Rental Family
World Premiere

Wait. Is this really a Japanese remake of a Werner Herzog’s Family Romance LLC except starring Brendan Fraser as an American actor living abroad who gets into the surrogate relative business? Or is the practice of hiring someone to play a cute schoolgirl’s long-absent father so common in Japan that this arose independently? 

With more plot lines about other assignments and fellow surrogates, HIKARI takes the material in a far more sentimental and comedic direction. Playing an actor who moved to Tokyo for a toothpaste commercial and stuck around for years, Fraser first gets cast as “token American” in a simulate funeral. Soon he’s booking gigs for “older American husband” in a sham marriage. Eventually, he gets two big gigs: long-lost father to a girl whose single mom wants to get into an elite private school and intrepid journalist to an aging film star who needs a boost of connection in his final dwindling days. He brings such soft vulnerability to the role (at one point we see him dressed as a cat to earn the affections of his “daughter”) and inherent righteousness (unauthorized outings to satisfy the rascally revered actor’s last wishes) that his presence in the film practically demands a series of sweet and tidy endings for all parties. The conclusions do work on an emotional level, but they also really let everyone — including the audience — off a little too easily and without enough introspection.

Dead Man’s Wire
North American Premiere

An aggrieved borrower mortally bound to a slippery lender’s son by way of a loaded shotgun might be deemed too on-the-nose as a metaphor for private equity capitalism if exactly such an event hadn’t really happened. Here, we have Bill Skarsgård in a phenomenally twitchy and appealing performance as Tony Kiritsis, a small-time developer driven both crazy and into debt by a big bank’s lending practices that he’s not going to take it any more. Playing opposite him is impressively reflective Dacre Montgomery as the bank president’s son whose life hangs in the balance when he’s taken hostage for a stretch of days that captivated local media. Colman Domingo makes a great impression as a radio DJ who’s deep-thinking presence on the airwaves makes him the gunman’s preferred negotiator. No stranger to hostage-taking procedurals, Al Pacino phones in an outsized role (this time on the other side) of the amusing effect. With a very appealing cast and a viscerally compelling retro-vibe that echoes with our current sentiments toward the crushing bootheel of crony capitalism, Gus Van Sant makes wry hay of the 1977 Indianapolis incident that minted a minor folk hero.

The Christophers
World Premiere

Working from a script from Ed Solomon, this two-hander about an art restoration specialist enlisted to extract value from an aging painter’s dusty attic, felt more sputtering and searching than I’d expect from Stephen Soderbergh. But let’s cut him some slack: it’s his second (or maybe third, depending on where you count Presence) release of this calendar year and even as a “minor work” it’s still far more interesting than what most filmmakers are able to churn out with far more time on their hands.

Much of the success comes from the magnificence of its two leads: Michaela Cole as the confident young assistant whose slippery motivations we can never quite pin down and an irascible Ian McKellen as a revered artist nearing the end of his days, still enlivened by barbed wit and even sharper opinions. As far as people talking in rooms go, you can’t ask for much more than the two of them, holed up in a pair of twinned townhouses, cluttered with decades of lived-in creativity. The sophistication of their banter is in contrast to the comedic shallowness of his greedy idiot kids (James Corden and Jessica Gunning). It’s a treat to be on the periphery of their dueling monologues, provocative conversations, and ever-shifting positions on legacy, aging, and intentions while trying to suss out who’s outsmarting whom and for what reasons.