Movie reviews: ‘The Burial,’ ‘Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe’ and more
THE BURIAL: 4 STARS
“The Burial” is an old-school fist-in-the-air Hollywood crowd-pleaser, now streaming on Amazon Prime, whose winning performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Jamie Foxx and courtroom shenanigans are way more interesting than its downbeat title might suggest.
Based on true events, the movie sees Jones as funeral home owner Jeremiah O’Keefe, proprietor of a legacy Mississippi funeral home and burial insurance business. The once successful enterprise has hit a rough patch, and fearing he’ll have nothing left to pass along to his kids and grandchildren, O’Keefe decides to sell off assets.
One handshake deal to sell off three of his funeral homes to the slick-talking Canadian billionaire Ray Loewen (Bill Camp) of the Loewen Group conglomerate, and O’Keefe thinks his financial problems are a thing of the past.
When the deal goes sour, O’Keefe sues, but instead of trusting the case to his longtime attorney (Alan Ruck), he opts for hotshot personal injury lawyer Willie E. Gary (Foxx). Gary is a flamboyant character, with a private jet (named “Wings of Justice”) and a profile on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.”
He’s wealthy, well-known, and has never lost a case. But there’s always a first time.
The Loewen team, with their high-powered Ivy League attorney Mame Downes (Jurnee Smollett) at the helm, will require more than Gary’s usual courtroom theatrics.
“The Burial” has a definite 90s vibe. It is based on Jonathan Harr’s 1999 New Yorker article, and could sit on the shelf next to “A Time to Kill,” “Primal Fear” or “The Client.” There’s even a satisfying “You can’t handle the truth” style gotcha moment.
Most of all though, it has the Jones and Foxx odd couple.
Jones leaves his crusty old man persona in the bag for this one, instead, busting out a quiet performance, informed by his character’s deeply held faith, general decentness and his determination to leave a legacy for this family.
It is, however, Foxx’s show. In his best role in recent memory, he is larger-than-life, a kind of Baptist preacher in the courtroom, and while it is a blast to watch Foxx in full flight, it is in the quieter moments that Gary really comes to life. He has bluster to burn, but as the son of a sharecropper and the middle child of 11, it is his backstory that deepens the characterization and prevents him from becoming a sharp-tongued lawyer caricature.
“The Burial” takes time to reflect on the details of the 1995 case, like how funeral companies financially took advantage of marginalized communities at a time of grief, but for all its Sydney Lumet-style social commentary, it is the David and Goliath nature of the story that is so appealing.
MR. DRESSUP: THE MAGIC OF MAKE-BELIEVE: 3 ½ STARS
“Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe,” a look at the life and legacy of legendary children’s entertainer Ernie Coombs, now streaming on Amazon Prime, has the same brand of low-key kindness and empathy that made his show, “Mr. Dressup,” appointment viewing for several generations of Canadians.
The beauty of “Mr. Dressup,” which aired 4,000 episodes chock full of songs, skits and crafts between 1967 and 1996, is that it was a simple, heartfelt program. So, it’s appropriate that director Robert McCallum leans into those qualities in this retelling of the life and legacy of the man and the show.
From his start in children’s entertainment as an assistant puppeteer to Fred Rogers in Pittsburgh and the move to Canada to the creation of his legendary CBC show and his decades-long partnership with treehouse legends Casey and Finnegan, the film paints a vivid picture of the era through rarely seen archival footage and talking heads.
A generation or two of Canadians who grew up watching “Mr. Dressup,” including notable names like Eric McCormack, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Bif Naked, Michael J. Fox, Graham Greene, Peter Mansbridge and Andrew Phung chime in on the impact Coombs had on their lives.
More interesting is Judith Lawrence, Coombs’s puppeteer partner for much of the show’s run, who provides valuable insight to the inner workings of the show.
Along the way we learn about the foundations of the CBC that gave birth to “Mr. Dressup” and, much later, the budget cuts that threatened its existence.
But don’t come to “Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe,” looking for dirt. There isn’t any. There are no bodies buried in the Tickle Trunk. It’s Mr. Dressup for goodness sake.
There are, however, heartfelt and tragic moments. The passing of wife Marlene is heartbreaking, not only because of the circumstances surrounding her death, but by the loss felt by a man who had given so many, so much.
