This year, we’re returning to core values — only short, decisive synopses of a film’s most important attributes. No more drunk history about a movie’s genesis, no more gushing all over an actress’s blouse and achievements. Just the cold, hard facts.
In this long awaited remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, John Lithgow plays an unscrupulous real estate developer. One who believes that the death of our world is inevitable, that we should embrace self annihilation and live life to its fullest, by kicking octopuses up and down the pier until they’re dead, and make no apologies.
Beatriz, played by Salma Hayek, is a practitioner of alternative medicines. She’s a Californian nowadays, but is originally from some place in Mexico that I can’t even spell or pronounce. She works in a clinic, primarily with cancer patients. Her life is a futile war against suffering and death, and she literally can feel a person’s pain.
This is an unsettling and depressing film. There are a lot of unanswered questions about the hinted-at history that ties Lithgow and Hayek to one another. There are unexplained goat fatalities. See it for the acting and not the answers, which are missing.
Venue: Seattle International Film Festival, 2017
Country: USA
Language: English
Genres: Drama