Summertime is synonymous with the biggest, boldest movies that Hollywood has to offer. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but if you’re in the mood for something off the beaten path, there are ample treasures to be found this season. Here are just a few of the smaller releases that we at Rotten Tomatoes think are worth your time.
Directed by: Shira Piven
Starring: Kristen Wiig, James Marsden, Linda Cardellini, Wes Bentley, Tim Robbins, Joan Cusack
What it’s about: Alice (played by Kristen Wiig), a woman with borderline personality disorder, wins a truckload of cash through the lottery. She promptly dumps her medication and buys a TV talk show and airs her creative and personal whims and desires.
Why it matters: BPD has shown up in film before, ranging from the nuanced (Thirteen, Betty Blue) to caricatured (Girl, Interrupted, Fatal Attraction). Welcome appears to take a softer approach, while not shying away from the exhaustive emotional instability driving Alice’s actions. And Wiig’s last dramatic foray turned out pretty well, in the form of Certified Fresh The Skeleton Twins.
Directed by: Richard Loncraine
Starring: Diane Keaton, Morgan Freeman, Cynthia Nixon
What it’s about: Married couple Alex (Morgan Freeman) and Ruth (Diane Keaton) are looking to sell the Brooklyn apartment they bought way back before the neighborhood was a hipster paradise. With the help of their real estate agent niece (Cynthia Nixon), they put the property on the market and search for a new place to call home.
Why it matters: In a summer jam-packed with explosive blockbusters, this will serve as a bit of welcome counter-programming, especially since it’s and earnest comedy for the older set that stars a couple of well-liked Oscar-winning actors.
Directed by: Andrew Niccol
Starring: Ethan Hawke, January Jones, Jake Abel, Zoë Kravitz
What it’s about: Ethan Hawke stars as a military officer living in Las Vegas. For 12 hours every day, he enters a bunker and remotely pilots a drone to kill Taliban soldiers thousands of miles away from home. Soon enough, he begins to question the ethics of his career.
Why it matters: After Gattaca and Lord of War, this marks Ethan Hawke’s third collaboration with writer/director Andrew Niccol. Contemporary war films about the effects on daily American life have largely not resonated with audiences, but with American Sniper emerging as 2014’s highest-grossing movie, it’ll be interesting to see if this morality-questioning film will connect.
Directed by: Claudia Llosa
Starring: Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, Mélanie Laurent
What it’s about: Told in two parallel narratives, the film alternately focuses on Nana Kunning, a young single mother struggling to keep her family together in the face of tragedy, and Ivan, the son Nana abandoned who is forced to face his past when a journalist seeks to reunite them.
Why it matters: It boasts an Oscar nominee in the director’s chair, an Oscar winner in the lead role, and a pair of solid co-stars who have proven their versatility in multiple genres. Peruvian director Claudia Llosa’s American debut promises to be an evocative exploration of the human condition that may not offer any easy answers to the questions it raises but will probably offer some food for thought.
Directed by: Bill Pohlad
Starring: Paul Dano, John Cusack, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti
What it’s about: Beneath the sweet sounds of the Beach Boys lies a hellish landscape of drugs and madness. Love & Mercy chronicles the life of Brian Wilson at two key intervals of his life.
Why it matters: Beach Boys leader Brian Wilson is one of pop music’s most eccentric figures, a man whose astonishing creativity and debilitating demons make him ill-suited to a standard biopic formula. Directed by veteran producer Bill Pohlad (12 Years a Slave, Wild), Love & Mercy — which made a splash with critics during its festival run — avoids this trap. Paul Dano plays Wilson at the height of the Beach Boys’ fame, while John Cusack depicts the star during a period of seclusion and paranoia.
Directed by: James Ponsoldt
Starring: Jason Segel, Jesse Eisenberg, Anna Chlumsky, Joan Cusack
What it’s about: The End of the Tour is a thinly fictionalized retelling of a few days in the life of David Foster Wallace in the early days of his celebrity, as seen by a Rolling Stone reporter.
Why it matters: It’s difficult to capture the essence of a writer on film, especially one with as nimble a mind as the late, great David Foster Wallace. However, critics at Sundance feel that’s exactly what director James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now) does in The End of the Tour, an intimate look at one of contemporary fiction’s most beloved figures. Jason Segel has earned praise for his portrait of the author, a man who’s lonely, deeply sensitive, and fiercely erudite.
To see the rest of the films hitting theaters over the next few months, check out our Summer Movie Calendar.