“Mr. Dressup: The Magic of Make-Believe” is a feel-good blast of nostalgia, reminiscent of a kinder and gentler time.
HUMANIST VAMPIRE SEEKING CONSENTING SUICIDAL PERSON: 3 ½ STARS
Heartwarming is not usually a word that comes to mind when reviewing vampire movies, but somehow it applies to “Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person,” a new French-Canadian coming-of-age film now playing in theatres.
We are introduced to teenage vampire Sasha (Sarah Montpetit) at her birthday party. At first glance it’s a normal birthday celebration, if maybe a little dour, with presents and a clown. But the clown isn’t hired to entertain. He’s brought in by Sasha’s mother (Sophie Caideux) and father (Steve Laplante) as a special treat, a meal to commemorate the teenager’s vampiric coming of age.
Trouble is, she is too empathetic to kill people. “I’m in a very delicate position,” she says. “where I’m forced to do bad things. The problem is, if I don’t do it, I’ll die.” She can only feed off people she feels a personal connection to. Her fangs won’t even appear unless she is comfortable with her prey.
“I don’t need to kill people,” she tells her horrified parents. “to know I won’t like it.”
When a vampire pediatrician diagnoses her with an unusual degree of compassion, she survives off blood-bags supplied by her father.
Her cousin Denise (Noémie O’Farrell) tries, and fails, to teach her how to find victims in bars. “Pick your favorite,” she says. “I’ll show you how to bleed him.”
Fed up, her parents cut off her blood supply, triggering an existential crisis. Entertaining thoughts of ending it all, she comes across a support group for depressed people, and meets the world-weary Paul (Félix-Antoine Bénard), a downcast teenager with very little hope for the future. Sasha is 68 in chronological, human years, but looks 17, so the two become friends.
When Paul learns Sasha’s secret, he offers to save her life and be her next meal.
“Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” breathes some of the same fetid air as “What We Do In The Shadows,” “Let the Right One In” and “Only Lovers Left Alive” in its creation of a vampire world that intersects with our own. Quebec filmmaker Ariane Louis-Seize builds a world for Sasha to inhabit that feels familiar, like our reality filtered through a Tim Burton lens.
Atmospheric and gothic though it may be, the movie is actually a tender-hearted story that uses the undead to celebrate life.
“Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person” is brought alive, pun intended, by Montpetit and Bénard. The darkness of the premise is lightened by the palatable chemistry between the leads. Their work gives this off-kilter teen rom-com an undeniable sweetness in its exploration of teen life and search for identity.
STELLAR: 3 ½ STARS
“Stellar,” a new film starring Elle-Máija Tailfeathers and Braeden Clarke, now on VOD and streaming on Crave, is about making a connection as a storm—or is it the end of the world?—brews outside.
Set in a Northern Ontario dive bar, the story revolves around two Indigenous strangers, She (Tailfeathers) and He (Clarke), as a storm rages outside. They meet, make a connection, unperturbed by the weather. They get to know one another, trading stories in Ojibwe and English, of lost loves, community and their deepest held feelings, as the bartender (Rossif Sutherland) grows agitated by the unsettling thunder and lightning.
Others come and go, including two Aunties (Billy Merasty and Tina Keeper) who ask if He and She know their way home, metaphorically. Then there’s a windbag professor (R.H. Thomson), in love with the sound of his own voice, who proclaims, “Knowledge is out foundation.”
“Your knowledge. Not required,” He replies.
Outside, the erupting storm is portrayed as another passing apocalypse in the timeline of Indigenous life. He and She are the calm in the face of the storm, resilient with an eye to the future. “I feel like the weather outside,” She says, “changing, challenging.” They are connected to nature, to their heritage, and to one another.
Strong visuals tell “Stellar’s” tale. Anishinaabe director Darlene Naponse blends the lyrical beauty of the love story inside the bar with cut-a-ways of the pollution and waste that mar the world beyond the bar’s walls. Her experimental, figurative treatment of the material creates a powerful, poetic allegory of Indigenous strength amid the storm of life, wrapped in a touching love story.
Mystical and metaphorical, “Stellar” is experimental in its storytelling, but hypnotic in its effect.
