This is a good movie!

Rating: 8/10 (18 May 2018)

Every scene gives you new information, and every scene -- uniquely, barring Richard Linklater's own "Bernie" or Todd Solondz's recent triumph "Weiner-Dog" -- takes the trouble to put the people in places they could *afford*. What's so astonishing about this "bring it down to Earth" tactic is, you end up being more absorbed *and* awed by seeing it on the big screen (or, even, the little one -- in a way that's "cinematically encoded"). This picture goes to show, whatever it is to making movies, you can't just *do* it, and to have someone like Richard Linklater at the helm, who knows when to pull back or drop in, well, you find yourself responding to normally-corny "movie" tropes like shot-montages or establishing glimpses of places with a renewed sense of wonder. Terrific performances all around -- directors sometimes forget you have to give actors something to *do* (or is it screenwriters? producers?) and this is true all around the case: like they keep bringing out the best in each other. (Why hasn't someone cast Laurence Fishburne as a preacher? His oratory style alone is worth the price of admission!) Hard choices, never preachy, the movie lets the characters talk and is wary of soapboxing so you don't get thrown out of the film. And the director finds the perfect -- or, at least, perfectly *apt* -- place to end it. (This is the guy who made "Before Sunset," after all!)