Story Ave Is The Best Movie You Didn't Get Around To Watching This Month
(Welcome to Under the Radar, a column where we spotlight specific movies, shows, trends, performances, or scenes that caught our eye and deserved more attention ... but otherwise flew under the radar. In this edition: Aristotle Torres' feature debut "Story Ave" instantly makes him a name worth knowing, John Carney's "Sing Street" follow-up brings another dose of emotion and charm in "Flora and Son," and Brian Duffield offers up a houseful of scares in Hulu's "No One Will Save You.")
Kids these days have it pretty rough. It's easy for those of a certain age to look down on the issues faced by the younger generation and dismiss them entirely, but that only makes it even more important for the rest of us to take a cue from Roger Ebert and his empathy machine approach to watching movies. When Gen Z expresses interest in film, we criticize the medium (TikTok, typically) that they tend to rely on for insights and information. When they reveal their ignorance of cinema history online, we shout them down for having the gall to somehow not come into this world knowing Filmmaking 101. And when a certain segment of "puri-teens" go on one of those crusades against sex scenes in art ... well, okay, this one they're still dead wrong about, but maybe we can be a little less mean-spirited in steering them straight.
They're kids, after all! That's the running theme that manifested in this month's batch of under-the-radar offerings. "Story Ave" documents the painful circumstances of a young Bronx native using his artistic gifts for all the wrong causes. "Flora and Son" focuses on a troubled child and his equally troubled single mom. And "No One Will Save You" uses an alien invasion to reckon with childhood trauma.
Story Ave
All we need every now and then is just one person who's kind and open-hearted enough to give us a break. Kadir (Asante Blackk, a force of nature in this role) might be only on the cusp of his 18th birthday, but the universe hasn't seen fit to give him many real options in life. A prodigy with paint and a spray can, the Bronx teen should be flying high on a track destined for art school, but instead he and best bud Maurice (Alex R. Hibbert, of "Moonlight" fame) spend their nights tagging street corners with the symbol of the street gang they aspire to join. Reeling from grief and suffocating from an untenable family situation (as suggested by the film's narrow aspect ratio), the young man everyone refers to as "Kid" is finally allowed to take the next step in recruitment. The only catch is, gang leader Skemes (Melvin Gregg) gives him his own gun and tells him to rob someone, anyone, at gunpoint to prove he has what it takes.
When an overmatched Kadir sticks up MTA worker Luis (a downright wonderful Luis Guzmán) on an empty subway platform, what follows is an unexpected and deeply personal coming-of-age story that proposes the most novel of ideas: maybe the cracks in our veneer aren't evidence of past failure, but scars that prove we've healed. One might think rookie writer/director Aristotle Torres is attempting to be the next Spike Lee (early on, he even takes Asante Blackk on one of Lee's patented dolly shots), but Torre emphatically proves the same lesson Kadir must learn. He's on his own course altogether, and nothing can stop him now.
"Story Ave" is currently playing in theaters in limited release.
Flora and Son
Eve Hewson's Flora won't exactly endear herself to certain viewers early on in "Flora and Son," staying out late partying and coming home with strangers when she's supposed to be looking after her only child, Max (Orén Kinlan). This irresponsible streak only becomes magnified later on, when the utterly overwhelmed single mom admits to a friend in a moment of vulnerability that she sometimes wishes she came home from a long day of work and discovered that her son was simply ... nowhere to be seen. Between shouting matches with Max (who's at risk of getting sent to juvie after one more indiscretion) and the icy cold war of words with her ex and Max's deadbeat dad Ian (Jack Reynor), both mother and son are at severe risk of spiraling badly.
That is until Flora hits an inflection point and finally decides to take back the narrative of her life. It begins with, of all things, guitar lessons over Zoom with an LA instructor named Jeff (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). The washed-up musician might not have the most talent or even the catchiest original songs, but there's just something about his confidence, his sensitivity, and his incredibly measured worldview (and, okay, he's pretty cute, too) that appeals to Flora and inspires her to open up like she never has before. Anyone who's watched "Sing Street" likely knows where this is heading, though that movie hit hard with its "For brothers everywhere" ending credits tag, while "Flora and Son" is more overtly about mothers — and their troublemaking sons. But in the hands of director John Carney, familiar territory is hardly a drawback. You'll be hard-pressed not to get swept up in the high life.
"Flora and Son" is now streaming on Apple TV+.
No One Will Save You
In lesser hands than writer/director Brian Duffield's, it would've been so easy for "No One Will Save You" to come across as a collection of tropes papered over by a gimmick. Home invasions, aliens, and all with the main character (or anyone else, for that matter) barely ever uttering a single word? Movie lovers have been there and done that at one point or another, but rarely before with a script as tight and storytelling sensibilities as razor-sharp as they are here. Kaitlyn Dever commands the screen at all times as Brynn, a loner living in an anachronistically old-fashioned house who has been all but exiled by her own hometown. Duffield drags out this mystery for as long as humanly possible, another risk that could've potentially blown up in his face ... had viewers not already been taken in by the film's surprisingly clever thrills (in spite of — or should I say because of — the low budget), the seamlessly invisible filmmaking and camerawork, and, of course, the performance by star-in-the-making Dever.
The film embraces its sci-fi framing rather quickly, only taking the time to establish the geography of the (mostly) one-location thriller and Brynn's lonely existence livened only by a few, clever grace notes before throwing E.T.'s more malevolent and far less talkative cousins into the mix. No less an authority than Guillermo del Toro has already weighed in on the film's implicit religious themes, which go a long way towards explaining some of the more intriguing choices Duffield made — not least of all, the ending itself. If you haven't seen it yet, you'll want to treat yourself to one of the year's most rewarding pleasant surprises ASAP.
"No One Will Save You" is currently streaming on Hulu.