Week Ending 9/5/25

I didn't realize there was an endearment test until Cliff Cashion (Michael Strassner) introduces himself by his whole name, to the same room, a third time. It's a maneuver usually ascribed to blowhard traveling salesmen weaponizing every breath to stay relevant and hook new clients. The sort of thing that makes you instinctively cringe whenever it occurs. And yet Cliff's smile and genuine enthusiasm provides an earnest innocence that makes you want to give him a hug. Even if it's a bit he doesn't realize he's doing because his improv brain just takes over, you could never be angry. You also want everyone to remember his name.

It's the same energy Matty Matheson exudes as Neil Fak on "The Bear"—that teddy bear mystique of joviality proving so pure that it makes the uncommon frown pierce your heart due to its sorrow being amplified by the absence of a smile. And since Jay Duplass' The Baltimorons opens with a suicide attempt gone wrong, that contrast is a huge piece of its success. Strassner (who co-wrote with Duplass) maintains an underlying thread of sadness with the character because he's always one roadblock away from feeling that despair again. It's why he didn't just give up drinking after almost ending his life. He relinquished his identity.

What's great about the script, though, is that it never blames Cliff's fiancé Brittany (Olivia Luccardi) for this decision. Yes, her love and worry trigger his quest for sobriety and his desire to dedicate himself to being present in their relationship demands he leave everything connected to that behavior behind (his sketch comedy aspirations), but that doesn't make her a villain. It's problematic that she isn't willing to give-up a binary all-or-nothing mindset to the point of making him promise to never try and get back into that life without the alcohol, but it's ultimately on Cliff to have that conversation.

So, one must ask: does Cliff even want to try that? How much of his pivot into "normalcy" as a prospective mortgage broker is using Brittany's push as an excuse to ignore his own fear? It's why slamming his face into a door and losing a molar becomes an unlikely Christmas miracle wherein he's forced to confront the possibility he's course corrected too far. And it's not just because the injury allows him to meet Dr. Didi (Liz Larsen) and want to help make her smile after eavesdropping on how horrible her Christmas Eve has gone. But also to learn how his lack of communication with Brittany has made their problems worse.

All Cliff needs to be happy is a "yes and ..." partner. He tries with Brittany, but she's too busy with family to even save him a plate for his return from emergency dental surgery. So, he tries getting it from Didi too, but she has her own problems and babysitting this giant child—while entertaining—would only become an excuse to avoid them. It's therefore only when shared kindness drags her and Cliff into committing a felony together that the distraction from their tailspinning lives might reveal itself to be a balm instead. Maybe if they give each other this reprieve today, they'll heal enough to deal with the chaos tomorrow.

It's an extremely charming ride that starts with the two deciding it's okay to wallow together and at least have some company now that they've both been abandoned. With every new scenario Duplass and Strassner throw at these characters, however, we soon realize the whole of The Baltimorons is pretty much just an extended rendition of that titular sketch in Cliff's repertoire. Procuring his car from impound. Crashing her ex-husband's wedding reception. Actually going on stage to perform said act sans safety rails (Didi has never been on stage before and Cliff has never done it sober).

Each step leads to an epiphany that they no longer want to sulk alone. Didi is obviously skeptical that he truly wants to hang out with her (he's much younger and has a fiancé), but the electricity and excitement that comes from being appreciated and thought about rejuvenates her desire to cause trouble. And once she opens up enough to reveal this fact, Cliff is never going to let go. She wants to watch a comedy show? She wants him to be unhinged? He's really being this charismatic and magnetic without the booze? These are two lost souls who, even if just for one day, have remembered what it means to be themselves.

And that, of course, also means that Cliff must reveal the circumstances that got him here. We know why Didi has lost that spark, but why Cliff? Well, it's as tragic as you'd expect considering the suicide attempt, but it gets even more heart-breaking well after you believe you already have all the details. That's a testament to Strassner's performance and a script that knows how to use comedy as a tool to mine down into the abyss and expose an authentic truth. Funny people can hurt and straight-faced professionals can know how to have fun. Finding the honesty to admit and show those realities ultimately comes down to trust.

That's what Strassner and Larsen's chemistry delivers. Sure, there's romance and kinship, but the plot's progression coincides with character evolutions too as Didi thaws and Cliff stiffens until a release can occur. It results in a memorably complex and mature rom com that gets the appeal of friendship and camaraderie within the "love" equation. Whether this relationship is consummated or broken off doesn't matter because nothing that happens physically could ever compare to what they share emotionally. Together or apart ... it won't change how this day has become a crucial turning point for the rest of their lives.

