human yearning to procreate is an ultimate manifestation of the destruction unleashed on nature, and the couple's professions reflect the dystopia: Aaryan creates virtual pets for a world no longer able to sustain the real critters; and Mia grows food in living compost. Virginia exposes their readiness (or not) to care for a child, posing universal questions about selflessness and sacrifice, and challenging the tensions hiding behind every couple's facade.

What Does Not Work As Well: The suffocating aesthetic is almost impenetrably muddy, bathing the drama in orange/brown near-darkness. The final few scenes contain a sudden torrent of context-setting revelations. Rather than adding value, all the new information is unquestionably late, including Aaryan graduating from simulating pets, the attempts to round Virginia into a person worth caring about, and Mia's commitment to a journey into the known unknown.

Key Quote:

Mia: What if we're not good enough?

Aaryan: If we're not who is?

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Movie Review: His Three Daughters (2023)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Azazel Jacobs  

Starring: Carrie Coon, Elizabeth Olsen, Natasha Lyonne  

Running Time: 101 minutes  

Synopsis: Three sisters converge at the New York apartment of their father Vincent, who is dying under home hospice care. Katie (Carrie Coon) is highly strung and bossy, while Christina (Elizabeth Olsen) is soft spoken and a natural conciliator. The third sister (from Vincent's second marriage) is pothead and sports gambling addict Rachel (Natasha Lyonne), who lives with her dad and stands to inherit the apartment. Within the confined surroundings and under the stress of their father's impending demise, tensions surface between the sisters.

What Works Well: Writer and director Azazel Jacobs creates a milieu crackling with initially unspoken resentments, his organic script flowing with shrewd expressions of bottled-up frustration and barely subdued barbs. Katie, Christina, and Rachel are sharply drawn and distinct individuals connected by one parent, and as their dad approaches the end, they are forced to dig beneath their antagonism to explore what else binds them. The theatrical trappings work in favour of the drama's intimacy, and the three excellent lead performances expose warts-and-all humanity.

What Does Not Work As Well: The sisters appear annoyingly unaware that the imperfections besetting their lives are easily classified as first world problems.

Key Quote:

Rachel (contributing to her father's obituary): Married a couple of crazy bitches, raised a few crazy bitches.

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Movie Review: Red Lights (2012)

Genre: Investigative Thriller  

Director: Rodrigo Cortés  

Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Robert De Niro, Elizabeth Olsen, Toby Jones  

Running Time: 114 minutes  

Synopsis: Academic physicists Dr. Margaret Matheson (Sigourney Weaver) and Dr. Tom Buckley (Cillian Murphy) run a side-business debunking psychics and paranormal advocates. Margaret's student Sally (Elizabeth Olsen) joins their investigations and starts a romance with Tom. When celebrity blind psychic Simon Silver (Robert De Niro) surprisingly comes out of retirement, Tom is eager to expose him as a fraud, but Margaret is more careful.

What Works Well: The first act introduces interesting characters and adds depth to Dr. Matheson through a side story involving her son, while the debunking sessions and academic sparring with rival physicist Dr. Shackleton (Toby Jones) are sharp. The cast members battle valiantly to prop-up the disintegrating script.

What Does Not Work As Well: Writer and director Rodrigo Cortés clumsily steers into a bewildering narrative turn about halfway through, and the drama never recovers. The remainder of the film is a toothless exercise in silly special effects, the gritted-teeth obsession with a touring entertainer never close to supporting the weight of unfolding carnage. Another attempt at a late twist arrives with the never-good sudden introduction of narration and carries all the impact of a wet noodle.

Conclusion: Accelerates with promise, but then stops dead.



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The Movies Of Elizabeth Olsen

All movies starring Elizabeth Olsen and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

Red Lights (2012)

Very Good Girls (2013)

Wind River (2017)

Kodachrome (2017)

His Three Daughters (2023)

The Assessment (2024)

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The Movie Star Index is here.

Movie Review: Very Good Girls (2013)

A coming-of-age drama, Very Good Girls explores friendship, secrets and early sexual adventures but barely offers anything new.

In New York, best friends Lilly (Dakota Fanning) and Gerri (Elizabeth Olson) would like to lose their virginity before heading out to college. Lilly's home environment is tense and her parents Edward and Norma (Clark Gregg and Ellen Barkin) barely communicate. Edward (Clark Gregg) is caught having an affair and soon leaves the house. In contrast Gerri's household is warm and loud, enlivened by her animated father Danny (Richard Dreyfuss). Lilly woks for the summer as a tour boat guide and has to fend off the lecherous advances of her boss Fitsimmons (Peter Sarsgaard).

