Review: Endings, Beginnings

by Chris Feil

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, one of the past decade's best examinations of the messy terrain between mental health and romantic entanglements, hilariously gave us a number called "Sexy French Depression". Skewering the French New Wave aesthetic, the song (co-written by recently departed genius Adam Schlesinger) spoofed not only our outsized self-perceptions, but a wan glamorization of female depression in cinema. It’s a trope you’ve seen before and will see again.

That vibe is very much at play in Drake Doremus' new minor key film Endings, Beginnings, where Shailene Woodley suffers from an actually rather sexy but very Los Angeles depression. Woodley stars as art programmer Daphne, in a rut after a recent breakup sends her (back, apparently) to her sister's poolhouse as she tries to find a job between art club sessions with Kyra Sedgwick and performing R.E.M. at karaoke. Woodley is solid, but in Doremus' hands, the most cliche version of Los Angeles plays itself.

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Kristen Stewart x 3

1. Film Comment Cover Girl
In case you haven't heard, the summer issue of Film Comment, one of our favorite magazines since forever, is out. You can purchase it here. And guess what? Our friend and podcast mate Nick Davis wrote the cover story "The Age of Kristen Stewart" 

The twenty-six year old actress works non-stop. She'll soon hit 40 movies and she only started 15 years ago. (The first movie that people tend to remember her from is Panic Room as Jodie Foster's daughter.) She has not one but three movies this year, hence the cover story, with two hitting theaters simultaneously today.

2. Cafe Society 
Now Playing Limited Release
Woody Allen's new movie (they tend to expand quickly so if you're not on the coasts you probably only have a week or two to wait) is a melancholy dramedy. Jesse Eisenberg is a young up-and-comer who ditches working for his powerful uncle (Steve Carell) in Hollywood for nightclub hosting fame with his brother (Corey Stoll) in New York City. Kristen Stewart and Blake Lively are his love interests on each coast. Our Review ICYMI.

3. Equals
Now Playing Limited Release
We weren't personally wild about Drake Doremus's breakthrough Like Crazy (2011) though Anton Yelchin (*sniffle*) was great in it, but we appreciate that a young director is committed to romantic narratives. Doremus's new film is a dystopian sci-fi romance starring KStew and Nicholas Hoult. Here's the trailer.

Equals Poster & Teaser

Manuel here. After premiering at Toronto last year, Drake Doremus's (Like Crazy) sci-fi romance Equals is headed our way soon via A24. And perhaps as a way to dispel the mixed-reaction this Kristen Stewart/Nicholas Hoult flick got at the busy Canadian festival, we've been given two beautiful pieces of marketing: a gorgeous one-sheet poster (with the nevertheless corny tagline, "Find your equal") and a Chromatics-scored teaser trailer that shows us the sleek and slate future Doremus has cooked up.

In case the beautifully bleak futuristic visuals don't give it away, the film centers on a dystopian future where human emotions have been eradicated...or have they? There really is only one way a plot like that develops but it'll make a nice addition to this growing romance-deconstruction-via-sci-fi genre to which Spike Jonze, Alex Garland, and Jonathan Glazer have treated us in these past few years.

Check out the teaser below and discuss with us whether anyone could really resist Hoult's cheekbones, even or especially, when told not to.