With ambition that outstrips her experience, first-time director Jenée LaMarque’s fairytale “The Pretty One” mingles implausible drama and awkward comedy to less-than-middling result. Playing identical twins, the always-captivating Zoe Kazan brings some charm to the troubling premise: mouseburger twin Laurel takes on the life of her more exuberant sister, Audrey, after her abrupt death. Quirk and hipsterism-nearing-twee ensues, and how. (The brightly colored production design is toothsome, if largely overwhelming.) Kazan’s gift for winning oddity carries the day, even as LaMarque fails to find a persuasive overall tone.
With Katherine Macanufo, Jake Johnson, Ron Livingston, Frankie Shaw, and the indelible John Carroll Lynch as the masterpiece-copying father of the twins, who creates the movie’s single great, thrilling moment, a hug that is like no other hug. 90m. (Ray Pride)
“The Pretty One” opens Friday, February 21 at River East.
Ray Pride is Newcity’s film critic and a contributing editor to Filmmaker magazine.
His multimedia history of Chicago “Ghost Signs” will be published soon. Previews of the project are on Twitter and on Instagram as Ghost Signs Chicago. More photography on Instagram.
Seeing The Elephant: A Review Of Babylon The boisterous, brawling yet melancholy "Babylon," is a variation on film history, but more drawing for drama. It's gaudy and mean, celebratory and sorrowful.
Heart: A Review of Soul The real world is soulful, too, in Pixar's bountiful life of the mind.
Heart of Darkness: A Review of The Batman The three-hour film noir unfolds briskly, an intensive study in the pervasive interplay of power, money and corruption in what seems like perpetual rainy night.
With ambition that outstrips her experience, first-time director Jenée LaMarque’s fairytale “The Pretty One” mingles implausible drama and awkward comedy to less-than-middling result. Playing identical twins, the always-captivating Zoe Kazan brings some charm to the troubling premise: mouseburger twin Laurel takes on the life of her more exuberant sister, Audrey, after her abrupt death. Quirk and hipsterism-nearing-twee ensues, and how. (The brightly colored production design is toothsome, if largely overwhelming.) Kazan’s gift for winning oddity carries the day, even as LaMarque fails to find a persuasive overall tone.
