Freaky gorily earns its R rating, but while those kills and scares are satisfying, the more interesting parts of the movie lie in its less grisly moments, when high school student Millie is forced to move through the world in the form of a hulking Vince Vaughn.
The film’s easily pitched idea- Freaky Friday if a teenage girl swapped bodies with a serial killer instead of her mom-is fleshed out with antic wit and, shock of shocks, some actual humanity. I laughed I sighed I considered booking a cruise for when this is all over.Ī horror-comedy that feels like the first true successor to Scream, Christopher Landon’s film (he co-wrote it with Michael Kennedy) is playful and meta without becoming smug, responsive to its era without resorting to pedantic reference drops. The film conjures up an arresting, enveloping mood, pondering art and mortality with a rueful chuckle. Let Them All Talk is often a gas-fabulous grande dames of the acting world sniping at each other in luxe surroundings-but it lets a sorrow slowly seep in. There’s also Lucas Hedges (having a much better boat trip with older ladies than he will in the upcoming French Exit) and a never-better Gemma Chan, who turns her scheming book agent role into something of palpable texture and dimension. Streep is tart and understated as the novelist, while Wiest and Bergen adeptly tease out the bitterness and pride of her two left-behind, far less successful friends. It’s been a while since all three of these actors have had a chance to tuck into something as fun and wordy and sneakily deep as Deborah Eisenberg’s alternately crackling and melancholy script, about a famous author (Streep) reuniting with two old friends to settle ancient feuds and recapture some sense of past closeness.
Director Steven Soderbergh really did take his cast on a cruise across the Atlantic, back when such things were possible, and you can feel the actors thrill to the reality of their circumstances. In a year without travel, and in which social circles have been severely shrunk, it was quite a joy to board a boat with Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest, and Candice Bergen and get to chatting. This relative old-timer did-even if I’m still shaking my head at that terrible, terrible title. Maybe they can watch Shithouse and find something to relate to while in their seeming stasis. Shithouse was rendered all the more poignant by the fact that this year, that kind of personal development was put on hold for so many kids around the world. The strength of Shithouse is in its specificity, the way Raiff and Gelula naturally play very real-seeming kids, ones who will probably be okay if they can just get past these growing pains.
He befriends his RA, Maggie ( Dylan Gelula), as they bond over shared experiences and ideas both quotidian and profound. But as can happen at college, one night changes everything.
Raiff plays a college freshman lost in his loneliness he’s homesick and can’t figure out how to engage with the people he’s been suddenly plopped into an existence alongside. Director, writer, and star Cooper Raiff’s college-set slice of life is an auspicious debut, a small and talky pleasure that illustrates the timid confusion of adolescence-or one small part of it-in sensitive, thoughtful terms.
My hope is that people will still find the film despite the muted fanfare. This little movie was set to debut at SXSW and probably would have made quite a splash there, had COVID’s own brand of cancel culture not come calling.