At Brighton Beach Lilly and Gerri meet hunky ice cream seller David (Boyd Holbrook) and they both set their eyes on him. Gerri openly states she wants to pursue David; Lilly is more coy, seeking a seduction without telling Gerri. Soon both young women are in various stages of involvement with the same guy, straining their friendship.

An independent production written and directed by Naomi Foner, Very Good Girls is low on energy and lacking innovation. The laid-back and carefree attitude suits the last-summer-before-college vibe, and both Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olson radiate youthful enthusiasm growing into adulthood with just the right dash of trepidation. But even for the sparse 91 minutes of running time, the material is thin and familiar, the characters quickly confined to uncommunicative territory spiked by obfuscation to serve the script's agenda.

The initial strong bond between Lilly and Geri is only sketched-in (a propensity for tearing off their clothes in public a hasty substitute for playful trust), leaving their friendship susceptible to the corrosive side-effects of a race for achieving womanhood behind secretive curtains. The scenes of young love and mutual seduction between Lilly and David are not helped by his predictably moody but vacuous character (he is the walking cliche of an aspiring street artist who wants to visit Europe). When their budding love affair hits the first rock of mistrust, the intended emotional impacts don't register.

The trio of Ellen Barkin, Richard Dreyfuss and Demi Moore (as Gerri's mother) roll back the decades and add veteran star power despite underwritten roles. Vaguely amiable without carving out an identity, Very Good Girls pout and plot but fade towards the back of a crowded class.



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Movie Review: Kodachrome (2017)

A father-son road trip, Kodachrome is confined to expected frames but benefits from a grizzled Ed Harris performance.

Record label talent agent Matt Ryder (Jason Sudeikis) is barely hanging on to his job when he learns his estranged father, celebrated photographer Ben Ryder (Harris), has three months to live. Matt has not seen his dad for 10 years, and is resentful Ben abandoned the family when Matt was a child. Ben's nurse Zooey (Elizabeth Olsen) and business manager Larry (Dennis Haysbert) nevertheless convince Matt to accompany Ben on a road trip to Parsons, Kansas, where the last store processing Kodachrome film is about to close. Ben wants to process four old but recently found rolls of film before dying.

Ben's caustic personality makes for a fraught trip, with Zooey trying to create a truce between father and son. They take a side trip to Cleveland to visit Ben's brother Dean (Bruce Greenwood) and his wife Sarah (Wendy Crewson), who helped raise Matt. At another stop in Chicago Matt attempts to save his career by poaching an up-and-coming band from a rival label. A romance develops between Matt and Zooey, but achieving a thaw between Matt and his increasingly frail dad will be difficult.

Inspired by an A.G. Sulzberger magazine article about the end of the photo development era, Kodachrome defaults to a routine journey of re-acquaintance between a father and son. Barely able to sustain a civil conversation, the two men spar for long periods, Matt's lingering threads of discontent and sense of abandonment obscuring any pathway towards rapprochement.

The script by Jonathan Tropper rarely offers any fresh perspectives on the well-worn themes of broken communication channels across generations and perceptions of failed fatherhood. But director Mark Raso has an ace up his sleeve in the form of Ed Harris enjoying himself as the abrasive dying man who never cared for others to begin with, and now cares even less. Channeling the fatalism of great artists, Ben Ryder classifies himself as a chronicler of human history, and Harris relishes the character's freedom to push all available rankle buttons, secure in his own legacy.

The rest of the plot is familiar in the extreme. The stuttering romance between Matt and Zooey is feeble, and the four film rolls are an obvious and painfully predictable MacGuffin. The patched-on music industry subtext provides the opportunity for some moany soundtrack songs and generic rock band conversations before turning scratchy.

Some sharp dialogue and moments of soft humour do enliven Kodachrome, but this road trip is only saved by one veteran photographer seeking a final exposure.



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Movie review: Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

A psychological drama, Martha Marcy May Marlene delves into the shadows hanging over the troubled psyche of a cult survivor.

Deep in the Catskill Mountains, Martha (Elizabeth Olsen) escapes from a commune and sex cult consisting of young men and women under the influence of creepy leader Patrick (John Hawkes), who granted her the name Marcy May, and his sidekick Watts (Brady Corbet). Martha makes it to the posh lakefront Connecticut vacation home of her sister Lucy (Sarah Paulson), who is married to architect Ted (Hugh Dancy).

