The New Yorker Radio Hour - Pick 3: Justin Chang’s Downer Movies for the Holiday Season

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

If “Wicked, Part I” and “Gladiator II” are not getting you into the theatre this weekend, Justin Chang, The New Yorker’s film critic, offers three other films coming out this holiday season which are “among the most thrilling that I've seen this year.” He recommends “Nickel Boys,” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead and directed by RaMell Ross; “The Brutalist,” starring Adrian Brody; and “Hard Truths,” directed by Mike Leigh. These are heavy subjects—not traditional holiday fare—but “I returned to the words of Roger Ebert,” Chang tells David Remnick. “No good movie is depressing. All bad movies are depressing.”  New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The two movies facing off for the big holiday weekend at the box office are Wicked Part 1 and Gladiator 2. The New Yorker's critic Justin Chang reviewed both of them the other day, and his review is a terrific read, but I wanted to hear from Justin what else I should be excited about in the crop of movies that comes out to the end of the year. During this time of year, people want a kind of prototypical holiday movies. Something that will make them feel good. And I'm always sorry to disappoint people every year, but my favorites are probably best described as downers. These are not upbeat movies.

No elf? The one. Santa here? I know him. Oh, I love elf. I love elf. It's a staple. I am taking my eight-year-old to Moana, too.

So I am hopeful about that one. Well, since my kids are. They're now too old for that, and I'm waiting impatiently, impatiently for grandchildren. I'll have to, I'm going to sit that one out. But meanwhile, you've got three picks for us this season that you think will, in somewhere another, make us happy. Yeah, it's funny. I return to the words of Roger Eber, who once said, no good movie is depressing.

All bad movies are depressing. And so these are not happy movies, but they are among the most thrilling that I've seen this year. and I recommend them in a theater wholeheartedly. The first movie is Nickel Boys, which is an adaptation of the 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Coulson Whitehead. This is the story of two young black men, played by Ethan Horacee and Brandon Wilson,

in 1960s, Florida, who are sent to a reform school, which is putting it very charitably. And I can't say this better, of course, than Colson Whitehead himself, who has this to say about the place and its real-life inspiration. Immediately, you know, three years into its being open,

there were kids as young as six being shackled, put in solitary confinement. Every 15 years, it'd be an expose and talk of reform, and nothing happened until it finally closed in 2011. And I was shocked when it hit the national media. They found unmarked graves. They dug up the bodies and found kids with shotgun pellets in their,

skeletons, blunt-forced trauma to their skulls. And I felt that if there's one place like this, how many other stories are we not hearing about? So this is obviously incredibly fraught, painfully difficult material that was inspired by a real place and by real stories. I want to say, too, that what makes the movie extraordinary is the way that the director, Rommel Ross,

uses the camera. And he and his cinematographer, Joe Mouffrey, they basically adopt a first-person point-of-view approach, meaning that at any given point in the story, you're seeing this story through the eyes of one of the two lead characters. And it's a risky choice, and there's a reason why most narrative films

are not shot this way. And it comes off. Although it's not unprecedented at it. Yeah, but it comes off. It touches chords of feeling that I think a more conventional telling wouldn't have achieved. And I should also mention that

this movie features a really, really, really great performance from Angenu Ellis Taylor, who has, I think, been doing really terrific work all her career, but especially recently and especially in film, like she was in origin last year. She has another movie in which she's very strong in this season called Exhibiting Forgiveness. And in Nickel Boys, she plays the grandmother of one of the boys who is sent to this reform school. and it's a beautiful performance, and it lifts you,

even as you are watching this extremely, extremely painful story. I'm really glad to hear that. I'm on team Colston Whitehead. As much as I admired Underground Railroad as a novel, I wasn't completely sold on the film version. To hear that Nickel Boys works and more, that's really uplifting. What's your second choice?

My second choice is The Brutalist, and this is the third feature directed by the actor-turned filmmaker Brady Corbe. It stars Adrian Brody in probably the greatest role in performance he's had since he won an Oscar for The Pianist. And more than 20 years ago. Yeah. And in this film, he is again playing a Holocaust survivor, this time a man of Hungarian Jewish descent, who before the War was a very accomplished, brutalist architect. And the movie is all about how he comes to America and encounters in Pennsylvania, a wealthy benefactor played by an absolutely terrific Guy Pearce.

It's this hugely ambitious, big swing of a movie from a 36-year-old director who is like aiming for the rafters like a young Orson Wells or Paul Thomas Anderson making this really big movie about capitalism, about immigration. about Jewish assimilation and eventually the exploitation of Jewish genius and labor in post-war America. And so there are a lot of really big

themes swirling around this movie. It handles them very assuredly. I should also note, David, for everyone, this movie is three and a half hours long, including a 15-minute intermission, but I hasten to add, it flies by, it's incredibly absorbing, don't be put off by the running time,

go and see it on the big screen, in 70 millimeter if you can, because it's going to be showing in that format. I have no problem with those links. I really don't when they're good. I just spent a Saturday watching straight through Patrick Radden-Keeves say nothing. I think it was nine episodes, so there must have been seven hours of film, and I was one happy boy. And what's your third and final choice? Because you've got me twice into the theaters already.

My third movie is called Hard Truths. And this is the latest picture from the English filmmaker, Mike Lee. of movies like Topsy Turvey and Vera Drake. And Mike Lee, it's worth noting he's a very particular style. He works very closely with his actors in a very rigorous and somewhat mysterious workshop process. And from this process emerges a very tightly structured script and some of the best performances you'll ever see in the English language, frankly. And Hard Truths features, I think, the performance of the year from Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who worked with Lee before in Secrets and Lies, received an office.

Oscar nomination for that movie. And here, almost 30 years later, she's back and playing a completely different character, a profoundly, profoundly unhappy person who just spends the movie sort of lashing out at everyone's site, which doesn't sound like a fun way to spend your movie. I think that's Michael Lee's Wheelhouse. It is Michael Lee's Wheelhouse. I mean, this is his great subject. He really taps into anger, and I think his great theme, or one of them, is the uneven

distribution of happiness, and why are some people happy, and why are some people just not And it sounds like a very simple thing. And from this, though, he gets so much complexity. And this is a character played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste, who you would not want to be in the same room with her, but you absolutely want to see her on the big screen. And her over there with that fat baby, parading it around in the little outfit,

not dressed for the weather, no, with pockets. What's the baby got pockets for? Was it going to keep in its pocket? I was riveted. And it's a very funny, a painfully funny performance at times. And I think people are almost scared to admit that this is actually a very entertaining

but also very forceful and devastating and angry movie. And I know, not an orthodox recommendation. Not at all, but if you want to break in between some of these tougher movies, there's always elf. It's always off. So your three picks, nickel boys, hard truths,

the brutalist. Yes. Justin, thanks so much. Thank you so much, David. You can read Justin Chang on the movies at New Yorker.com. I'm David Remnick, and that's our program for today. Hope you had a great holiday.

See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garbus of Tune Yards, with additional music by Louis Mitchell and Jared Paul. This episode was produced by Max Balton, Adam Howard, David Krasnow, Jeffrey Masters, Louis Mitchell, Jared Paul, and Ursula Summer. And we had additional help. this week for Mike Cutchman.

With guidance from Emily Boutin and assistance from Michael May, David Gable, Alex Barge, Victor Gwan, and Alejandra Deccett. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.