Who is the intended audience of Julie Delpy's Netflix
series "On the Verge" (other than me?) The MAGA crowd
will not take to the Sexless-in-the-City (of Angels)
protagonists (all 40-50-something women), and Delpy's
character's French-speaking family would be another
turn off; her father even refuses to visit the US while
Trump is in power. Meanwhile the Progressives will wince
at Delpy's French Republican values, her poking fun at
gender education in Middle School at the expense of
multiplicative math, or the son being traumatized when
his teachers accuse his relatives of being slave-holders
(Delpy assures him they were farmers). There is even a
hilarious scene where Delpy's French chef meets "Julie
Delpy" the movie star in a fat suit in her restaurant.
(Insecurity about body weight and other mid-life crises
are the constant motifs in the series.)

It takes me till the 2nd 30-minute episode to take to
this series about middle-aged neurosis, but as with most
of Delpy's comedies, it proves raunchy and funny. The title
refers to the onset of COVID; I wonder if there will
be a second season? Delpy pays a French chef who moves
to LA because she can't find such a job in Paris. This
reflects her own life of course; the actress was supposedly
black-listed after whistle-blowing on some casting couch
practice, and went to the US to study directing. Adele
Haenel, take note.

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

_Above Suspicion_ is Emilia Clarke's post-_Game of Thrones_
star vehicle directed by veteran Phillip Noyce, who also
just shot _The Desperate Hours_ with Naomi Watts. There is
plenty to admire in it. Clarke is a Kentucky drug-dealer
mom, desperate to escape Kentucky. She hooks up with Jack
Huston's straight-arrow FBI rookie and starts informing on
her associates. The girlfriends and wives of those she
snitches on beat her up, but what kills her is her torrid
affair with and addiction to her FBI boyfriend. (It is
based on a semi-famous real-life story.) Everyone in the
one-time mining town is struggling, and Clarke in particular
boasts bad skin tones, gritty clothes, a dirty temper, and
nonstop drug use. I am no expert in the local accent but
she certainly makes her speech pattern memorable. The one
possible knock on her incredibly lived-in performance is
that, during her intimate scenes with Huston, she still
flashes her angelic wide smile, like her soul opens up to
the heavens. Sophie Lowe plays Huston's knowing wife;
she is once an addict too, and tacitly accepts the affair
to preserve the marriage. The understated, post-ingenue
Lowe seems primed for the character-actor path of Molly
Parker and Julianne Nicholson. Noyce uses a lot of
color filters and close-ups; he shoots the intimacy
scenes with the actors' faces stretched length-wise across
the wide-screen like in _Days of Being Wild_. In his old
age he is becoming quite the indie artist.

Two plot points worth mentioning: defunct coal mines and
drugs. Cool mines have been dying before the solar energy
revolution, but Biden's emphasis on economic/social
justice to help miners during this time of transition is
laudable (and smart, considering the yellow-jacket protests
in France). Unfortunately such policies are administered
by the most extreme of ideologues. I once attended one
such meeting at work, and it degenerated into "ways 'people
of color' feel disrespected" talking point recital.
(Universities apparently bestow degrees on social justice
administration now.) It was of no practical help to those
laboring under the grand societal transition -- help which
may actually earn them more self-respect. The other point
is drugs. Intentionally or not, Noyce's blue color filters
make Clarke's eyes look blue-in-blue, like the Fremen in
_Dune_ totally immersed in the drug Melange. Clarke
cannot pull away from her dead-end town or her cocaine.
Unlike most U.S. films -- especially those deemed progressive
-- _Above Suspicion_ doesn't glorify "recreational" drug
use. Good for Noyce. Mexican cartels who deal drugs also
traffic humans, especially young girls for sex. They also
do kidnapping and worse. Are these the progressive values,
"social justice," our movies trying to promote? -----------------------------------------------------

I was so looking forward to _Vita and Virginia_ starring
two such interesting actresses. It turns out to be one of
those films where you can feel your brain cells dying one
by one. Elizabeth Debicki plays Virginia Woolf; while she
does away with Nicole Kidman's fake-nose-and-really-slow-speech
caricature in _The Hours_, her character is practically
catatonic. How can such a fascinating writer, who penned
the world-class novel _The Waves_, be so boring? Or maybe
she *could* be; the answer is simply that authors may be
far less interesting than their best writings. This only
highlights the fatal flaw of almost all Anglo-American
biographies about writers -- they never showcase the best
written words, the crown jewels. The film quotes a lot of
her letters, addressed directly to the camera; those
are not nearly the equal of Woolf's novels, of course.

In a way, Gemma Arterton's lesbian lover role is even more
disappointing; the actress is so straight-jacketed by the
writing here she gives perhaps a genuinely bad performance
for the first time. The film ends with an ultra-cynical
nod to the Trans lobby by having her character pointlessly
extol _Orlando_. It is easily the worst film I've seen this
year.

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

Arterton more than redeems herself in _Summerland_. Her
character, a researcher/writer about English myths and
fairy tales, is shunned by the entire seaside village for
her lesbian history. But they shove a young boy into her
home anyway -- this is during the Battle of Britain when
many are evacuated from London. The bitter, abrasive
Arterton initially bristles, but over time bonds
beautifully with the boy. This film showcases Arterton's
unpredictability and independent streak; it may be the
only film where she carries the film all by herself, and
she has never been more captivating. There are even
flashback scenes explaining how she gets to be so hard-
bitten; she has once been a sweet ingenue in love with an
older, more sophisticated Gugu Mbaths-Raw, only to be
ditched. (Race is never made an issue in the film, which
is not realistic but is a credit to writer-director
Jessica Swale's admirable restraint.) The make-up department
lets Mbatha-Raw down here, caking her face in makeup so you
can't even recognize her; she is not in many scenes anyway.
The boy-boarder's father is rather too-conveniently
killed off. There are lots of flaws in the film, but its
main draw -- Arterton at her very best -- makes it
a must-see.

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