Her character's name is Ava, but this may as well be an
installment of Jessica Chastain's hyper-masculine trilogy
where she played Maya, Molly, and Madeline Elizabeth Sloane.
In fact _Ava_ seems to be a greatest hits compilation:
the sisterly rivalry in _The Dissappearance of Eleonor
Rigby_ (Jess Weixler also plays her sister in both films),
the honor-student-turned-mercenary (and many other things)
plot of _Molly_; the sweat-soaked physicality of _Woman
Walks Ahead_; the masochism of _Woman Walks Ahead_, _Molly_
*and* _Jolene_ (she gets badly beat up in all of them) are
all here. The director Tate Taylor even wrote and directed
_The Help_, for which Chastain was nominated an Oscar.
It is easy to see why she signed up.

There are novelties too. Chastain gets to play a deadly
assassin, skilled in hand-to-hand combat. The early fight
scenes are frankly too fantastical while also lacking in
the panache of, say, _Atomic Blonde_, although Chastain
clearly relishes doing a lot of her stunt work. The actress,
who puts on weight for _Molly_, is tremendously fit and
athletic here. The action sequences grow more realistic --
even brutal -- towards the end as the reluctant contract killer
returns to her family, ponder her sins, and becomes suicidal.
There is even a subplot about her drug and alcohol addition
*and* the gambling problem of her ex-fiance, who is now
her sister's beau, played by Common.

It is far too much plot stuffed into 90 minutes and the
whole does not exceed the sum of the parts, but some parts
are very good indeed. By far the best scene has Ava
playing cards with her ailing mother played by Geena Davis.
The latter unleashes a powerhouse monologue, explaining why
she betrayed the teenage Ava and believed her husband's
long ago lies. Ava once witnesses her father's infidelity
but he falsely claimed that she blackmailed him for money
and sought revenge. If the mother had admitted the snake-oil
salesman/charmer was a philanderer who slandered his own
daughter, she would have had to leave him and be alone.
So she focuses on the half of him who makes her happy. In
that short speech, the screen-writer explains why the
majority of white women voted for Trump better than a
thousand political pundits. (The writer Matthew Newton
also penned _Who We are Now_, another redemption tale
starring Julianne Nicholson as an ex-con.) The taciturn
assassin mostly reacts and blinks away tears as her
mother praises her strength. It is another meta-cinema
moment; steeliness is very much the actress' trademark
as well, even if she can embody the most traditional,
empathetic housewife with ease (_The Tree of Life_,
_The Zookeeper's Wife_).

John Malkovich is surprisingly good as Chastain's mentor
-- in many ways he is her true family -- while Colin Ferrell
is over-the-top as the villain. Boston looks great, and its
signature locales add much allure and authenticity to the film.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Speaking of sisters and mothers: _Jackie_, directed by
Antoinette Beumer, is much better than I expected. Two
Dutch sisters go to New Mexico to rescue their surrogate
mother Jackie, whom they have never met. Jackie (Holly
Hunter) has other ideas, they drag her in her RV through
a road trip to a farawy rehab center. On the way they run
into all those New Mexico attractions (rattle snakes,
coyotes, biker gangs, small-town misogynists, endless
desert trails, snow-covered mesa -- I live there). The
actresses are good; Carice van Houten is marvelous as
the morose, salad-chewing career woman about to be
(slightly) transformed by the experience, but Holly
Hunter steals the show. Limping on one leg and brandishing
a shotgun, she could be the second coming of Chow Yun-Fat's
gunman in _A Better Tomorrow_! John Woo better call her ...

(for A.)

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