

The eventual clarification of what lies behind this divide and the significance it has to the family’s morbid history more than justifies its hefty run time. Except this isn’t a matter of odd smells and uncomfortable chairs a small peep hole in the living room wall offers Putt a glimpse at what looks like a decomposing parallel universe.

A pair of high schoolers - brother Putt (Nattapat Nimjirawat) and sister Pim (Sutatta Udomsilp) - go to stay with their grandparents while Mom’s recuperating from a car crash in the ICU, and as is the case with most young people’s visits to the elderly, the kids find everything different in a weird way. Once at the forefront of the Thai New Wave, director Wisit Sasanatieng still excels even when plugged into Netflix and assigned a Wan-influenced haunted-house horror. Urie and Chambres may be an innately winning couple, but the dialogue stuck in their mouths like hardened Christmas fruitcake can’t keep pace with their natural chemistry. Every stale rom-com convention (oh, look, a soulful old man with a shop that needs painting!) gets trotted out with nothing fresh but the demographic, and while there’s an argument to be made that queer romantics deserve the same middling Yuletide courtships heterosexuals have had for years, there’s also an argument to be made that everyone deserves more. But in this reverse Happiest Season - rather than a same-sex couple pretending to be galpals to appease conservative parents, it’s two gay friends (Michael Urie and Philemon Chambers) making like they’re coupled up to satisfy open-minded parents - the gifts are few and far between. You’d have to be a real grinch to deny that there’s some morsel of charm to a film with the good sense to cast Jennifer Coolidge as a kooky aunt. Crackling with passion and self-effacing humor, it’s Sorrentino’s strongest work in nearly a decade. Along the way, he gains a sense of direction and dips a toe into the waters of adult sexuality in a memorable scene that’s extremely - what’s the word? - European. His head swimming with lust and cinephilia, the kid stumbles from one revelatory experience to the next, most involving his big, boisterous family.
Best netflix movies december 2021 movie#
His stand-in is the angular teen Fabietto (Filippo Scotti, a talent bound to rise quickly after his fine showing here), whose family’s sun-drenched villa is upended by three massive developments: superstar footballer Diego Maradona getting traded to Napoli, a filmmaker in the mold of Fellini coming to shoot his new movie in town, and the arrival of Fabietto’s gorgeous, unwell aunt Patrizia (Luisa Ranieri).

Italy’s maximalist extraordinaire Paolo Sorrentino goes back to his roots with this künstlerroman coming-of-age picture recounting one pivotal summer in Naples. They all give career-best showings under Campion’s expert tutelage, conveying the raging infernos of repressed desire that the setting won’t allow them to speak aloud. Benedict Cumberbatch is Phil, an embittered, closeted cowpoke mourning his deceased lover Kodi Smit-McPhee is the youngster he channels his self-loathing onto before taking under his wing Kirsten Dunst is the boy’s mother, allaying her concern with booze and Jesse Plemons is caught in the middle as her husband and Phil’s brother.

Best netflix movies december 2021 tv#
Who does Jane Campion think she is, taking twelve years off from feature directing to do TV and then waltzing back into the world of film with a stone-cold masterpiece like she never went anywhere? She’s at the height of her considerable powers in this queer Western, bringing a newfound visual majesty (thanks in part to godly cinematography from Ari Wegner) to her career-long interrogation of eroticism and how it’s distorted by sensitive male egos. Whatever might tickle your fancy, you’ll find it in this month’s lineup of original film releases - read on for a breakdown of the best. And that still leaves room for the Spanish locked-room thriller about the pair of petrified strangers sewn together at the torso. Such high-prestige Oscar contenders as Jane Campion’s triumphant comeback oater and another staggering vision of lust for life from Paolo Sorrentino (already Italy’s submission for the foreign-language Academy Award) class up the joint in the first half of December, soon to be joined by Maggie Gyllenhaal’s well-feted directorial debut and an in-your-face climate change satire from Adam McKay. With awards season upon us, Netflix is finishing the year strong by publicly unveiling the selections they’ve trotted around the festival circuit for the past few months. Benedict Cumberbatch in The Power of the Dog.
