Annihilation, on the Basis of Sex

It isn't feasible to see ALL the highly touted films that show up during the dark months of the year, and we inevitably make superficial judgments about what we're going to see out of necessity. For example, I decided not to see On the Basis of Sex because RBG , which I'd already seen, was widely said to be the better film. But the films are entirely different in style and focus—one's a documentary, the other's a docudrama—and it turns out they're both well worth seeing.

To some viewers, Felicity Jones may seem a little too cute to be playing Ruth Bader Ginzberg—perhaps we prefer the grizzled and feisty justice of later years. But be that as it may, the great merit of On the Basis of Sex lies in the fact that it's focused largely on Ginzberg's early career, and on a single court case. In so doing, it underscores repeatedly how strong the gender bias was against which Ginzberg was fighting at that time, and how extraordinary her efforts were to establish a legal basis for combating that social ill. It gives us an inside look into how the legal profession works, and the ACLU, and the ingrained biases of the prestigious law schools. And it also brings Ginzberg's daughter into the picture in such a way as to highlight the significance of the feminist movement as a bellwether of changing times. Would I be belittling this cinematic achievement if I described it as a cross between Rocky and Legally Blonde?

ANNIHILATION

Annihilation is a different kettle of fish, though the theme isn't all that remote: five military women facing the unknown. In the first scene, which could have been filmed in the 1950s, a strange comet-like thing crashes into a lighthouse. Now a mysterious "shimmering" is slowly advancing through the woods and fields. Most of the movie is devoted to finding out what that phenomenon is.

But there are a few plot complications. Lena (Natalie Portman) is a professor of cell biology (or something) and she's wondering where her husband (Oscar Isaac) is. They've had some domestic difficulties, true, but he's been gone on a mysterious mission for a year. When he finally turns up, he's remote, taciturn, and also ill. The ambulance ride to the hospital is diverted by military police. It turns out he's the first human ever to return from inside the Shimmering. Eventually Lena and four other women with nothing to lose try their luck at finding out the truth about what lies "inside."

The jungle inside is beautiful but disorienting. The women meet up with a variety of dangers and grotesqueries, though there are no Little Green Men lurking in the underbrush. As tensions build, dissensions grow within the group.

I'm not going to tell you how it all shakes out. But I will say Annihilation is a thought-provoking drama that, like director Alex garland's previous film, Ex Machina, explores boundaries so near at hand that it would be a mistake to dismiss it as science fiction.

FREE SOLO

There are three prominences in Free Solo, the most awesome of which is El Capitan, the 3,200-foot rock face that rises from the floor of Yosemite Valley. Also astounding, though perhaps slightly less so, is Alex Honnold, the young man who's intent on climbing the face of El Capitan, by himself, without ropes.

The most prominent of the three principals in this film—Honnold's girlfriend, Sanni McCandless—is also the least interesting. Her presence helps to push the documentary to feature length, I suppose, but that's a minor asset at best, and it's pretty clear that she's playing second fiddle to El Cap (as the climbers call it) throughout the film. It's hard to fathom why Honnold would want to get involved with a young woman who walks around saying, "Oh, what if you fall?" and engages him in long, slow conversations on the subject of "Isn't there anything beyond climbing that could make life meaningful to you?"

One film critic suggested that the film "challenges the idea" that emotional distance is required to summon the concentration required for solo climbing. I would say that it underscores the opposite point. Perhaps that reviewer didn't notice that Honnold didn't feel fully prepared to attempt the climb until McCandless went home.

For this reason, Free Solo doesn't quite reach the level of tension or the heights (no pun intended) of such classics as Touching the Void and Nordwand, but it's a fascinating story just the same, about a peculiar and uniquely gifted athlete who lives in a van and eats his vegetables straight out of the frying pan using the same spatula he cooked them with. He's found some unusual goals to pursue, and he's reached many of them.

Why climb El Capitan? "It's a crazy-seeming thing. I get that," he says at one point in the film. "I just think: Why does anybody seek out anything challenging? Humans do so many interesting and difficult things."