If ever there were a movie that exemplifies the recent viral social media phenomenon known as “Man or Bear,” in which women are asked if they would prefer to be alone in the woods with a man or a bear, it’s Anna Kendrick’s directorial debut, Woman of the Hour. If you’re unfamiliar, an overwhelming majority of women, when given the opportunity, would take their chances hanging out with a grizzly rather than risk possible violence at the hands of an unknown man. Stranger danger, indeed.
Kendrick, with the help of Ian McDonald’s focused screenplay, imagines the world in a way that I would assume looks very familiar to many, if not most, women. It’s a world in which women are subject to men’s relentless quest to get sex out of them. Female utility begins and ends with their bodies, and if a woman insists on using her own agency to upset the status quo, she risks incurring the anger, or worse, of a man.
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It isn’t easy getting close to Emily. Even her own husband, Sean, sometimes feels like an outsider in his own marriage. The mercurial Emily is a high-powered public relations director for a premier fashion company, and her take-no-bullshit attitude allows her to tell her own boss to get lost on occasion. You have to be willing to treat powerful people like dirt, she says, because sometimes that’s the only way to get through to them. The only thing that can compete with Emily’s job is her devotion to her son, Nicky.
When Emily allows Stephanie – whose son Miles attends the same elementary school as Nicky – into her orbit, Stephanie feels both elated and intimidated. She runs a somewhat successful mommy vlog where she posts about things like making friendship bracelets. Stephanie doesn’t quite know how to handle Emily’s sophistication and no-nonsense demeanor. One day Emily asks Stephanie to pick up Nicky from school and watch him for a few hours while she deals with a minor emergency. Five days later, Emily has vanished. Determined to find her new friend, Stephanie plays detective and uncovers dark secrets from Emily’s past. What she finds will change her life forever.
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If the marketing material for Pitch Perfect 3 – the tag line is “Last Call, Pitches” – is to be believed, this is the swan song for a series that’s generated a sizable cult following. In this latest outing, the saga of the Barden Bellas ends not with a bang, but not exactly with a whimper. I have to damn Pitch Perfect 3 with a heaping helping of faint praise. It’s just okay. The movie is, thankfully, nothing like the complete disaster that Pitch Perfect 2 was, yet it never captures the elements that made the original so charming and so memorable.
This time around, the members of our favorite competitive collegiate a-cappella singing group are finding that post-college life, a.k.a. the real world, isn’t everything they had hoped it would be.
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The sequel to the 2012 hit Pitch Perfect – which I marginally liked – is so desperate to entertain that it becomes a tonal mess amid all the clashing performances. Combined with a profoundly mean-spirited sense of humor, Pitch Perfect 2 is a slog to get through. Thankfully, the movie does the musical numbers skillfully, which was a highlight of the first film, too. Otherwise this sequel is a disappointment.
The movie starts with an ill-fated performance by our heroes – female a cappella singing group, the Barden University Bellas – at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Using the magic of fairly unconvincing stock footage, President and First Lady Obama are in attendance to see Fat Amy (Rebel Wilson) flash her crotch in front of the entire black-tie-festooned audience. Pitch Perfect 2 is not an exercise in subtlety. As a result of the inevitable media firestorm that ensues, the Bellas are punished with something even worse than Delta House’s Double Secret Probation: They are forbidden from holding tryouts for new members, and all their future appearances on the a cappella performance circuit are cancelled.
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