God, I am fighting with my urge to shit talk this movie right now. It’s lovely. It’s fine! It’s cute and Christmasy. Emilia Clarke radiates. Michelle Yeoh was showing her comedy chops before the world noticed her comedy chops. It has a nice message. It’s a romcom without wealth centered, which I always want.

Don’t shit talk the movie, Sara. It’s so nice.

~

Okay, first of all, I have seen Emilia Clarke play three (3) roles where men are fridged for her character development.

On one hand, nice. Way to be. Writers don’t fridge men nearly enough for the sake of a woman’s development.

On the other hand, two of these male characters weren’t played by white actors (Henry Golding here and Jason Momoa on Game of Thrones) and in the third (Me Before You) the hero’s disability is central to the story/identity.

I can’t get excited about misandry when it’s all…weird.

(Are you telling me I shouldn’t *ever* get excited about misandry? *Weird*.)

I think it would balance out if Emilia Clarke fridged four perfectly healthy white guys for her character development. Hey casting directors, agent, whoever needs to make this happen—could she like, fridge Chalamet or something?

~

Henry Golding shows up to look perfect and shiny and handsomely fix all of her problems. He is wisdom, he is grace, he is romantic but sexually nonthreatening. He’s been inside Emilia Clarke for a year and she didn’t have a clue until he appeared to deliver his Christmas message. “What if you DIDN’T drink our heart to death?”

Is it a happily ever after if they’ll be together for as long as this transplant holds out?

~

It’s really cute though! It ticks the boxes I want ticked for a romcom…almost completely.

There is a strong message about hope.

It’s also, critically, mostly about the woman (boys are gross).

Love heals! Love wins!

We have adorable secondary romance, there is suggestion of a better future for our heroine, the family is important.

It’s just.

Okay.

I really don’t want anyone in the relationship to be dead. Okay???

~

Is Ghost a romcom?

Is an ending happy if we know the ghost gets what he wants and the woman moves on happily?

There is a lot to be said in defense of grief as an element of both Christmas movies and romances. In a long life, we should all be so lucky as to lose a great many loves, and grief is an ongoing process that accumulates as the years accrue.

Grief feels very much like love. It’s the hurting side of love—love that is lost and wandering.

Not all horror movies scare us; sometimes they’re just exciting. Not all romcoms have to make everything better; love can be intermingled with sadness, and that is healing for a lot of people.

I can say these things rationally, nodding along with myself as I type.

“Yes, of course, there’s no reason why Henry Golding shouldn’t be dead in this romcom,” I say reasonably.

And yet.

~

I like what I like and what I don’t like is this. At least, not on the first watch. I can imagine why other people might like it, but my grudge for the concept is strong, and I just didn’t enjoy watching it.

Part of the issue for me is probably the issue that attracted Emilia Clarke to the role. She’s got severe chronic health issues. A heroine with complicated medical trauma might be compelling for an actress who has had plenty her own.

For me, it’s more repelling. The song “Last Christmas” goes from being a happy romp to a haunting story literally about organs. I’m sitting around wondering if the movie when the movie is going to dump hospital scenes on me so I feel awful. Maybe I should have watched the movie in my therapist’s office?

~

Oh, but it’s so cute. I don’t think there’s anything *wrong* with it.

I really need my romantic couple to survive, though. Or I need a lot more fantasy/goth type elements to make the dying bit hot instead of sad. I don’t know! This isn’t hot. I just feel sad.

And personal preference isn’t any reason to shit talk a perfectly lovely movie.

Don’t shit talk the nice movie, Sara. Just give it three stars and move on.

Seven years after 10 Things I Hate About You debuted as the best-ever adaptation of Taming of the Shrew, She’s the Man brought us a lovely adaptation of Twelfth Night. It’s not as witty or distinctive as 10 Things, but it’s great on its own merits.

Twelfth Night has always been one of my favorites thanks to silly gender-bending hijinks, but I actually didn’t watch She’s the Man until 2023. I was the right age and demographic in 2006–plus I love(d) Shakespeare adaptations–but in this version, Viola is a soccer player, and I was actively allergic to anything remotely resembling sports. I’m not kidding you, I wore dog collars and forked my tongue at the football players. (I’m so sorry, hometown.)

If I had known very little of this movie involves soccer treated like sports, I would have watched and loved it. In retrospect, I really wish this had been my cross-dressing school movie rewatch, rather than the far crueler Sorority Boys.

The story is what you expect. Viola disguises herself as her brother to prove herself among male soccer players, then falls in love with her male roommate, played by Channing Tatum. Viola becomes a go-between for the guy she likes and the girl he likes, but the girl he likes actually likes Viola, and this is how we have fun you guys. This is gay and we love this.

I’m on the team that says Shakespeare knew what he was doing (wiki). I wouldn’t leap to calling Shakespeare bisexual; modern labels of sexuality don’t apply outside modernity, period. Throughout much of history, passionate sexual/romantic friendships among all genders were common, especially among the liberation of the artistic classes.