8/10

How much does trauma weigh? That's the central question behind Sean Ellis' The Cut. Because it's not just about shedding over thirty pounds in six days to qualify for his first bout in a decade. No, the Wolf of Dublin (Orlando Bloom delivering a memorable and physically committed performance) has much heavier demons than that. We saw it first-hand via an opening prologue depicting his last fight and how he went from certain victory to devastating defeat courtesy of a PTSD trigger tricking his brain into hearing a gunshot before freezing in place.

What that sound represents isn't difficult to parse once we witness the first of many flashback memories setting the stage for an inevitable collision course between past and present. So, it's kind of funny that it's just never brought up. We know it haunts him. We assume his trainer/life partner Caitlin (Caitríona Balfe) knows it. Heck, even Boz the amoral fixer (John Turturro at his over-the-top best) hired by this insane comeback bid's amoral promoter (Gary Beadle) knows it ... at least enough to exploit it for his own unscrupulous purposes.

Shouldn't confronting that pain be the movie? Shouldn't the weight be the easy thing to conquer because everyone knows it still won't be enough? If that prologue and the constant motif of blood pooling into Wolf's hands (the credits label Bloom's character solely as "Boxer" and I can't for the life of me remember if anyone ever calls him by his actual name) means anything to us, it's that getting in the ring is only half the battle. He must still combat the threat of another trigger and the only surefire way to do so is accepting what happened.

But that's not what Justin Bull's screenplay (born from a story by Mark Lane) cares about. It would rather turn a story ripe for thoughtful drama into a superficial race against time to do whatever's necessary to get that scale to display the correct number. It would rather set-up Caitlin as an empowered woman who conquered all the misogyny that came from following her father into boxing only to have everyone else treat her like she doesn't belong—like she's weak for caring about Wolf's soul. It would rather glorify toxic masculinity's insane ambition to use self-harm to achieve an irrelevant dream than make Wolf an actual role model.

I've been a fan of Ellis for twenty years, ever since his debut feature Cashback, but his attempts to infuse this men's rights movement slog of a scree with energy via some nice visual flourishes isn't enough. Because it's still just the story of a weak kid who took his mother's (Clare Dunne) words about being the one who hurts rather than the one who gets hurt to heart. It's still just a man who admits he tried to put someone else besides himself first only to realize it would never be enough. It's still a man who pushes everyone who loves him away only to beg forgiveness after the fact and a film that lets him get away with it all.

That's where The Cut truly lost me since I can accept all the horrible things Wolf does if it serves a purpose. If he did all this heinous stuff only to get on that scale and not be able to fight—well that's a lesson worth taking. It would prove that love is what matters. That all this suffering born from the love he had for his mother (also a victim of misogyny) meant something. To give him the victory anyway, though? To teach him, as he has allowed himself to be taught his whole life, that the pain makes him stronger and that literally killing yourself for a fleeting victory is virtuous? No thanks.

Maybe Ellis and company think they're using that stuff to say the opposite. Maybe they believe it's laudable to. I don't know. The exploitation of the IRA in those flashbacks and the constant weaponization of Wolf's ability to inspire in the present only to have him choose the wrong path makes me think the latter because the film only ever presents true moral fortitude to spit in its face en route to depravity for depravity's sake. And that's fine if you want to portray a deal with the Devil bearing fruit. Don't also make your saint so saintly that there's zero cost. We might as well sell our souls too.

Why? Because it means nothing matters. You can't play both sides. You can't present consequences that render Wolf and Boz's actions evil if you also refuse to honor them. Let them win and let it be worth it in the moment, but there must be a price if we're meant to care. Otherwise, it's just misogyny. It's just meathead, anti-mental health aggression. It just questions why rules exist at all. Well, I get enough of that from reality with half the country earnestly saying "Daddy's home" about Trump being in the White House to whip this country back into shape with his belt. It should be satire, but it's sadly not.

4/10

Someone really thought they had something upon thinking, “Why does Frankenstein’s monster always get to be sympathetic while Dracula is relegated to malicious villainy?”

The correct answer is bloodlust and rage as opposed to societal cruelty and a lack of autonomy. The filmmakers behind Dracula Untold turned to each other and screamed, “Superhero vampire!” instead.

