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EO
*** While Jenny the donkey stole hearts in The Banshees of Inisherin, EO the donkey puts hearts in a blender, minds in an eco-philosophy class and perspectives in a kaleidoscope. Admittedly, that ambition depends somewhat on how much the audience decides to project onto this sweet-faced beast in Jerzy Skolimowski’s latest film. The 84-year-old Polish director (Deep End, The Shout) follows EO’s wordless odyssey from circus performer to sanctuary creature to escaped servant, nestling between Todd Solondz’s irreverently fabulist Wiener-Dog (2016) and the POV-warping environmental critique of Leviathan (2012). We spend a little time in EO’s line of sight as he trots across Central Europe, but more often, we’re inches from his eyeball, confronted with the black orb’s emotional complexity. While the human vignettes blipping around EO range from vague to preposterously heightened, the donkey himself is affecting throughout. You’d have to be made from stone not to care, though that’s precisely the deep uneasiness Skolimowski probes. The paradox of a post-food chain human experience is, we can invest in a so-called beast of burden as much as we would a beloved dog or even child, or we can utterly tune out a donkey capable of movie stardom. And what is he if no one cares to look? NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21, Laurelhurst, Hollywood.
M3GAN
*** In a genre defined by repetition, novelty goes a long way— and you’ve never met a monster like M3gan. Writers James Wan and Akela Cooper, who previously teamed up on recent cult classic Malignant, return to showcase their mastery of campy horror. Taking the already terrifying concept of iPad babies and adding machine learning to the mix, M3gan promises to be the only toy your child could ever want or need. However, as her algorithm progresses, M3gan quickly turns on her inventor, Gemma (Allison Williams), who created the toy for her niece Cady (Violet McGraw) to help her cope with the death of her parents. Albert Einstein said it best: “Technological progress is like an ax in the hand of a pathological criminal.” Directed by Gerard Johnstone, M3gan explores this very idea, questioning the impact of technological children’s toys and their place in the budding world of artificial intelligence. It’s an Orwellian sci-fi horror film with a stellar 21st century monster, but ultimately the story falls short of its central scare’s genius. The plot seems to progress only for the sake of seeing what M3gan could do next, rather than developing the story’s other central characters. It’s exhibitionist horror for horror’s sake, but worth the watch for anyone who has loved previous films from Wan and producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, The Purge). PG-13. ALEX BARR. Academy, Cedar Hills, City Center, Clackamas, Evergreen Parkway, Lake Theater, Laurelhurst, Living Room, Lloyd Center, Oak Grove, Pioneer Place, St. Johns Twin, Studio One, Tigard.
WOMEN TALKING
*** After suffering ongoing rape and gaslighting, eight Mennonite women hold a hayloft summit to debate leaving their colony. Quickly in Sarah Polley’s adaptation of Miriam Toews’ novel, the convention’s purview widens to defining community culpability and true forgiveness. The dialogue, loosely inspired by true events, is brought to life by an elite ensemble featuring Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey and (very briefly) Frances McDormand, but it’s Rooney Mara’s performance that leaps out. Carrying the child of her unknown assailant, Mara’s Ona gently and smilingly subverts the urgent proceedings, savoring the opportunity to publicly explore the group’s intellect. The second-most memorable character is August (Ben Whishaw)—the meeting’s stenographer and lone male witness—upon whom Women Talking glaringly relies as an emotional sounding board. Meanwhile, the film struggles to similarly differentiate crucial characters played by Foy and Buckley beyond a speech or two, but Polley has sharpened her movie into a sharp, conceptualized civic tool (à la 12 Angry Men or To Kill a Mockingbird). Despite the off-screen sexual violence, the PG-13 film feels purposely and hopefully tailored toward young minds and what they might build (or rebuild) using the power of testimony, art, bodily autonomy, statecraft and freedom. PG-13. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinema 21.
SKINAMARINK
** Imagine expanding Poltergeist’s iconic child-meets-television shot into an entire film and you’ll be able to picture Skinamarink, a micro-budget horror film that prefers dream logic to dream haunting. One night in 1995, two small children awaken to a missing father and an empty house. What ensues is achingly slow, flickering theater of the mind, as a supernatural presence creeps ever closer to making itself known. Skinamarink is not strictly a found-footage film, but it plays with the aesthetics of forced-perspective camcorder movies like V/H/S, only to fall into languorous Lynchian rhythms. The film is short on everything (except maybe time: It runs 100 minutes), and its aura of dread lies in its most strangest images—obscured little socks on carpet, a Lego project mysteriously upended, a shape in the wallpaper that starts to appear demonic as the shot holds. Granted, some of this minimalism and mood flexing obscures Skinamarink itself—there’s little activity, paranormal or otherwise. Craft, taste and ambience are rare qualities in an indie haunting, but when you channel something as elemental as a child posing questions to shadows, you have to do more than hover and conceal. NR. CHANCE SOLEM-PFEIFER. Cinemagic, Fox Tower, Hollywood.
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