Film reviews: F1: The Movie, 28 Years Later, and Familiar Touch

F1: The Movie

Directed by Joseph Kosinski (PG-13)

★★★

"For flash and rumble, F1 doesn't have an equal this summer," said Jordan Hoffman in Entertainment Weekly. Sure, "the characters are rote," the dialogue "wooden," and the narrative "extremely predictable." But when Brad Pitt and the rest of the crew hit the pavement in this Formula 1 drama, "there are things happening with cameras—clearly not relying on CGI—that feel like miracles." So while F1 "aims to be a thrill-a-minute adventure," the reality is that "it's more of a thrill-every-other-minute." Playing Sonny Hayes, a talented, iconoclastic driver who never fulfilled his early promise, Pitt delivers "a bona fide A-list turn," said Nick Schager in The Daily Beast. But after Sonny is tapped to join a floundering F1 outfit that desperately needs a win to keep from going belly-up, every story beat feels obvious.

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Top Gun: Maverick director Joseph Kosinski seems so preoccupied with making viewers feel they're eating up turns at 180 mph that "he neglects to spend adequate attention on his characters and their plights, all of which have been assembled with spare parts from past cinematic models." But "there's a sturdy formula at work" in this "hugely entertaining" sports drama, said Stephanie Zacharek in Time. The film's ability to get us to buy into the familiar story of a weary dreamer getting one last chance "all boils down to the actor, and how good he is at vibing with universal aging-guy feelings." At 61, Pitt "has finally aged into roles like these. And sometimes, as F1 proves, they're the best thing that can happen to a guy." He "isn't getting older; he's getting better."

28 Years Later

Directed by Danny Boyle (R)

★★★

"For a film with zombie heads punctured by pointy sticks and gas stations exploding," 28 Years Later "is remarkably mature and pensive," said William Bibbiani in The Wrap. Director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland return for a third time to the franchise they started with 28 Days Later (2002). This installment is a "classical coming-of-age tale" about Spike (Alfie Williams), a 12-year-old from a protected island in plague-riven Britain. While Boyle plans two further films for a total of five, this middle one "stands on its own" and "it stands tall."

It may lack the "relentless pace of the first two films," said Ty Burr in The Washington Post, but it's not slow. The feel is "finely wrought mourning punctuated by bursts of adrenaline." Spike's mother (Jodie Comer) is sick, and the two venture onto the mainland, dodging new strains of zombies to find a doctor (Ralph Fiennes). Years is almost worth seeing for Fiennes' performance alone. "Radiating intelligent lunacy," his character is "apologetic about the tower of skulls in his backyard." The film's rather "dull central plot" is redeemed by such "quirky side characters," said Amy Nicholson in the Los Angeles Times, and by its disturbing underlying message: that "our own kinder, gentler idealism" is the outlier in humanity's evolution, that "the things that make us feel safe—love, loyalty, civility—are also our weaknesses. 28 Years Later dares us to devolve."

Familiar Touch

Directed by Sarah Friedland (Not rated)

★★★★

"Movies about dementia tend to present it like something out of a horror movie," said Alison Willmore in NYMag.com. "But Familiar Touch is something more generous—an account of dementia not as an end but as a period of transition." An "astounding" Kathleen Chalfant plays Ruth, an 80-something former cook who is moved into an assisted living facility by her son, whom she mistakes for a suitor. Sarah Friedland's feature debut can be sad, "but it's also salty and boundlessly tender—a decisive statement that Ruth's life is not over, even if she can no longer keep living it the way she did before." Chalfant, best known for her acclaimed stage work, delivers a performance "that feels at once utterly authentic and like the product of long experience," said Zachary Barnes in The Wall Street Journal. In short, "a master class."

As she adjusts to her new life, sometimes playfully, sometimes painfully, the film avoids sentimentalizing "what it can instead simply and honestly depict." But while Ruth tries to treat her new situation as an adventure, this "quietly wrenching" film is, "unambiguously, a portrait of decline," said Justin Chang in The New Yorker. At the same time, "Familiar Touch illuminates its protagonist's condition with uncommon concision and grace, and with few of the narrative strategies we've come to expect." Devastating as it is to watch Ruth slip away, Chalfant's performance remains "furiously alive."