by A. Freedman, Staff Writer

The Worst Person In The World (dir. Joachim Trier)

The Norwegian auteur Joachim Trier has become one of my favorite modern filmmakers over the years. The Worst Person In The World is his fifth film, which forms the final chapter of a loose trilogy with Reprise and Oslo, August 31st. All are lyrical, beautiful films about the chaos of young adulthood, getting a little bit older and more mature with each entry. It is as if the viewer gets to grow alongside these films. If he moves onto different terrain after this, TWPITW will have been the perfect capper to his "Oslo trilogy." 

Renate Reinsve stars as Julie, a woman approaching 30 who can't seem to make up her mind about who she wants to be. In the other two entries, women were mostly vessels for messy men to project onto. Julie, on the other hand, could probably party and mischief them all under the table. She might not know who she is or who she wants to be, but she also isn't afraid of trying to find out. Is she meant to be a psychotherapist? A photographer? How about an artist's girl? A mother? A bookstore employee? Over the course of a prologue, epilogue, and 12 chapters in between, we follow Julie as she ignores most of those questions, fixating instead on the state of her love life- as many young people do. 

Anders Danielsen Lie makes his third appearance in the trilogy as Aksel, a mid-40's comic book artist who sweeps Julie off her feet. He gives an astonishing performance, but that's nothing new for the actor- sort of a Nordic Ryan Gosling who can out stoically express just about anyone. One of Trier's other collaborators, composer Ola Flottum, is also responsible for much of the film's beauty. 

What sets Trier apart from many of his peers is his willingness to take the love stories of Millennials and Gen X seriously. Norway is a country that takes good care of its own, perhaps leaving its citizens with enough room to look deeper into matters of the heart, matters of the soul. Trier's films are deeply feeling ones, and TWPITW is up there with his best work. 

Mass (dir. Fran Kranz)

The log line of Mass is enough to get an automatic green light- "Years after a tragic shooting, the parents of both a victim and the perpetrator meet face to face." It is the type of movie that tends to make a big wave out of Sundance- cheap to make, focused, and highly topical. Mass shootings and horrific gun violence have plagued our country for a long time, with each year seeming further and further away from a solution. It is one of those big, seemingly unsolvable problems- where everyone would rather look the other way and just pray it doesn't ever happen to them. Mass takes two sets of parents- (played by Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs) who don't have that option anymore. 

We are dropped more or less in medias res into the film- with a few church employees awkwardly arranging a meeting room into a welcoming place for these couples to finally meet face to face. It takes a long time to know who is who- and figuring out which set of parents belongs to the perpetrator and which to the victim is part of the mental calculus that sets the viewer right onto a journey with these grieving humans. The goal is simple- just to meet, talk, and say some things that need to be said. No one has any idea how it is going to turn out, though- neither the characters or you, the viewer. 

With the single set and the small cast, Mass unfolds in real time and feels much like a filmed play. It is an impressive debut from first time director Fran Kranz (an actor who was in The Cabin In The Woods), who approaches the work with confidence and heart. He is helped considerably by this group of actors, some a perfect fit for the role (Ann Dowd), and some a bit more unexpected (a great Jason Isaacs). At nearly two hours, the conversation starts to feel a bit circular near the midpoint, and Kranz didn't figure out any kind of interesting visual style apart from docudrama. Yet there is no question that Mass is a powerful portrayal of grieving through the impossible- and as an allegory for how a broken nation might start to heal some of these wounds. Expect the strong possibility of Oscar nominations for Ann Dowd, perhaps even Martha Plimpton. As mothers, they own the film. 

Red Rocket (dir. Sean Baker) 

Sean Baker (Tangerine, The Florida Project) is back with another incredible movie going experience, portraying the lives of Americans living on the fringe. His formula is one of a kind and almost no-fail- find non-professional actors and people who fit the part- real people- rather than asking mega Hollywood celebrities to dress down- and ask them to more or less portray versions of themselves. Red Rocket is one of his best yet.

This time around, Baker not only unveils a cast of phenomenal discoveries, but also resurrects a career. Simon Rex is an actor you might know from some of the Scary Movie films (in particular, the highly underrated and highly hilarious Scary Movie 3), but he also had a brief career on the outskirts of the adult entertainment industry, in addition to a brief stint as an MTV VJ in the mid 90's. He tried a little bit of a lot of things and then mostly disappeared. Baker called him up only a few days before production and hired him to play Mikey Saber- a washed up adult film star who stumbles back to his Texas hometown after he hits some kind of a rock bottom. Rex inhabits the character completely, and it may not be too hard to do, as the character and the actor don't seem all that different on the surface. 

Mikey finagles his way back into the graces of his estranged wife and mother in law, at least so he can have a place to crash for a while. It doesn't take long before the schemes start hatching, and his plan to get back to his "big" Los Angeles life starts to come into view. Mikey is a charmer who could give you the most interesting conversation of your life in the span of three minutes, so manipulating comes naturally to him. There is an interesting little political allegory that Baker has on simmer- perhaps not too subtly- as he takes a look at why Americans are so easily taken by con men and fraudsters these days. 

Red Rocket has all the hallmarks of a Sean Baker film. It shows you a world you probably haven't seen before, it humanizes people who tend to remain in the background of Hollywood films, it is sexually graphic, and it finds the beauty in American decay. Perhaps it is thanks to Rex, but Red Rocket is also a non-stop laugh riot- until a certain point when the joke just isn't funny anymore. You'll know when you get there.