Point being, Shakespeare got mischievous, sexy jollies out of the cross-dressing stuff, and the material is one long cheeky wink-wink. Would you ever wonder why I love the Twelfth Night? Everyone needs to know being gay is hilarious.

ANYWAY, since this adaptation is from an era with such a prevailing culture of homophobia and transphobia, it’s miraculous that She’s the Man only spends a *little* time saying “no homo.” The behavior from a guy like Channing Tatum in She’s the Man gives me all kinds of red flags, but he kinda has no choice. His character has to set the 2006-major-media-expectations of boundaries, which means acting like it’s gross that he’s having intimate moments with this hot little twink.

Yeah, Amanda Bines, you killed it as a hot little twink. I understand Bines struggled with gender dysphoria creating this movie and I wanna express full sympathy. That said, in the 2000s, I was murdering people to try to date girls who looked Amanda Bines as a boy. When I say “t-boy energy,” with all the energy and confidence, that’s what I’m talking about.

Half the time, I could almost convince myself I was actually watching a movie about a t-boy just trying to pass in college with his afab body, lying about the orifice tampons pair with, hiding his binder, and putting up with intolerant relatives. I honestly want movies with this exact level of stakes and tone with cute trans kids (but without the slimy aura of “no homo”). You wouldn’t have to change that much for Tatum’s character to realize he’s in love with Bines regardless of gender presentation and be relaxed about it. A lot of us find guys who love the rainbow of gender identity within a single person. 🙂

Bines is a really fun comedian to watch, too. She has a full-body goofiness that looks like a cartoon, and her energy is exactly what the movie needs. Sometimes I get anxious watching fake-identity movies! She’s the Man keeps things funny instead of stressful.

Of course I think the movie would be better with a Viola/Olivia endgame, but I waited until the end of the review to say that, so I deserve a pat on the back.

If there’s any criticism to be had of this entire trilogy, you won’t hear it from me. I’m so attached to this fictional Greek family that I really just say “my cousins” when I’m talking with my actual family about the people in this movie. I love my cousins. As far as I’m concerned, sequels to the original are just like, getting another newsletter about what my Greek cousins are up to. (I am of Irish descent, but probably seeded by Alexander the Great tbh.)

Years after the first movie, Toula’s little girl is in high school and looking at college. Toula’s feeling empty nest vibes real hard. She’s struggling to fill the void in her life by running around and pining for others’ babies, but Ian is looking forward to more time with his smoking-hot wife. The two of them are so hot, I’m rooting for Ian here. Don’t get me wrong: my youngest is nine years old as I write this review and I’ve been dying for babies for *years*. I get Toula *completely*. But Toula and Ian have only gotten hotter since the first movie, and in my soul, I believe they deserve to spend the rest of their lives railing each other without getting cockblocked by children.

Anyway, Toula is mostly hoping her baby will go to college nearby, while Paris (not actually a baby) feels the urge to escape the smothering behemoth of her family. Paris lovingly endures her family really well. Enduring the scrutiny of family who don’t care you’re not their whole entire property is A Lot, and Toula *does* understand. Mostly.

Then scandal unfolds! Toula’s Dad and Mom aren’t legally married! The wedding certificate wasn’t signed, so these adorable elders are ~living in sin~. Yet Mom is reluctant to marry him for realsies, because Dad is a pain in the ass who doesn’t appreciate her. Drama! And also an opportunity for a second big fat Greek wedding, thankfully.

Little new ground is covered here, but it’s done so nicely, I couldn’t care less. The sequel is a series of homages to the first movie, adjusted to fit different characters or different times. Toula’s visual transforms again; Toula and Ian get spicy in the car again; harassment about boys is a problem for Paris now; wedding beats happen again, but transposed over Mom.

We also touch bases with Ian’s parents. I think it’s such an interesting detail: He asks his parents to rely on him more, and they seem sorta confused. Ian wants to be tangled up in *all* his family. As an “Anglo” married into the family, Ian is seldom the focus, but his characterization really grows in moments like these, so he’s also never background.

Predictability is reassuring when you mostly just want to see your cousins have a good time, and they do, so we do too. Love radiates out of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2.” When Toula and Ian go through the ritual of marriage again, I’m beaming with them.

Shout out to Joey Fatone, the best member of NSync, who is also revealed to be my Gay Greek Cousin. We love you Cousin Angelo!

(image credit: Universal Pictures)

Read the comments on a news story any time you see a “hot” older woman having assaulted a young boy. You’ll see loads of people claiming that it’s ridiculous to treat this as a crime. “In my time, this was our fantasy!”

May December has zero patience for this toxic, abusive, nonsense narrative, and spends two hours showing us how absolutely no glossy perception will change the fact this is a way lives are utterly destroyed by child sex abuse.

