In what has become an annual tradition, this month’s guide to the hidden gems of your subscription services spotlights indies, genre movies and documentaries released this year — potential critics’ list or even award season contenders, available to stream at this very moment.
‘Sorry, Baby’
Eva Victor (“Billions”) is a delightfully off-kilter screen personality, blessed with crackerjack comic timing and a way of delivering a witty line in the driest possible fashion, and her feature debut as a writer-director proves those gifts aren’t confined to performance. Victor stars as Agnes, a graduate student who is sexually assaulted by her professor and mentor (Louis Cancelmi) and tries to keep her life (and self) together in the aftermath. It could have been a fairly standard trauma narrative, but Victor structures the story in a scrambled, answers-first-questions-later fashion, and with her jaw-dropping ability to get tough, stick-in-the-throat laughs at some of the darkest, saddest moments imaginable.
‘Bob Trevino Likes It’
John Leguizamo is such a valuable supporting player — so singularly skilled at swooping in, stealing scenes and disappearing — that it’s easy to forget the wonders he can do with a leading role. Here he’s the title character, who forms an unlikely bond with insecure young Lily (Barbie Ferreira) because he has the same name as her estranged father. (It’s a premise so implausible that of course it’s based on a real story.) The writing and direction by Tracie Laymon is so delicate that the more we know Lily’s story, the more we understand her various neuroses, while Leguizamo handles Bob’s emotional arcs with wrenching sensitivity. It’s a lovely movie with a big, beating heart.
‘Companion’
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video and HBO Max.
The topsy-turvy narrative twists of this darkly comic thriller are so delicious, so cleanly arranged and elegantly unveiled, that it rewards the viewer to skip any summary at all; go in blind, and let the writer-director Drew Hancock go to work. Suffice it to say that Sophie Thatcher (so strong in last year’s “Heretic”) is a marvel in the leading role, masterfully playing the character’s complicated duality and myriad variations, while Jack Quaid finds the perfect balance of nice-guy charisma and utter repellence as the boyfriend with a hidden agenda or two. The “Weapons” and “Barbarian” director Zach Cregger is among the producers, and his presence is as good a filter as any; if you like the wild-eyed, anything-goes storytelling style of those movies, give this one a shot.
‘Lurker’
Théodore Pellerin is a revelation as the title character of this tightly wound psychological thriller from the writer and director Alex Russell. Pellerin is Matthew, a retail worker who makes a not-quite-random connection with Oliver (Archie Madekwe) a dim but likable Frank Ocean-style pop star. Matthew falls in with Oliver’s coterie of employees, friends and hangers-on, and Russell paints a persuasive picture of what it’s like to bounce around in a celebrity’s orbit, jockeying for favored position among various sycophants and confidants. The opening stretch is occasionally uncomfortable but equally seductive; it’s easy to see why Matthew wants to be a part of this world, even as his tactics for staying there become more and more unnerving. The vibes curdle considerably in the homestretch, of course, and Russell tightens the vice grip of his taut narrative with skill and flair.
‘The Dead Thing’
Despite its title and presence on the horror-forward streamer Shudder, this indie from the director and co-writer Elric Kane is much more of a character study, or even a psychological drama, than a traditional chiller. Blu Hunt stars as Alex, a young professional whose pattern of mostly empty dating-app encounters is broken by an intense connection with a handsome barista (Ben Smith-Petersen). But as soon as she’s hooked, he disappears, and she soon discovers his absence may be much more sinister than a simple ghosting. Kane quietly builds genuine dread and discomfort into his deliberate pacing, sparse visual scheme and unnerving sound design, while following his characters into the darker corners of their psyches with the judgment-free remove of an anthropologist. A tricky, intriguingly minimalist work from a filmmaker worth watching.
‘Borderline’
Stream it on Amazon Prime Video.
Since her breakthrough in the horror thriller “Ready or Not,” Samara Weaving has carved out a niche for herself as a contemporary queen of genre cinema, thanks to memorable turns in such small-but-solid pictures as “Azrael,” “Eenie Meanie” and this comic thriller from the writer and director Jimmy Warden. Weaving is charismatic and credible as Sofia, a sex symbol and pop star who becomes the object of obsession for Paul (Ray Nicholson), an entirely unbalanced celebrity stalker who decides that he and Sofia are to be wed — much to her horror. The ferocity of Weaving’s performance is balanced nicely by Nicholson’s weaselly presence, as well as the scene-stealing bravado of Alba Baptista as Paul’s even more unbalanced accomplice. “Borderline” has to navigate some tricky tonal balances, but Warden loads the picture with enough enjoyably twisty energy to pull most of them off.
‘Lilith Fair: Building a Mystery — The Untold Story’
Ally Pankiw (“I Used to Be Funny”) directs this warm, affectionate documentary account of the three-summer run of the women’s music festival Lilith Fair, orchestrated and fronted by Sarah McLachlan from 1996 through 1998. Pankiw details the hows and whys of its origins, and why it ended when it did. It’s very much a tribute to the importance of the festival, even when it was mocked at the time in popular culture (as illustrated by many cringe-worthy clips), but Pankiw also isn’t making a puff piece; she notes and respects many of the criticisms leveled at the festival, and recounts how the organizers adjusted to them and evolved. The performance footage is spectacular and the contemporary interviews are enlightening, while the subtle thread of McLachlan’s activism arc is affectingly threaded throughout.
The post ‘Sorry, Baby,’ ‘Lurker’ and the Year’s Great Under-the-Radar Streaming Films appeared first on New York Times.
