Movies

What to call this fiercely original movie? A Facebook thriller? A Google noir? Uniquely, the missing-girl mystery at its heart plays out almost entirely on computer screens, using social media apps and chatrooms in the same way Raymond Chandler used dive bars and dark alleys. The footprints being followed here are the digital kind, and they’re all the scarier for that. You’ll walk away with a new awareness of just how exposed we are to malign forces online. If you’re a parent, it may feel like a horror movie. The missing girl is L.A. high-schooler Margot Kim (Michelle La), a 15-year-old budding musician who seems like any other well-adjusted, plugged-in teen. But in a touching, Up–like opening montage of family photos and videos, we toggle through her childhood years and discover a sorrow that lingers like a shadow over her life and the film. When Margot vanishes without trace, her dad, David (John Cho, terrific), turns to her search history for clues as to her whereabouts. He quickly finds out that things are not what they’ve seemed. Not even close. From here, debut director Aneesh Chaganty shifts through the gears, dropping in the odd tension-breaker (look out for a killer Justin Bieber gag) and enough visual trickery to keep his extremely limited conceit cinematic. Strip away Searching’s tech trappings, though, and you’ll find the same propulsive joys that fueled classic ’90s thrillers like The Fugitive and The Game: red herrings, a tireless detective (played here by Deb

If you’ve been pining for the return of the fiery, political Spike Lee of Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X, good news: BlacKkKlansman is the director working at his electrifying best. Maybe the optimism of the Obama era robbed him of some of that righteous fury (which would be one explanation for his limp Oldboy remake), or maybe middle age mellowed him; either way, Trump’s America—Charlottesville, Black Lives Matter and everything else—has brought the old mojo flooding back. Veering from a blaxploitation spoof to an undercover thriller and ending with a no-punches-pulled real-life coda, BlacKkKlansman is riotously fun one minute, savagely biting the next. The story, as the opening credits declare, is based on some “fo’ real, fo’ real sh*t”—the kind that’s hard to believe actually happened in early ’70s Colorado, yet it’s all true. Black police officer Ron Stallworth (John David Washington, son of Denzel) joins the local force, where he’s warned that he’ll have to “take a lot of guff.” Sure enough, the guff comes thick and fast as he’s exiled to the storage room and harassed by a racist colleague. Spotting an ad for the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan and taking the initiative, Ron phones the “Organization” (as they vaguely describe themselves), clears his throat and claims to be a vitriolic white supremacist, thus setting in motion the most unlikely undercover operation in law-enforcement history. His first thrill of contact with the enemy is only slightly diminished by

Glenn Close is the power behind the throne in this absorbing study of a complex marriage. She’s Joan, the wife of a feted novelist, Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce), who’s soon to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Together with their sulky son David (Max Irons), the American couple fly to Stockholm for a whirlwind of press, functions and rehearsals—but the most telling moments happen when they're alone together in their hotel room. While Meg Wolitzer’s source novel is written in Joan’s voice, The Wife resists narration and allows Joan to internalize her feelings, ranging from affection, concern and duty to bitterness and rage. It’s a smart move: Close’s piercing eyes dart around with telling expressions while Joe blusters on obliviously, enjoying the attention of sycophants. Not much, though, gets past Nathaniel (Christian Slater), a writer planning a biography on Joe. He shadows the couple and waits for his moment to pounce. Slater gives what could have been a stereotypical role plenty of spark, and his scenes with Close are riveting. The Wife is also very funny, not least when the Castlemans are woken by a group of traditional singers belting out "Santa Lucia" around their bed. Less successful are the flashbacks to the couple’s past in the late 50s. The younger Joe (Harry Lloyd) doesn’t seem nearly charismatic enough to sweep Joan (Annie Starke) off her feet. That said, these scenes play an important part in a story with a satisfying sting in its tail, one that mak

Kayla is exactly the wrong girl to be posting YouTube videos about "confidence" or "being yourself," but you'll absolutely love her for trying. As played in the sweetly sympathetic Eighth Grade by then-13-year-old Elsie Fisher (hatching a guileless, emotionally exposed performance that could be underrated due to the film's documentary-like rawness), Kayla is a heartbreaking flow of awkward ums, likes and circular brain farts. She turns the act of speech into an alien process. As the lens widens out, Kayla's shyness comes into sharper view: the post-it notes dotting her mirror reminding her to practice small talk and jokes, and Fisher's own inchoate physicality—a pimply, round face that contains hints of the pre-flame-out Lindsay Lohan. Writer-director Bo Burnham's debut feature tracks Kayla during her final week of middle school, a transitional moment fraught with anxiety. If his episodic building blocks are a touch familiar, Burnham can't be beat for mouth-breathing naturalism, steering Eighth Grade into the squirmy company of Kids, Catherine Breillat's Fat Girl and Welcome to the Dollhouse (all of them tougher movies, but about real teens, as is this). A birthday pool party becomes Kayla's slow-motion nightmare, as she's surrounded by soda-swigging peers who are nonetheless further down the road of maturity. Caught in the act of practicing blow jobs on a banana by her single dad (Josh Hamilton, who nails a tricky climactic monologue), she flings the fruit at his chest, whi