Liars and Saints

  Sometimes, an idea is so shrewd, the movie seems to write itself. In "Rebuilding," Josh O'Connor lives somewhere west of the Rockies. A wildfire destroys his ranch; he relocates to a trailer on FEMA-owned land. This, then, is a migration story; it brings Tony Kushner to mind. She was.. ...not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania - and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here , in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes - because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Conc...

  Mary Roy feels ambivalent about child-rearing. We know this because she has harsh words for her son, when he fails a class: "You are ugly and stupid. If I were you, I would kill myself." Also, Mary Roy berates her daughter, Arundhati, for having failed to impress a visiting architect. "You couldn't think of one intelligent thing to say?" When Arundhati publishes her Booker-winning debut, "The God of Small Things," Mary says, "I struggle to imagine what all the fuss is about...." Arundhati initiates a seven-year period of estrangement--"not so I could escape my mother, but so that I could continue to love her." Mary never asks about these seven years; Arundhati doesn't dwell on this. "I lived. I was fine." Arundhati feels admiration for Mary--"my gangster"--because Mary starts an astoundingly successful school and actually wins a feminist legal battle. Mary changes an important law in India. She teaches boys...

  We're watching HBO's "Heated Rivalry," which is basically soft-core porn featuring two hockey players. The affiliated studio is called CRAVE--a name that leaves very little to the imagination. When I saw an ad for the show, I immediately noticed the frenzied groping and shirtlessness. It would be difficult not to notice. "There's something about the cinematography," I said to my spouse. "Or maybe the lighting? I just think you'll enjoy this. It's a true technical achievement." Call me crazy, but the "stakes" are somewhat mysterious to me. The rival hockey players love each other--but they cannot be forthright about their love, because it's a feeling that dare not speak its name. But aren't we in 2025? The current climate is different from that of Victorian England, right? Maybe I'm being obtuse. But we have Tom Daley in the world. And we have Nico Keenan, the Olympic field hockey player. No one is trying to burn ...

The NYT recently highlighted "There's a Boat" as one of the apex moments in musical theater history. People say this really belongs to an opera, but lines can be blurry. "Boat" is a sales pitch. Sportin' Life wants Bess's company. He is trying to win her away from Porgy. He lures her with promises of an exciting new life in Manhattan; the promises are purely superficial. There will be nothing meaningful in New York City, but there will be sequins and bright lights. I'll buy you the swellest mansion-- Up on upper Fifth Avenue. And to Harlem we'll go struttin'.... We'll go a struttin'..... And there'll be nothin' too good for you. I'll dress you in silks and satins-- And the latest Paris styles-- And all your blues you'll be forgettin'... You'll be forgettin'.... There'll be no frettin'..... Just nothing but smiles.... Sportin' Life shows his contempt at the end of the song. "Don't be a f...

  If there is one substantial flaw in "Merrily We Roll Along," it's the failure to look closely at the character of Frank, Jr. Yes, Jr. is approximately six years old in his final scene--but six-year-olds have wild and colorful interior lives. Ask Beverly Cleary. Since we don't get to know Frank, Jr., we have to do our own work to imagine what it's like to experience Junior's absence (year after year after year). I blame George Furth. The omission is important, because a big part of Mary's final meltdown has to do with Frank, Jr. In a sharp exchange, Mary "casually" mentions that Junior has thanked her for attending "the big high-school graduation." When Frank, Sr., peevishly observes that he wasn't invited, Mary has the right response: "Neither was I." She doesn't have to say anything more. This particular moment is the "apex" moment: It's the height of Senior's monstrosity. The entire show is an eff...

 Jen Hatmaker is gifted with a computer; hand her a laptop, and interesting things happen. In her recent memoir, she recalls a moment of discovery; at some point, she just understood that she could make other kids laugh. This was a superpower--it pointed her toward her adult life. (A similar event happens in Patti LuPone's memoir. In high school, LuPone is singing. Her teacher bluntly says, "You have a gift, and your entire life will be about the exploration of this one gift.") Hatmaker has another powerful memory from childhood. She remembers a male teacher caressing her shoulders in a way that makes her recoil. In this memory, she is an obedient member of an evangelical church; she believes that her duty is not to make waves. She doesn't say anything. Years later, she learns that the teacher in question assaulted at least one child. This discovery imparts a lesson: Occasionally, my body "knows" things, and I should pay attention. But the obvious set-piece ...