While much of the attention this week has steered toward two theatrical releases that seem headed for awards consideration — one focused on a tense papal power struggle and the other a brilliant and unique rom-com game-changer — a dark stop-motion masterpiece opening this week deserves your time.
We review that along with an odd rom-com/ghost/horror story as well as old-fashioned courtroom drama.
Here’s our roundup.
“Memoir of a Snail”: Should your animation tastes align more with the offbeat rather than the traditional, Adam Elliot’s dark but hopeful stop-motion fable is a must, a macabre delight that will put a lump in your throat.
The quirky, engaging film centers on the wretched and lonely lives of 1970s Australian twins — Grace (Sarah Snook) and Gilbert (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — who weather rotten foster families apart after their alcoholic, paraplegic father dies. Gilbert’s new farmer“ parents” are mercilessly judgmental and devout while Grace — who relates to a snail named Sylvia — gets assigned to a kooky, unorthodox couple who enjoy going on nudie cruises.
While it all sounds terribly bleak and depressing, “Memoir of a Snail” is actually smartly funny, particularly when Grace befriends Pinky (Jacki Weaver), a living-large elderly woman whose past is filled with reckless possibilities and weird realities.
Elliot, who made the unforgettable 2009 “Mary and Max,” strikes gold again with a grim but heartfelt animated world that gives you the feels in unexpected ways. It’s one of the best films of 2024 – animated or otherwise. Details: 4 stars out of 4; opens Oct. 25 in Bay Area theaters.
“Your Monster”: Wannabe musical stage actress Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) survives a cancer scare, gets dumped by her self-involved boyfriend producer (Edmund Donovan) and cohabits with the wisecracking monster (Tommy Dewey) from her childhood who lives in her closes and won’t leave. Caroline Lindy’s feature debut is erratic and crumbles from the start, focused on mostly annoying characters who are all over the map, just like the move they’re in. The horror element never is satisfyingly realized and the ending – while surprising – doesn’t have the punch it should. There is something good gestating here, but what’s on the screen needs a few more rewrites. Details: 2 stars; in theaters Oct. 25.
“The Goldman Case”: Director Cédric Kahn’s straightforward approach doesn’t necessarily blunt the impact of this fact-based courtroom drama about the contentious 1975 French trial of activist and admitted robber Pierre Goldman (an impassioned Arieh Worthalter). But neither does it necessarily elevate the material from being more than a compelling enough dramatization with contemporary intimations that serves as a fine showcase for Worthalter’s acting fireworks. Goldman’s checkered past and his Jewish identity figure into the proceedings, as do the legitimacy of some witnesses who say he’s a murderer – a charge he vehemently denies. “The Goldman Case” is a textbook example of courtroom drama, nothing more, nothing less. Details: 2½ stars; now playing at the Vogue in San Francisco and the Rafael Film Center, San Rafael.
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.