Julia Garner: "Weapons"

 The movie "Weapons" is tonally different from "Sorry, Baby," but both movies ask what happens *after* a traumatic event.

"Weapons" seems to be an interpretation of the school shooting in Uvalde; at the start of "Weapons," seventeen children from one classroom simply disappear. (I thought of Uvalde, but I also thought of Tom Perrotta's novel "The Leftovers." Additionally, I thought of Asha Degree, a little girl who left her home in North Carolina, in the middle of the night, in 2000. She left despite the wind and rain. No one has seen Asha Degree in 25 years.)

The opening chapter of "Weapons" is the strongest, in part because it features the brilliant actor Julia Garner. Garner's character--Justine--was once a classroom teacher for the "allegory-of-Uvalde" children. Her many neighbors feel she must know secrets about the disappearance. Garner's character is memorable because she is a protagonist who behaves badly; she seduces a married man, stalks a child, drives drunk. The special achievement of the film is to *not* judge Garner's character; we understand exactly why she does what she does. People behave badly all the time, often as a response to stress. The writer seems to ask, "Do you really think you're better than this schoolteacher?"

Garner is electrifying in almost everything she does--smart, tough, conflicted. In "Weapons," she really devours her climactic scene with Alden Ehrenreich.

Many stories are centered on a family. Others have a "campus" vibe: Protagonists work together in a small space. A third option is to unite various misfits in an effort to take down one "bad" guy. "Weapons" makes none of these choices. "Weapons" shows us four or five semi-bad guys who are tangentially linked; each person has his or her own world, and we know things that the minor "satellite" characters cannot know. Actual life works this way. The other day, I was profoundly irritated because my child's teacher was late to pick up my child at the school's front door. My irritation had little or nothing to do with the teacher--and if she detected my terseness, she may have wanted to ask something about the bee in my bonnet. I have no idea what she was thinking. I did wonder why she neglected to apologize for her lateness. This not-very-consequential memory will always be slightly enigmatic to me.

"Weapons" does a fine job with mystery; it stumbles when it has to propose various resolutions. In a story like this, who really cares *why* we have the atmosphere that we have? The connect-the-dots moment is inevitably disappointing.

Still, I had a good time. Nice to see a writer/director taking risks.