Happy Friday! Welcome back to Smash Cut, the world’s most consistently inconsistent movie newsletter. Today’s recommendation is for one of my favorite movies of the year that might feel a little too relatable as the holiday season approaches.
Plus, reviews for Spencer and Eternals. Have a beautiful weekend and stream Red (Taylor’s Version). Love, Karl.
Today’s movie: Shiva Baby 🥯
Danielle (Rachel Sennott), a college student and seemingly never-good-enough daughter, attends a family shiva where her relatives constantly accost her with questions about her life, her ex-girlfriend looms large, and, oh yeah, her sugar daddy is there with his family. It turns out just as well as you think. Here's the trailer.
Why you should watch it: There’s a new trend of family dramas presented as horror movies, which just shows the current millennial mental state when it comes to our families. Shiva Baby takes the same approach. The camera lurks around corners and Ariel Marx’s terrific score amplifies the dread-filled mood with discordant strings.
But director Emma Seligman doesn’t go full-tilt horror. She toes a precarious line between comedy, drama, horror, and tragedy. Let’s be honest. We all know what it feels like to come home for a family gathering. Shiva Baby captures that feeling with a witty sense of humor that will make you laugh through your trauma. 78 mins.
🍷 Pair it with:
The Farewell | After finding out her grandmother — who she affectionately calls Nai Nai (Zhao Shuzhen) is terminally ill, Chinese-American writer Billie (Awkwafina) travels back home to China to say goodbye. Instead, though, her family hides the diagnosis from Nai Nai and creates an elaborate fake wedding to keep it from her. Streaming on Prime Video.
The Daytrippers | Eliza (Hope Davis), suspecting her husband Louis (Stanley Tucci) is having an affair, decides to go to follow him to work in New York City and confront him. Her family, including her parents Jim (Pat McNamara) and Rita (Anne Meara), her sister Jo (Parker Posey), and Jo's live-in boyfriend Carl (Liev Schreiber), go along for the ride in the family station wagon from Long Island. Streaming on HBO Max and The Criterion Channel.
Eternals 🪐
Fresh off of her Oscar-winning indie drama Nomadland, director Chloé Zhao returns to become the first woman of color to direct a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. And she is the perfect match for the material. As the MCU moves into phase four there is a sense of fatigue with the franchise’s house style. Shang Chi, for all its delights, feels like a classic example of a superhero origin story. Eternals, on the other hand, is the antithesis.
Beneath the earth-saving antics of this group of ageless celestial beings is a philosophical and existential quandary about religion, mortality, and beliefs. The epic near three-hour runtime is packed with thrilling discussion and debate about the very fabric of our existence. Zhao, unsurprisingly, is so adept at making those discussions as interesting as the action sequences that are relatively sparse throughout the movie compared to other MCU offerings. Though they’re never-the-less exciting.
And while the exposition-heavy story is a lot to take in, the pure audacity for a superhero movie as challenging as this to exist is reason enough to admire it. Though each character only gets a slice of screentime it’s almost impossible not to care about each individually and as a group. The relationship dynamics are almost as center stage as the actual plot. Eternals is a deeply flawed movie sure. But I’d take something flawed and interesting over something safe. Zháo proves no one is doing it like her.
Eternals is in theaters now.
Spencer 🏰
Among the first shots of Spencer is of the basement kitchen of the Sandringham House, where the Royal Family spends the holidays. A sign plastered above the staff boldly reads, “keep noise to a minimum, they can hear you.” And as the film marches on it becomes clear what that sign is a focal point. The “they” does feel like a specter that is haunting Diana, Princess of Wales (Kristen Stewart). In that way, Spencer is a haunted house movie.
Chilean director Pablo Larraín, who follows up his *ahem* masterpiece Jackie, hones in on a very specific moment in Diana’s journey with the Royal Family. One where she’s already made her decision causing the walls to close in. We’re planted firmly in Diana’s point of view making for a surreal experience (and one that communicates the feelings of anxiety and depression in a way that almost hits too close).
I’m not completely educated in the story of Diana and the Royal Family and Spencer isn’t meant to educate me. But as an atmospheric piece and meditation on her very particular situation, as well as mental health more broadly, Spencer hits all the right notes. Even during the ending, which gives Diana some of her power back in a cheesier way than the rest of the film is presented, it feels right.
Spencer is in theaters now.
📽 P.S. You can see every movie I’ve ever recommended right here.
🍅 I’m also a Tomatometer-approved critic on Rotten Tomatoes! You can find new movie reviews here and here.