Whether you’re a casual moviegoer or an avid buff, our reviewers think these films are worth knowing about.
Critic’s Pick
A double dose of dark comedy.
‘A Different Man’
Edward (Sebastian Stan), a man with a condition that warps his facial features, discovers his problems are internal after he gets cosmetic surgery and meets another man, Oswald (Adam Pearson), who has the same condition in this dark comedy written and directed by Aaron Schimberg.
From our review:
Like many literary and cinematic fables before it — think of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” or “The Elephant Man” — “A Different Man” is really a morality play, of a kind. It’s just that the moral isn’t all that straightforward. It’s about a societal obsession with particular standards of beauty. The fact that conventionally attractive people, or people with certain features and skin colors, tend to encounter more success in life simply by dint of genetic luck is explicit throughout. But that fact is so obvious, and stated so blatantly outright, that it feels like a joke.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Like two cool cats who just swallowed the canary.
‘Wolfs’
George Clooney and Brad Pitt play underworld fixers — the people you call to make criminal evidence disappear — who begrudgingly team up for a job.
From our review:
It isn’t remotely tense or mysterious, and its modest thrills derive wholly from the spectacle of two beautifully aged, primped, pampered and expensive film stars going through the motions with winks and a degree of brittle charm. The movie is a trifle, and it knows it. Mostly, though, “Wolfs,” written and directed by Jon Watts, is an excuse for its two leads to riff on their own personas, which can be faintly amusing and certainly watchable but also insufferably smug. It’s insufferable a lot.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Girls gone gory.
‘The Substance’
In this body horror stunner directed by Coralie Fargeat, Elisabeth (Demi Moore) is an aging starlet who tries a new drug that promises to create a younger, better version of herself (Sue, played by Margaret Qualley). It performs as advertised, but with disastrous and disgusting consequences.
From our review:
Be warned: This is a very gory and often bombastic movie. The logic is also not airtight, especially when it comes to whether, and how, Sue and Elisabeth share a consciousness. … It’s all metaphor, though, not in the least bit meant for a literal analysis. That’s an awkward thing to mix into a movie that turns every subtext into text, which means its constant hammering of its points starts to feel patronizing, as if we might not get it. But it’s also quite funny, and the worse things become for Elisabeth, the harder it is not to giggle with glee. By the end, things have become monstrous and mad.
In theaters. Read the full review.
Critic’s Pick
Sisters, under the skin.
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