Love old or unusual movies? Here's a review: “Wicked Little Letters” (2024): This delicious little confection about the power of being in the religious majority stars two of our best actresses, Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley. They play neighbors on a working class street when a series of amusingly vile letters begin landing in Colman’s mailbox. Everyone immediately suspects the disreputable Buckley, and she immediately begins suffering.
But is she the real culprit? What follows is both highly funny and, at the same time, sobering. It’s one of those movies that you expect to be fun and funny, and it is, but it’s also surprisingly serious-minded. Strong support provided by Timothy Spall (whose brittle character will make you sad), Eileen Atkins, and particularly Anjana Vasan as the determined local cop.
Now streaming on Netflix “Letter Never Sent” (1960): Four idealistic geologists get dropped off in the wilds of Siberia to search for diamonds to help their country’s industrial efforts. The taiga is beautiful and dangerous, and our four heroes (guide Innokentiy Smoktunuvskiy), loving nerd couple (Tatyana Samoylova and Vasiliy Livanov) and their more brutish companion (Evgeniy Urbanskiy) search tirelessly for the mineral riches. Then disaster strikes in the form of a huge wildfire and the quartet are faced with the possibility that they might not make it back home.
The movie is justly famous for its sumptuous black and white cinematography. Now streaming on The Criterion Channel “The Holdovers” (2023): You’ve probably heard about this movie, and now’s your chance to catch up with it. Paul Giamatti plays a very grumpy, disappointed boarding school teacher forced into babysitting duty during the Christmas break.
Dominic Sessa (who the filmmakers actually cast at the school where they were shooting the film) is a revelation as his main ward, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph won an Oscar for her caring school cafeteria worker. This film may come off as simple Oscar bait (the prize eluding Giamatti once again), but since it’s from the talented director Alexander Payne, it’s no mere exercise in mawkishness. David Hemingson’s screenplay is smart and funny and touching in all the right amounts.
The three lead characters are all damaged people who help foster a little healing in one another. Now streaming on Amazon Prime “One Life” (2024): Or, “When a Popular YouTube Video Becomes a Movie.” Anthony Perkins stars as real-life Nicky Winton, a man who got involved in rescuing children from Czechoslovakia right before World War II.
Johnny Flynn plays the younger version of Nicky in flashbacks, and the great Lena Olin plays his wife. It’s a simple but heartfelt story that asks the interesting question: What would happen if you’d done a great thing and then never thought to tell anyone about it? Mr. Winton almost finds out.
Now streaming on Showtime Trivia Question #1067: In addition to “Wicked Little Letters,” Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley also appeared in another, much more serious domestic drama. What was it called? Answer to Trivia Question #1065: Toshiro Mifune made 1969’s “Hell in the Pacific” four years after his last collaboration with director Akira Kurosawa. Ray Ivey Ray Ivey is a writer and movie fan in Hollywood, California.
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