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Who wants it darker? No one. Here are movies and binges to help you survive long holiday weekends.

By Jesse Kornbluth
Published: Nov 20, 2016
Category: Drama

Because I’ve seen “Arrival” and “Moonglow” and we’re saving “Manchester By the Sea” for Thanksgiving, “Elle” was the only film in town that seemed worth seeing this weekend. It’s France’s official selection for the foreign-language Oscar. And it got a rave review in the New York Times. But although the film pretends to be a closely observed psychological thriller, it’s as phony as a Marvel cartoon. Halfway through its interminable 2 hours and 10 minutes, the psychological thriller I thought I’d been watching became inane — the plot twists had turned the film into a incident-laden parody of itself, and I was struck by a bout of hysterical laughter.

On the way out of the theater, I saw the line of suckers waiting for the next show, and I shouted “Turn back!” Some people laughed. I laughed again. And again at dinner. And I realized that, for the first time since That Thing happened, I was in a good mood. And that my good mood was contagious — whatever awaits us, we can’t help responding to our need for connection and joy.

Connection and joy come to many of us when we watch movies and television dramas together. That seems liked a particularly good idea as we move into the holidays, with long weekends, family gatherings and weather that tends to keep us indoors. Because you don’t want to fight about That Thing. And, really, how much football can you watch? So…

BINGES

BLEAK HOUSE
461 minutes of great drama. The writer is Andrew Davis, whose credits are impeccable (‘Pride and Prejudice’ starring Colin Firth). The production is lavish: great houses, squalid and exalted London, a cast of 2,000. Gillian Anderson (once of ‘The X-Files’) might seem an odd choice as the wretchedly unhappy Lady Dedlock? Well, she’s astonishingly moving. This is not a minority opinion. ‘Bleak House’ had 10 Emmy nominations and won a Peabody Award
“Bleak House” plays at the speed of journalism. And the indignation — here, Dickens takes aim at two fat targets: the absurd Chancery Court and the cruel fate of poor children in London.

TOP OF THE LAKE
The series is set around Queenstown on New Zealand’s South Island. Some of “The Lord of the Rings” was filmed here; this area’s all about grand, mythic scale. And variety. In one image, you can see New Zealand’s second largest lake, vast snow-tinged mountains and, along the shore, waves of grass. It’s here, set against stunning and wild nature, that we find the fictional town of Lake Top.
“Top of the Lake” starts as a thriller. Twelve-year-old Tui Mitcham, fully clothed, walks into the lake. She’s pulled out, examined, found to be five months pregnant. Who’s the father? She won’t say. And then she disappears.

WALLENDER
The series is set is Ystad a small city — population: 18,000 — on the southern coast of Sweden. Once it was charming here. It still is. On the surface. But drugs have entered by sea. And immigrants, mostly from Iraq, have changed the character of Sweden. Now there is intolerance. And crime. And a nagging question: “Why is Sweden changing? Can we get our country back?”
The series is divided into two DVDs, each with three episodes. The format of all the episodes is the same, and if you are a “Law & Order” addict, you will smile at the way each begins. In the first series: A girl sets herself aflame as Wallander approaches. Two teenage girls commit an inexplicable murder. A gunman kills three young people celebrating Midsummer’s Eve in the woods. Then there’s evocative theme music over the credits. And we’re off.

MOVIES

THE LIVES OF OTHERS
In countries where the government aggressively spies on its own people, everyone has reason to be afraid. In East Germany in the 1980s, for example, the Stasi — the secret police — had 90,000 employees and 173,000 informers. In a country of 16 million people, that’s huge; it means that one of every 63 East Germans collaborated with the Stasi.
What does spying do to the people who do it?
That’s the question writer/director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck asks in “The Lives of Others.” And he asks it in the simplest possible way. Georg Dreyman is a successful playwright, and not just in the theater. He’s respected by his peers and tolerated by the government: “the only non-subversive writer we have.” He lives with an actress, a great beauty who has the misfortune to come to the attention of a government official. He knows he couldn’t seduce her on the strength of his own charm — but what if he got Georg Dreyman out of the way?

WINTER’S BONE
“Winter’s Bone” could not be grittier. Set in the bleak Ozarks of Missouri, we find ourselves among the rural poor: cramped trailers, plastic stretched over the windows in winter, not a Volvo in sight. And the Dollys are among the most wretched.
Ree’s father, Jessup Dolly, was busted a while back for cooking methamphetamine. To make bond, he put up his family’s house and 300 acres of virgin timber. Now his court date is a week away — and he’s nowhere to be found. The local lawman comes out to warn Ree that the Dollys are in danger of losing their home.
Ree’s mother has suffered a breakdown and is of no help, either in caring for her children or finding her husband. Which makes 17-year-old Ree responsible for her young sister and brother — and for tracking her father down. Ree’s quest is a walk on a knife edge; she can’t turn in her father, she can only ask for help in finding him so she can talk to him. And the only people who can help her? His relatives. Some of them make the most addictive drug on the planet. All of them don’t understand why she can’t remember she’s a Dolly — “bred and buttered,” as she says — and just stop. As they say, “Talking just causes witnesses.”

