'Him,' 'The Conjuring: Last Rites' & 'A Big Bold Beautiful Journey'

by Philip Price

Him

Photo: Universal Pictures

​Director Justin Tipping’s “Him” is a neat, niche premise that is rendered nearly nonsensical by the time we reach an anticlimactic fourth quarter, which holds about as much tension as a Browns-Dolphins game. It’s a collection of metaphorical imagery too ornate to be ignored yet too shallow and/or not bold enough to explore its full implications. “Him” seeks to equate the NFL and its deep traditions, aristocratic owners, cultish fanbases and lesser-than leeches waiting in the wings with their microphones to get a handful of meaningless words from the chosen few on the field to, well ... an actual demonic cult. It's an idea ripe with possibilities that can't get past its own ego, rendering it ineffective in both the sports and horror genres. 

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The Conjuring: Last Rites

Photo: Warners Bros. Pictures

For one reason or another, I expected “The Conjuring: Last Rites” to be a far richer send-off than what it ultimately turns out to be. Probably because they billed this as the case that forced the Warrens into retirement, but it turns out that this is due more to Ed’s health issues than anything strikingly unique about the case itself. Granted, these films have never had much of a strong narrative backbone. Even James Wan’s installments were more “this happens, then this happens” with nothing propelling us forward beyond the promise of the formula. Wan’s films, at least, had a certain degree of care for the human drama within the case files of Ed and Lorraine Warren, though, transcending the genre's tropes to make it all feel as personal as possible. Michael Chaves did this to less effect in 2021’s “The Devil Made Me Do It” and does so to even less success here; his main objective this time around being to establish the Warren’s daughter, Judy (Mia Tomlinson), and her fiancé, Tony (Ben Hardy), as the new generation of “ghostbusters”. 

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A Big Bold Beautiful Journey

Photo: Sony Pictures

Kogonada has crafted a romantic drama of yesteryear with arguably two of the most photogenic people on the planet, and yet, it is confounding how episodic, somewhat charming, yet completely devoid of genuine emotion, the final picture actually is.
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“A Big Bold Beautiful Journey” romanticizes romance to the point that Colin Farrell and Margot Robbie are essentially blank canvases, people with nothing to lose and no discernible personality, whose relationship immediately feels like a foregone conclusion. The twist is that Seth Reiss' screenplay is willing to call out the sham love can often feel like when such romanticisms are expected without the necessary hard work having been put in to make it real. As a result, these characters are so persistent in their belief that they'll never be in a successful relationship, we not only believe them but kind of don't care whether they end up in one or not.

What I did latch onto here was Farrell's arc as a man who grew up being told how special he was, being set up to wholly believe in his ambition, only for it to give way to a massive hole in his life and an inescapable disappointment when said ambitions don't become reality, giving way to a lifetime of feeling like a failure. As if constantly being told “no one’s good enough for you” actually has the inverse effect on one’s beliefs both about themselves and the world.