November movies oscillate in size. There are big budgets and complex musical numbers alongside small, quiet and contemplative tales. One aspect this month’s new releases have in common: They all feature someone battling something, whether it be the loss of their way of life, their own hormone-addled brain or a fantastical despot.
‘Die My Love’
Jennifer Lawrence stepped away from the limelight for several years, with the brief exception of the 2023 sex comedy “No Hard Feelings,” to focus on her marriage and life as a new mother. It is apt, then, that her return is marked by “Die My Love,” a film about a young woman named Grace who begins to experience postpartum psychosis.
Directed by Lynne Ramsay (“We Need To Talk About Kevin”), the story is also about Grace’s relationship with her husband, Jackson; in that role, Robert Pattinson is “an ideal foil for Lawrence,” said Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times, “wiry and restrained” where Lawrence is “raw and naturalistic.” Lawrence has always been a force on the big screen, but this performance is being hailed as a tour de force. “Submerged in Grace’s overheated, claustrophobic, tedious, maddening reality, we are drowning, just like her,” said Wilkinson. “It is full-body immersion cinema.” (in theaters now)
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‘In Waves and War’
It has often been said that the hardest part of a veteran’s life is the intended return to normalcy — the part when the fighting is over and they find themselves “safely” back at home. But there is also truth to Thomas Wolfe’s famous supposition that “you can’t go home again,” and many soldiers indeed struggle to move forward with their lives post-service.
New Netflix documentary “In Waves and War” follows a group of such veterans, suffering from PTSD and depression, who have sought the help of psychedelics. More specifically, these ex-soldiers travel to a Mexican clinic to take Ibogaine. Derived from a shrub native to Central Africa, the drug is illegal in the U.S., but “to hear the subjects here describe it,” Ibogaine “can work miracles on the battle-scarred, suicidal minds of its users,” said Leslie Felperin at The Guardian. (on Netflix now)
‘Train Dreams’
“Train Dreams” could be the “Best Picture sleeper of the Oscar season,” said Clayton Davis at Variety. Clint Bentley’s adaptation of Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novel of the same name is set in the Pacific Northwest and stars Joel Edgerton as a railroad worker and logger, an eccentric holdout in a dying profession.
Amid the beauty of this dense, lush American landscape — Bentley’s eye for aesthetics has been compared to master filmmaker Terrence Malick — the project “paints a portrait of grief and transformation with meditative precision and visual poetry,” said Davis. “What begins as a modest character study becomes a sweeping reflection on death, memory and the ghosts we carry.” (in select theaters now, Nov. 21 on Netflix)
‘The Running Man’
Director Edgar Wright, best known for helming oddball horror comedies like “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz,” is back with an action thriller based on a dystopian Stephen King novel. A remake of a 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger film of the same name, this one stars Hollywood’s current golden boy, Glen Powell, as a competitor in a reality series wherein contestants must survive 30 days of being hunted by assassins. “The Running Man” is a “lively, satirical stab at modern-day reality TV, scary big-brother technology, cultural dissension and rampant income inequality,” said Brian Truitt at USA Today. The flick is “slathered in blood-soaked ultraviolence and bonkers charm.” (in theaters Nov. 14)
‘Wicked: For Good’
“Wicked,” the first half of a two-part adaptation of the powerhouse Broadway musical, was released this time last year to great acclaim. The follow-up, “Wicked: For Good,” was also directed by Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”).
When the first installment premiered, the country had newly reelected Donald Trump, and “‘Wicked’ felt instantly charged” as a result, said Danny Leigh at Financial Times, as its “revisionist take on ‘The Wizard of Oz’ involves a circus rogue turned truth-twisting despot and it has a large LGBT+ fan base.” The second movie’s release should be no different in its artistic imitation of modern day American life since it “picks up the story of scapegoats persecuted and knowledge undermined,” said Leigh. (in theaters Nov. 21)
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