ONCE
He’s a singer. His girlfriend has left him. He’d like to make a record and get out of Dublin. Right now, he repairs vacuum cleaners and sings on the streets. Her situation’s just as dim. She may dream of music, but she’s in an alien culture, separated from her husband; she sells flowers and cleans houses to support her kid and mother. He and She (they are nameless) get together to make music; they become collaborators and friends, their songs propelling the plot. But the big question — for the audience, anyway — isn’t how their demo tape will be received. It’s whether they’ll become lovers.

LOCAL HERO
The plot of “Local Hero,” made in long-ago 1983, doesn’t begin to convey its charm. An oil executive in Houston (Peter Riegert) is sent to a small town on the Scottish coast by his eccentric boss (Burt Lancaster) to buy up everything in sight. Then the oil company will build a giant refinery. Riches are soon on everyone’s mind — in Houston and in Scotland.

TELL NO ONE
Guillaume Canet’s “Tell No One,” the French adaptation of a Harlan Coben novel, won César Awards for its director and its leading actor, François Cluzet. Its plot device seems simple enough: A man whose wife was murdered eight years previously suddenly starts receiving e-mail messages containing real-time videos of her that appear to have been shot days before. All the messages are marked, “Tell no one.” Are they real? Is she alive?
These questions acquire additional piquancy when new evidence — two dead bodies and a hunting rifle that used to belong to the husband’s father — is literally dug up by laborers laying pipe near the murder scene. The police reopen the murder investigation, focusing their suspicions on the husband, while a group of mysterious outside operatives are also tracking him — and liquidating witnesses who might shed light on the mystery — while he’s trying to find out whether his wife might still be alive.
It’s a situation straight out of Hitchcock, and handled with Hitchcockian skill.

MAGIC MIKE
At clubs like Chippendale’s, the room is filled with women, mostly married, on a “night out.” The performers are hunky young men with shaved and oiled chests. And there are, as the Chippendale’s web site says, “multiple opportunities for intimate audience participation.”
In “Magic Mike,” we go behind the scenes of those lives. Mike Lane, 30, works under the Florida sun as a roofer. At night, he’s the star of the Kings of Tampa, who dance at Matthew McConaughey’s Club Xquisite. And on the side, he designs furniture and sees that as his future.
The plot is 1930s Hollywood. Mike befriends a kid, gets him a job as a dancer, and promises the kid’s sister he’ll look after him. The kid gets in trouble. The sister gets pissed. And then… “

THE TREE OF LIFE
In 2011 “The Tree of Life” won the Palme D’Or for Best Picture at Cannes, but even with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn in the film, it didn’t lure crowds into the theaters. The director’s reclusiveness is part of the explanation. The better reason is that “The Tree of Life” is intellectually compelling and emotionally overpowering but not exactly popcorn entertainment.
There’s no plot; the story reveals itself, incompletely, in fits and starts, and if you drift off or leave the theater for more caffeine, you might miss an important moment. You won’t think Aaron Sorkin had anything to do with the dialogue; these characters talk more in voice-overs than they do to one another. And talk is the least of it; the unfolding images lead you deep into the film, and yourself.

HAROLD AND KUMAR GO TO WHITE CASTLE
As “everybody” knows, Korean-Americans and Indian-Americans are great students and solid workers, and these two are no exception. Kumar has perfect MCAT scores; the only thing keeping him out of med school is his attitude. And no young investment banker can crunch the numbers better than Harold.
What they share: They’re stoners. (As the movie begins, an off-screen voice lets us in on the joke: “Jeez, the movie’s starting, and I haven’t had a hit.”) Soon enough, they’re inhaling about a quarter ounce of primo weed. And they’re deciding that the night won’t be complete without a dozen or so “sliders” — and you do know why they’re called that, right? — at White Castle.

A LATE QUARTET
The Fugue String Quartet has played together for 25 years. Philip Seymour Hoffman, the second violinist, and Catherine Keener, who plays viola, are married. Mark Ivanir, the first violinist, seems like the group’s natural leader. In fact, it is Christopher Walken, the cellist, who founded the group. (”I’m the dad,” Walken told an interviewer.) Playing hundreds of concerts a year, incessantly traveling, tamping down ego for the sake of the group — few quartets can stay together for a quarter of a century. So, yes, a quartet in late life.
As the film begins, Walken has just confirmed his darkest suspicion — the trembling in his hand is the first sign of Parkinson’s. Rather than hang on, he wants to retire. Will he be replaced? Or is his exit the sign that the Fugue has run its course, that it is dead? Thus: literally late.

