Past Lives 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: "Sanctuary" puts a sexy spin on psychological dramas, "Past Lives" makes heartbreak feel good in a place like this, and "The Roundup: No Way Out" keeps one of the best action franchises going.)
A movie about a wealthy heir to his late father's business attempting to part ways with his secret dominatrix, a wonderfully nuanced and refreshingly adult drama about regrets of the past that may rank among the year's very best, and the latest action/thriller in a rapidly-expanding South Korean franchise all end up playing in theaters at the same time. What, did you think this was building up to some sort of punchline? June is drawing to an end and the summer movie season has officially kicked off in earnest, but some of the best highlights of this past month remain somewhat off the beaten path.
The timing couldn't possibly be better, given the recent spate of mega-budget blockbusters that have been dubbed "too big to fail" ... but may end up doing exactly that. "The Flash" was only the latest high-profile disappointment as even "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is feeling the pressure to come through despite its exorbitant cost. If only there was a completely different class of movie that relied more on positive word of mouth, potential awards consideration, and a genuine passion for telling human stories that didn't have to depend on record-breaking opening weekends just to make it into the black!
Luckily, "Past Lives," Sanctuary," and "The Roundup: No Way Out" stand apart as unmissable, under-the-radar gems from June.
Past Lives weaves a tale of love, heartbreak, and fate
"Past Lives" opens almost voyeuristically, as two unseen onlookers gawk at an irresistibly odd scene unfolding in front of them in a New York City bar at four in the morning. Three individuals, a Korean man and woman in deep conversation while a white man sits awkwardly off to the side, clearly arrived together ... but their collective body language makes these eavesdroppers speculate about the exact nature of their relationships to one another. As luck (or fate?) would have it, that's exactly what these characters are attempting to figure out for themselves, too.
Writer/director Celine Song's feature film debut whisks us beyond this fascinating cold open and travels back a few decades to show us the very beginnings of Na Young and Hae Sung's story as childhood sweethearts in South Korea. Thanks to the script's bold structure, the two would-be lovers only seem to cross one another's orbits every 12 years, as chance allows — once as capricious 20-somethings still on opposite ends of the world, rekindling their flirtation entirely through Zoom, and again as adults who must now reckon with the paths they took and the choices they've made.
All throughout, the concept of "In-Yun" comes up again and again, which loosely translates to fate or destiny and suggests that two people coming together for even the briefest of moments is evidence of a connection shared countless times before in their past lives. As the arrival of Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) in New York upends the life built by Na Young (now going by the Americanized name Nora and played by a brilliant Greta Lee) with her husband Arthur (John Magaro), all three steadily discover that life isn't quite so black-and-white.
"Past Lives" is currently playing in theaters.
Margaret Qualley shines in the boundary-breaking Sanctuary
Look away now, "No more sex scenes in movies" crowd! Your crusade to make film a puritanical and much more boring medium has met its match with writer Micah Bloomberg and director Zachary Wigon's "Sanctuary." Ironically enough, one might assume a copious amount of gratuitous sex scenes from the premise of an R-rated, one-location movie involving only two main characters: a fabulously rich client named Hal (Christopher Abbott) attempting to fire his longtime dominatrix Rebecca (Margaret Qualley) as he's on the cusp of inheriting his late father's wildly profitable company. But despite such a seemingly tawdry scenario, the impressively non-exploitative psychological drama instead uses the language of BDSM, consent, and power dynamics (check out /Film's review by Erin Brady here for more on that) to take these individuals on one long, spiraling night that surgically peels back the layers of who really has the upper hand in such an intimate, yet strictly non-physical relationship.
To explain much more of the plot beyond its most basic setup would do a disservice to anyone coming in to this movie cold, but it spoils nothing to emphasize that Margaret Qualley further establishes herself as an absolute force of nature. This should've already been apparent from previous appearances in "Stars at Noon," "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood," "The Nice Guys," and even HBO's "The Leftovers," but rarely has her propensity for channeling wide-eyed, barely-restrained chaos felt more in tune with a script than in "Sanctuary." For a script built on the infinitely complex interplay between a sub and dom, both of whom come from polar opposite walks of life and built their own deeply personal coping mechanisms. In "Sanctuary," nothing is as straightforward as it seems.
"Sanctuary" is currently available to rent through Amazon and DirecTV.
The Roundup: No Way Out blends humor with heavy-hitting thrills
Move over, "John Wick," "Mission: Impossible," and superhero movies as a whole. With the arrival of the third installment of Ma Dong-seok's (known as Don Lee to us boring Americans) ever-expanding action-hero franchise, there's a new MCU in town: the "Ma Dong-seok Cinematic Universe." (This isn't even an invention of my own. That's literally how the official studio press notes describe it with a wink and a nod, hilariously enough!) 2017's "The Outlaws" first introduced us to the "beast cop" Ma Seok-do, a giant of a man who typically handles every criminal threat thrown his way with a single punch to the face. Followed quickly by last year's sequel "The Roundup" (which yours truly wrote about in a previous edition of "Under the Radar"), the series smartly embraced the star power of Ma Dong-seok and his Keanu Reeves-like willingness to put in the work to bring to life some of the finest action choreography this side of "John Wick."
Now, "The Roundup: No Way Out" takes things to the next level with a threequel that essentially exists as 105 minutes of wall-to-wall action and comedy, embodied flawlessly by the uber-talented Ma Dong-seok. The usual franchise trademarks are present and accounted for – Ma Seok-do's superhero-like introduction breaking up a minor brawl in public, the "Room of Truth" running gag where criminals confess their crimes or else, and the main character's unfailingly visceral one-punch takedown — even as the narrative complexities increase. (For the first time, this franchise incudes two main crime-lord villains for Ma Seok-do's forces to battle, portrayed by Lee Jun-hyuk and Munetaka Aoki.) But the focus never once strays from the star of the show: Ma Dong-seok.
"The Roundup: No Way Out" is currently playing in theaters.