May movies are brash and bold, then intimate and quiet. This month’s new releases include everything from cinematic car chases and epic stunts to small and tender stories about the price of fame, teenage dysphoria and motherhood.
‘The Idea of You’ (May 2)
This buzzy rom-com now streaming on Amazon Prime is adapted from Robinne Lee’s 2017 bestselling novel of the same name and stars Anne Hathaway as a 40-year-old single mom who enters into a May-December romance with a 24-year-old boy band member (played by Nicholas Galitzine). There’s reason to suspect this charming rocker with a penchant for older women is based on Harry Styles, former lead singer of One Direction. “I was struck by how authentically 40” Hathaway’s character is, said Alissa Wilkinson at The New York Times. “She’s in a movie that doesn’t try to shame her, or patronize her or make her appear ridiculous for having desires and fantasies of her own.”
‘The Fall Guy’ (May 3)
Directed by David Leitch, former stunt double for leading man Brad Pitt, “The Fall Guy” is a kinetic and action-packed love letter to cinema’s unsung heroes. Stuntmen drive cars off cliffs, leap across buildings, set themselves on fire and generally risk their lives in order to make movie magic. But their names are rarely remembered, and their faces never appear onscreen. In a comedic performance to rival his master work in “Barbie,” Ryan Gosling stars here as Colt Seavers, a stuntman who is in love with his director (Emily Blunt). “It’s essentially a two-hour argument for a stunt Oscar category,” said USA Today.
‘I Saw the TV Glow’ (May 3)
Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun’s first film, 2021’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair,” paid eerie homage to low-budget horror films, and their second film, “I Saw the TV Glow,” does much the same. This low-fi A24 jaunt (or haunt) is all about the cult of the screen: about loving a TV show so much, you lose yourself “within a pop-culture universe that offers an alternate reality,” said Rolling Stone. The film is also a “profound vision of the trans experience,” said Richard Brody at The New Yorker. “Schoenbrun’s young characters are experiencing dysphoria — not, explicitly, gender dysphoria, but a general sense of deep-rooted unease with their lives, with themselves and with their identities,” Brody adds.
‘Babes’ (May 17)
This raunchy female-driven comedy stars “Broad City” co-creator Ilana Glazer and stand-up comic Michelle Buteau. In the grand tradition of “Bridesmaids” and “Bachelorette,” director Pamela Adlon embraces the cruder aspects of femininity, specifically motherhood and the horror it can bring. Adlon has made a “confident switch to feature directing after seminal small-screen contributions to ‘Louie’ and ‘Better Things,'” said Variety. The movie’s title is tongue-in-cheek, as “her stars de-objectify a label used by dudes, slapping it on themselves.”
‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’ (May 24)
This is the prequel to George Miller’s 2015 film “Mad Max: Fury Road,” a blockbuster widely considered to be among the best action flicks ever made. The follow-up slots Anya Taylor-Joy into the role of young Furiosa, played with ferocity and road rage by Charlize Theron in the previous installment. This “epic, Odyssey-esque prequel … follows the titular character over the roughly two decades before she becomes the Imperator,” said Entertainment Weekly. “Furiosa” promises yet another full-throttle ride through a scorched wasteland where humans zip around the desert in juiced-up mutant vehicles and terrorize each other.