AFTER THE WEDDING
On a low budget, with no-name actors and a less sensitive script, “After the Wedding” would be right at home on Lifetime. Consider the plot. Jacob, a Dane in his 30s, works in an orphanage in India. He hasn’t been home in 20 years, and that’s just fine with him. Bad news: The orphanage is running out of money. Good news: Jørgen, a philanthropist, wants to write the large check that will save it. On one condition: He wants to meet the recipient. The woman who runs the orphanage can’t go. Well, Jørgen is Danish, Jacob is Danish. Jacob should go.
Reluctantly, Jacob flies to Denmark. Jørgen listens to his pitch for only a few minutes before seeming to lose interest — it’s the weekend of his daughter’s wedding. To which Jacob should come. It’s not, after all, like he has anything else to do.

DIVA
The feature debut of Jean-Jacques Beineix, “Diva”— released in this country in 1982 — was unlike anything I’d ever seen. First, it was a reach back to the jaunty films of the French “New Wave.” At the same time, it was a rule-breaker, mixing opera with techno, Society with punk, chic with coarse, thriller with spectacle. And was it ever stylish! Every frame was drenched in color and attitude — almost singlehandedly, “Diva” launched a style of French filmmaking called “cinema du look. “

GASLIGHT
The plot is a simple melodrama, as dated as Ovaltine. A London woman is killed for her jewels, but the killer doesn’t get them all. Years later, that woman’s niece — a fledgling opera singer, played by Bergman — meets a mysterious man (Boyer) who falls in love with her. She cannot resist him. They marry, and, in short order, move to the London house which she inherited from her murdered aunt.
Now begins the really fun stuff. Although Bergman is beautiful and rich and social, Boyer needs to isolate her from her world so he can search for the missing jewels without interference. His tricks seem obvious. The gas lights in the house, for example, suddenly dim and brighten again; when Bergman notices, Boyer assures her there’s nothing wrong — thus the phrase you sometimes hear, “to gaslight.” There’s a piece of “missing” jewelry. And a “lost” glove. Soon enough, Bergman is “ill.” Later, she will worry that she is “insane.” And then looms the ultimate fear: her husband will have her committed.

IN AMERICA
This is the kind of story that the Irish do best. There’s plenty of painful, gritty realism — there’s also a rich stream of magic. They merge at the start of the film. The strands never separate.
It works like this: Johnny Sullivan, his wife Sarah and their daughters sit in their old station wagon at the Canadian border, waiting to be admitted to the United States as “tourists.” In fact, this Irish actor and his family plan to be illegal aliens in New York City.
In New York, the Sullivans find an apartment in a druggie-infested slum. The girls like America. But Johnny is stymied in the land of opportunity — his auditions are flat, he can’t get a part, he becomes one of that army of actors who drives a cab. More stress: Sarah gets pregnant and learns that the baby could endanger her health. And the kids have befriended Mateo, a neighbor — a fierce, hostile African artist who, unknown to them, is dying of AIDS.
You watch all this, mouth open, as if you are watching a documentary.

THE PERKS OF BEING A WALLFLOWER
Charlie is a high school student with heavy baggage and one hope: that he’ll fit in at school and make friends. And he does — with the freaks, notably the flamboyantly gay Patrick and Patrick’s stepsister, Sam (Emma Watson). “Perks” has the usual high school issues: cliques, insecurity, sex, love, loneliness. Oh, and bullying. And homophobia. And, lurking below the surface, mental health.
Patrick survives — really: triumphs — through his friendships. He makes a place for himself in his world. And, in the process, he remakes himself.

LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE
The dad (Greg Kinnear) is a relentlessly upbeat motivational speaker who is unable to find a publisher. His wife (Toni Collette) is so harried she’s misplaced her femininity and has become the family enabler. Their teenage son (Paul Dano) looks like a Columbine killer-in-waiting; he reads Nietzsche, hates everyone in his family and has taken a vow of silence. Their 7-year-old daughter (Abigail Breslin) obsessively atches televised beauty pageants and dreams of winning a kid contest, although she wears huge eyeglasses and is as round as a Weeble. The wife’s brother (Steve Carell) has been recently displaced as America’s #1 Proust scholar by his ex-boyfriend’s new lover. He’s botched a suicide attempt and has come to live in the only home that will have him. And just to round out this clan of freaks, there’s Kinnear’s father (Alan Arkin), a grizzled codger.

WITHOUT LIMITS
Steve Prefontaine didn’t have a low opinion of himself. But he got it right; he was an artist. He took the formula of long-distance running — hang back, let the front-runner burn himself out, then kick at the end — and spat on it. Pacing yourself, he believed, was for wimps. His style was to sprint. From start to finish. Go out fast, take the lead, keep the lead — at any cost. No one had ever run this way. But Steve Prefontaine, painting in time and space, did the impossible, proving that it wasn’t impossible at all. He revolutionized long-distance running. Became a hero, a role model, a legend.