I like Luke Evans. I like the idea of conquering the hunger for three days before turning human again. I even like the decision to use evil to fight evil. I guess I just wish there was more to the script than good guy versus bad guy bloodshed and obvious sacrifices to push the hero into becoming an actual monster (before still showing how the love in his heart retains his heroism).

My main gripe is hiring Charles Dance to be a creeper with Big Bad potential (sorry, Dominic Cooper, you and your bronzer never approached formidable) and then not making good on the promise because they’d rather save him for a sequel that never came.

5/10

We can all agree this is Greg's (Jaboukie Young-White) fault, right? He just had to play matchmaker in what he correctly assumed was a no-lose situation upon seeing a just stood-up Jenny (Ruby Cruz) sitting alone by his bar. If Connor (Jonah Hauer-King) went over as his charming self, they might hit it off. And, even if they don't, the act of him making the attempt might get Olivia (Zoey Deutch)—the woman Connor has been pining over for years—to stop acting cool and finally acknowledge there's something between them. Did Greg think the trio would all go home and have sex together? No. His powers were too strong.

As one of many funny lines in Ethan Ogilby's script explains, however, Connor didn't have a threesome and get both women pregnant. That verbiage implies simultaneous conception, but the truth will show that neither woman conceived a child that night. What he did was get both women from that threesome pregnant. And while it's one thing to indelibly link them together for the rest of their lives, it's another to have the news ostensibly ruin their lives too. Because those tests don't come back positive until after Connor and Olivia start dating. And the decision to take both to term doesn't occur lightly.

Chad Hartigan's The Threesome isn't an anti-abortion film, though. Far from it. The whole misnomer of the "pro-life" label was to prop up the birth of babies as the goal in a way that incorrectly pretended "pro-choice" advocates were championing death. It's why anti-abortion and pro-abortion are more accurate terms since the debate has nothing to do with babies at all. It's about giving mothers autonomy to make a choice rather than legally forcing them into it no matter the circumstances or their health. Yes, Olivia and Jenny do both carry to term—it's crucial for the film's comedy and messaging. But they very purposefully weigh that decision.

They must because it's a complex one. Connor loves Olivia and wants to start a family while also supporting Jenny. Jenny would love for Connor to love her so she won't have to do this alone regardless of knowing he wouldn't make her do it alone. And Olivia loves Connor but cannot fathom the chaos or fool herself into thinking things didn't change upon finding out her boyfriend was fathering a second child. It doesn't matter that it happened before they became exclusive or that she's the person who talked him into bringing Jenny home that night. Context can't simply be ignored, but it also isn't some magical Band-Aid.

That truth is the film's biggest strength because the context hose is on full blast throughout its runtime. Not just adding new details to color what's going on, but also changing the details we already know to make them more complicated insofar as sometimes reversing who feels what about the other. It's a pretty impressive dance that Hartigan brings to life off the page because the bombshells never cease falling right when we find ourselves lulled into a welcome sense of calm. The pacing and comedic beats are as impeccable as the performances dragging their characters through the emotional wringer that results.

It's also why Greg plays such a crucial role to the whole. He could have just been the throwaway friend who got the ball rolling, but Ogilby threads him in from start to finish as a sort of outside commentary track reminding us how we're allowed to laugh at the absurdity. He's there when Olivia and Jenny inexplicably run into each other at the same OBGYN to cut through Connor's slack-jawed shock with a truth bomb. He's there in the Lamaze classes helping to make their threesome a quartet while his husband surely waits at home to hear every juicy detail. Hauer-King is the MVP here and it's not even a question.

That doesn't diminish the other actors, though, since the supporting players are expertly cast (Josh Segarra as Olivia's married fling, Robert Longstreet and Arden Myrin as Jenny's protective parents, Kristin Slaysman and Allan McLeod as Olivia's supportive sister and brother-in-law who love grabbing the proverbial popcorn to watch the show, and Julia Sweeney as Connor's excitable mother) and the three leads know their assignment is first and foremost to authentically traverse this unwitting Ménage à Trois born from a deliberate one. Because big emotions are unavoidable regardless of it being no one's fault (except Greg's).

These characters are also never the joke. We aren't laughing at them for being the stereotypes they label themselves as either. The biggest laughs are a byproduct of their circumstances poking fun at the insanity while also diffusing the unavoidable feelings of pain and sorrow born from it. Everyone ultimately cares about the same thing: protecting the babies. That's what matters most, regardless of whether any offer romantic love its seat back at the table. Hartman and Ogilby prove the has-beens moaning about how adhering to today's social climate prevents them from making good comedies are lazy hacks.

7/10