We have to start this piece with the strangest movie of the season and possibly the year. The Testament of Ann Lee is a musical about the founding of the Shaker sect of Christians in 18th-century New York state. Mona Fastvold’s film uses traditional Shaker hymns for its dance numbers and boasts perhaps the performance of Amanda Seyfried’s career as Mother Ann Lee, as Shakers refer to her. Despite some issues, it’s the year’s best Christian film and the greatest Christian musical I’ve ever seen. It’s scheduled for a Christmas release.
We follow this with two very different takes on the story of Hamlet. Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet comes out in Fort Worth this week and gives a devastating look at William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes “Anne” Hathaway coping with the death of their 11-year-old son that leads to the creation of William’s great tragedy. (See our website for my review of the film.)
Then there’s Mamoru Hosoda’s Scarlet, an anime film by the master who did Belle and Mirai in which the melancholy Dane is replaced by a pink-haired heroine who dies trying to avenge her father’s murder by his brother and meets a paramedic from the present day in the afterlife. It’s receiving a qualifying theatrical run elsewhere on Dec 12, but North Texas will probably have to wait until February to see it.
Other awards bait from foreign shores includes La Grazia, another piece from Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino that combines Italian political history with his love for the great cities of his land (in this case, Rome). Brazil sends us The Secret Agent, Kleber Mendonça Filho’s leisurely paced, epic-sized thriller starring Wagner Moura as a research scientist who goes on the run after discovering that a technology company affiliated with the government has sent hit men to kill him. From South Korea comes No Other Choice, a darkly funny movie by Park Chan-wook in which Lee Byung-hun portrays a middle-aged paper executive who loses his job and turns to murder to gain an edge on the other unemployed men in his field.
If you’re looking for lighter fare, there’s no shortage available. Michael Showalter’s family comedy Oh. What. Fun. comes out this week with an unexpectedly stacked cast around Michelle Pfeiffer as a mother whose extended family inadvertently leaves her alone over Christmas. Also this week is 100 Nights of Hero, based on Isabel Greenberg’s graphic novel that offers a queer deconstruction of fairy-tale tropes along with an intriguing Italian Renaissance look. Rounding out this week’s openings is Merrily We Roll Along, a concert film of the 2023 Broadway production that won Tony Awards for Jonathan Groff and Daniel Radcliffe. (I will also have a review of that on our website.)
Next week, James L. Brooks unveils yet another cozy comedy in Ella McCay, with Emma Mackey as a newly elected governor whose estranged father suddenly comes back into her life. Bradley Cooper turns to another corner of show business in Is This Thing On?, which stars Will Arnett as a father going through a divorce who turns to standup comedy as a way of turning his darkest thoughts into laughter.
Josh Safdie’s Marty Supreme boasts a deluxe cast and aims to be the first great table tennis movie, with Timothée Chalamet as an aspiring world champion in the 1950s. The Housemaid is based on Freida McFadden’s franchise-spawning blockbuster novel and stars Seyfried as a rich woman who may be trying to entrap her new live-in maid (Sydney Sweeney), and Paul Feig’s presence as director is an encouraging sign. Song Sung Blue stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as a husband-and-wife Neil Diamond cover band who go through decades of triumph and tragedy. Maybe most intriguing is Anaconda, in which Jack Black and Paul Rudd portray two random guys who want to remake the legendarily bad 1997 film by the same name. Oh, and the third Avatar movie is out on Christmas, though if you’re reading me, I’m not sure why you’d be interested. Whatever your taste may be, that’s what you can expect at the movie theater as 2025 winds to its end.
