Enjoying and Producing Music

In the darkly comedic, richly detailed world of The Double, the industrial revolution has apparently gone a bit off the rails and left office workers with a clunky, comically malfunctioning work-scape, with a deranged bureaucracy to match. Also slightly broken are the grim people who inhabit this bleak place, in particular a pair of damaged characters who share more than just the same face, played skillfully by Jesse Eisenberg. All these vividly drawn elements come together with heavy handed but dazzling style, which will remind viewers of Terry Gilliam’s duct-infested “Brazil”. The masterful lighting, art direction, and cinematography combine to create a gleefully depressing world that makes the unlikely narrative seem plausible. B

Romantic comedy Laggies manages to entertain sweetly while delivering a lesson about growing up, and does so even without a lot of romance or an abundance of comedy. Lead Keira Knightley excels with cheerful frustration as a woman-child, well into her twenties, struggling with the looming responsibilities of adulthood. She escapes her real life for a bit by joining the simpler social circle of some actual high-school kids, and of course it’s in that place where she gains the insights that allow her to start making the hard decisions her real life demands. On this journey she is surrounded by a talented cast, including a charmingly brusque Sam Rockwell. A

A Most Wanted Man is a slow-paced but well-crafted and very well-acted spy story, not quite a thriller. In examining the tactics of several agencies involved in tracking Islamic terrorists in Germany, the film makes the case that there are good guys and bad guys getting hunted and also good guys and bad guys doing the hunting. It’s refreshing to see a realistic portrayal of flawed people doing their jobs, without super powers or kung fu or any fu. The film succeeds in building tension, to a point, but it’s ultimately dissipated in what felt like an unsatisfactory manner. B-

Set in a barren future where water has become so scarce that people fight and die over it like gold in the old west, Young Ones focuses on one family’s struggle to survive the bad luck they experience and bad guys they attract. The film benefits from some well-executed futuristic robot technology, a realistically stark setting, and strong acting, but falls short, with a narrative that seemed to lay the foundation for a for a dramatic payoff that never came. C+

Reminiscent of “Once” from Sundance 2006, Song One is a simple film that revolves around young people who produce and enjoy music. With only minimal dramatic tension, the story has Anne Hathaway’s character befriend a famous singer-songwriter, and serves as a framework for some nicely crafted original songs written by Jonathan Rice and Jenny Lewis, soulfully interpreted by actor-musician Johnny Flynn. B

The skillfully twisted director of last year’s Sundance blood-fest “We Are What We Are” is back with a stylish and more accessible thriller, Cold in July.. With considerable skill, Michael C. Hall plays an ordinary family man thrust into extraordinary circumstances when a guy breaks into his house. That’s just the start of a wild story with a few nicely jarring twists and some horrific fun. And just like he did with “Tin Cup”, a grinny Don Johnson shows up well into the film and bumps the energy up a notch.

In the Q/A after the screening, Hall said he enjoyed playing a character who, in contrast to Dexter, killed somebody but didn’t enjoy it. B