Martha and Lucy have a strained relationship, and the peace and quiet Ted craves at his vacation sanctuary is disrupted by Martha's unsettling presence and unconventional behaviour. In flashback Martha's experiences at the commune are revealed, including her increasing attachment to Patrick and the commune's involvement in criminal activity. It becomes clear to Lucy her sister is going to need professional help, but Patrick may not be ready to accept Martha's departure.

Featuring a brooding mood and a haunting debut performance from Elizabeth Olsen, Martha Marcy May Marlene is a sombre experience. Martha's odd and argumentative behaviour at Lucy's house, including public nudity, nonchalantly walking in on Lucy and Ted during lovemaking, and a psychotic episode of mistaken identity, lay bare the reality that while she has physically escaped Patrick's cult, the damage lingers deep within her.

And she is not quite sure where she belongs. In the cold and mostly empty lakeside house Martha starts longing for the familiar comforts of the cramped commune, where similarly lost souls looked out for each other and kept warm at night sleeping in the same room. Her phone calls back to the commune are juxtaposed with flashbacks of the crimes Patrick is capable of inspiring, and suddenly Lucy's house may no longer be a safe haven.

Director and writer Sean Durkin is more interested in a slow reveal of Martha's troubled history rather than any character evolution. He builds unease by progressively exposing the horrors beneath the surface of a group of young adults supposedly living off the land. Patrick is the classic egotistical manipulator using psychobabble and veiled threats to control others and satisfy his twisted needs. While Martha's life chapter before the commune remains vague, her rebellious nature clearly led her down the wrong path.

And just as the pre-commune origins are skipped, the postscript is also left open. Martha Marcy May Marlene is concerned with the young survivor's middle chapters. Her bad decisions past and present are never far away, and neither are the dreadful consequences.

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Movie Review: Wind River (2017)

A crime mystery drama set in a grim and hostile rustic environment, Wind River derives portentous energy from human emotional resilience wilting under the pressure of nature's relentless hostility.

In snow-covered rural Wyoming, Cory Lambert (Jeremy Renner) is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agent based in the small town of Lander. An expert tracker and hunter, Cory is divorced from Wilma (Julia Jones), whose parents still live on the Wind River Indian Reservation. Their marriage never recovered from the death of their daughter Emily. While out tracking killer mountain lions on the reservation, Cory stumbles onto the dead body of Natalie Hanson (Kelsey Chow), the young woman having frozen to death after attempting to flee a rape. Natalie used to be Emily's best friend.

The FBI send inexperienced agent Jane Banner (Elizabeth Olsen) to investigate. She teams up with Cory and tribal police chief Ben (Graham Greene), while Cory also tries to console Natalie's father Martin (Gil Birmingham). The investigation leads to Natalie's brother Chip (Martin Sensmeier), who has fallen in with a group of drug dealers, and the revelation that Natalie was in a relationship with a man called Matt Rayburn (Jon Bernthal), who worked as a security guard at a nearby oil rig site.

Directed and written by Taylor Sheridan, Wind River is exhilarating and yet almost physically exhausting to watch. With a bleak setting where the unforgiving snow and bitter cold boost the prevalent economic misery, this is a film where nature is a visible force, and humans are pushed to the limit just to survive. Thriving is not an option.

It's no surprise that all the characters are scarred, grieving or hiding emotional turmoil. The film features no smiles, humour or irony, just a continuous battle to mentally and physically keep up. Cory Lambert is a robust character, played by an excellent Jeremy Renner as a throwback to western heroes, carrying no illusions and at peace with the laws of the land dictating what must survive and what must be killed. He is an ideal partner for the capable but unseasoned FBI agent Banner, but Natalie's death also strikes too close to home for Cory: his own daughter Emily's unresolved demise remains a clear source of fragility.

Despite Sheridan's tight command of storytelling, the film does shortchange the backstory of the main antagonist. But otherwise Sheridan adopts slow and sure-footed pacing, building up the drama through the harsh landscapes and the hurt behind the characters' eyes, keeping most of the actual agony off the screen  As the second half unfolds the threat of violence slowly but surely increases until the action explodes in successive orgies of expertly-executed mayhem.

Wind River is inspired by the high rate of missing and murdered aboriginal women, cases that often go unreported or unsolved. The film is suitably grim and a high evocative tribute to numerous shamefully forgotten victims.

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