Last spring, your Webb Weekly critic spent a week with Apple TV and reviewed three picks for eager streamers. This year, let’s try a trio of recent worthies from Netflix instead:
“Your Place or Mine” (2023) – In this feel-good rom-com, Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher play a pair who’ve been “just friends” for 20 years after a brief romantic fling in their youth; she’s now a California single mom, and he’s got a killer job, GF, and apartment in New York.
When she has a vital out-of-town commitment and her sitter craps out, he — being a tried-and-true pal — volunteers to stay with her tween-age son for the week. Turns out a handsome, wealthy, jet-setting older man is just what young Jack need to help him adjust to middle-school life — while we slowly learn that Kutcher’s character is still carrying a torch for his supposed “just friend.” But in the meantime, on her trip, she has fallen suddenly in love. And then … well, there’s a lot more to the plot that I won’t spoil.
Occasionally shallow and predictable, “Place” is nonetheless wonderfully engaging thanks to its two charismatic leads; the film is also really funny.
“The Wonder” (2022) – Not to be confused with “The Wonder Years” or “Wonderstruck” or even just “Wonder,” this unique historical drama is based on a terrific 2016 novel by Emma Donoghue, who also penned the dazzling “Room” and co-wrote the screenplay for this film.
Set in the 1850s, it features a nurse named Lib (Florence Pugh) assisting in the case of an 11-year-old Irish girl who supposedly hasn’t eaten in months. The locals and their church call it a miracle, while the nurse is assigned to monitor the child and see if she is secretly getting fed.
As the girl finally begins to starve to death, Lib struggles to remain objective, to get her patient to actually eat and to plumb both the nature of the girl’s faith and the true reason for her fast.
While the movie adds an unneeded and distracting frame-work structure to comment on the nature of stories, it still succeeds nicely — part melodrama, part love story and part mystery with an unexpected twist.
“Father Stu” (2022) – My favorite of the three — unquestionably Mark Wahlberg’s finest hour. And maybe Mel Gibson’s too.
“Stu” is the amazing true story of a low-rent boxer with a foul mouth and a lot of bad habits who suddenly commits to becoming a priest — a decision greeted with considerable skepticism by almost everyone he knows. The reason for this change is something I cannot reveal — let’s just call it a mid-film surprise; but the thing is, even after that, God apparently wasn’t done putting Stuart through the wringer.
Yet the more he suffers, the deeper and more real grows his faith — as he also squares off with a ditzy but good-hearted mother (Jacki Weaver) and a long-absent, alcoholic father (Gibson).
Stuart’s willingness to accept his hardships — and to pursue his difficult goal despite numerous roadblocks — is downright inspiring, though the film is never shallow or preachy. At the absolute top of his game, Wahlberg keeps us riveted; and Gibson is similarly impressive. If you’re a fan of either actor, don’t miss “Father Stu.”