The actual experience of watching May December is mostly one where you see a monster of a woman become mirrored by another monster of a woman, and it’s done with such high camp – from the soapy piano to the lingering angles and hilarious choices of scene cuts – that it’s easy to get lost in how much of this is just Natalie Portman vs Julianne Moore.

They’re riveting when they go head-to-head, and they provide all the entertainment that brings us back to psychological suspense as a genre. These two give us every ounce of complex-horrible-milf drama that pulls us back again and again to the likes of Gone Girl and Girl on the Train. The long dialogues with a strong focus on slowly unspooling these characters’ glass houses of self-identification is riveting enough to make me giggle-clap.

And then May December gives us Joe.

Joe is in his mid-thirties now, the same age as when he was assaulted, and the children he had with his abuser are all flying away from home. Joe has grown up to be a painfully nurturing soul. He is only allowed to exist in support of Moore’s needs, but he’s found ways to love deeply elsewhere; his protective adoration for his children is as heartwarming as eviscerating, he’s taken a job in medicine, and he nurtures monarch butterfly eggs to adulthood.

We’re given no time to wonder if Joe is okay. He’s not. Moore speaks to him in a clipped, demanding, motherly way, which turns into simpering babygirl talk the instant things aren’t going her way. Joe barely knows how to talk, period, because he’s internalized the fact that he’s not supposed to. He follows Moore’s precise commands from the moment we see him, and that’s before he spends a while crying on the roof because he’s not sure if he’s parenting his son or traumatizing him. Joe has genuinely no idea. He doesn’t know how adults and kids are supposed to interact, but he fights to nurture because Joe wants to protect others from what happened to him.

Julianne Moore’s character was 36 when she began grooming and ultimately assaulted 13-year-old Joe, who was picking up hours at the pet store where she worked. Moore’s character uses a lot of justifications for this: Moore has always been “young” for her age, and Joe has always been “old” for his age as the primary driving factors. This is overwhelmingly a racialized valuation. White women are allowed to be little girls for basically ever, but most others (especially men of color) are burdened with the costs of adulthood immediately.

Bringing in Natalie Portman’s character – an actress who will portray Moore, and is now researching her – isn’t really what starts making everything fall apart, but maybe she makes it happen faster. I’d say it’s not because of what she’s revealing. Everyone in town knows what’s going on, no matter how broadly they smile about it. They carry on the story that everything is great with Moore’s family. They pity her for being so mentally frail at best, and loathe her for being a manipulative psychopath at worst, but everyone is letting the illusion of a happy family persist.

No, everything is already on a trajectory toward disaster before Portman arrives. Joe’s texting a friend about leaving. The kids are leaving too. Moore doesn’t have a real career. Things are fraying. Portman only makes it go faster because she’s on a self-servicing mission of her own. She claims that she’s looking for some massive truth. In fact, she’s looking for an identity to adopt. She begins mimicking Moore so closely, Portman begins drooling over casting photos for the children who might play Joe, and herself becomes a continuation of the abuse against a now-adult man who still hasn’t ever had a relationship on his terms.

Portman is just as insecure in her sense of self as Moore, just as broken. Without an apparent identity of her own, Portman seems like a vampire getting her first drink of blood in months whenever she can slurp up another of Moore’s characteristics. She’s not here to show the skeletons in Moore’s closet. She’s here to build a version of herself that is powerful and will use other people.

The tension surrounding everything builds and builds. It’s obvious things are going to go bad to a nail-biting degree, but where? How? Moore’s character may have a history as an abuse victim. She has a gun. Portman and Melton got close. Moore’s first son is circling. The graduation is coming. The storm is here.

This grand build-up leads where?

Joe’s most mature butterfly ecloses and leaves. His twins graduate high school. He’s relieved he got them to adulthood without the same extent of abuse he suffered – in that they had childhoods at all, period – and we have to cry with him.

And we see Natalie Portman filming her flick. It’s low-budget and tacky. The grandeur collapses into a woman repeating the same seductive line in a baby-lisp to a young model. She put all this work into preparing herself for a flick that ends up with the “hottest” (??!?!?) of young boys as Joe, and she won’t move on from the seduction scene. She wants to keep doing it and redoing it, living in that moment forever of being perfectly powerful, completely powerful, and feeling zero guilt about it.

~

It’s masterful to have us dragged along, enjoying such a soapy, pulpy presentation of characters by two actresses, and then exposed to Melton’s incredibly human performance. May December suggests you might also enjoy the drama these women are enjoying. Is this not fun? But then it points to him and says, “That’s the cost.” It never flinches away from the fact that our tabloid drama comes at the expense of an actual human life. The news stories, the biopics, the miniseries, the movies running for awards, the ravenous hunger artists have to make others’ trauma their gain. At the center of it all is a man whose innocence was stolen and he is not okay about it. And we don’t really get relief on that point. We don’t know he’s going to be okay later. He’s probably not.

This director previously brought us Velvet Goldmine, and I wouldn’t have thought he could create such a masterpiece again, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t pull it off with this one.

(image: Netflix)