Black Box Diaries ***1/2
"Issue documentaries” sometimes feel like they can only take you so far emotionally; this one packs a real wallop because it’s also such a powerful character study. That character is Shiori Itô, a Japanese journalist who here chronicles her long battle for justice after accusing Noriyuki Yamaguchi—a high-powered journalist with connections to then-prime-minister Shinzo Abe—of drugging and raping her in 2015. As a filmmaker, Itô’s pretty savvy, understanding when she can wrestle tension out of the efforts to corner a police official who has refused to answer her questions, and when silent footage from a security camera can speak volumes. Yet she also understands how to keep her own journey at the center, from the way taking a journalistic approach to addressing her assault allows her to keep the trauma at a psychological distance, to the moments when that approach breaks down. And while societal and institutional ideas in Japan about sexual violence are clearly part of this story, Itô is bold enough to let that idea play out through her own personal experience. As much as the narrative arc might be building towards a legal verdict, this is a tale of devastating human moments, from the home movies of the carefree little girl Itô can never be again, to the emotions inspired by one person choosing to act in her best interest, and against his own, simply because it’s the morally right thing to do. Available Nov. 22 at Broadway Centre Cinemas. (NR)

Blitz **1/2
For a movie so full of texture and incident, Blitz comes up maddeningly short in answering a pretty basic question: What is this movie about? Set in 1940 London as the Nazi bombing campaign begins, it follows single mother Rita Hanway (Saoirse Ronan), as she makes the hard decision to send her 9-year-old son George (Elliott Heffernan) to the British countryside for safety—only George has other ideas, and leaps off the train to make his way back home. Most of the narrative is a child’s-eye-view wartime odyssey reminiscent of Empire of the Son, as George encounters everything from a kindly surrogate-father warden (Benjamin Clémentine) to a Fagin-like criminal (Stephen Graham) heading a gang of looters. But writer/director Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) feels obliged to return to Rita’s life in London, or flashbacks to her experience with George’s father, which never remotely matches George’s experience for dramatic impact. And even when the story does focus on George, the story proves mostly episodic, briefly touching on themes like George’s status as a biracial kid before mostly abandoning them. Several individual scenes are terrifically executed—like a giddy scene at a nightclub that quickly turns dark, and the opening sequence of firefighters fighting both fires and their own equipment—and Blitz provides an effective overview of its harrowing setting. Seriously, though: What the hell is it actually about? Available Nov. 22 via AppleTV+. (PG-13)

Bonhoeffer **
I won’t pretend I know enough about the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to say whether writer/director Todd Komarnicki’s biopic does him justice, nor whether the fact that Bonhoeffer biographer Eric Metaxas subsequently turned into a conservative bomb-thrower should color one’s approach to a film apparently based on his work. I can only suggest that you can tell a story about a very good person without it being a very good movie. Opening with a framing sequence of Bonhoeffer (Jonas Dassler) in prison circa 1946 for his anti-Nazi activities, it flashes back to his youth in Germany, his divinity school studies, his years in America connecting with the social gospel of the Black Baptist church, and his work as a pastor who fought against the capitulation of the German church to the Hitler regime. Telling the tale of a literal martyr is never going to be easy, and Dassler’s performance never really finds a particularly interesting note to play beyond Bonhoeffer’s righteousness and moral indignation. The rest is a fairly straightforward beaded string of events carrying Bonhoeffer into direct conflict with the Nazis, and an editing rhythm that can’t wrangle much tension even out of an attempt to assassinate Hitler. However much Bonhoeffer’s life might offer a model of refusal to accept the authority of an immoral government, the telling is clunky enough that it just made me want to watch one of the documentaries about him. Available Nov. 22 in theaters. (PG-13)

Bread and Roses **1/2
There’s no simple way to take a grueling battle for basic human rights and make it cinematic, but director Sahra Mani struggles to pull together the various parts of her chronicle of brave dissent. The subject is the aftermath of the return to power of the Taliban in Kabul, Afghanistan in 2021, and the accompanying clamp-down on the rights of women to work, go to school or even be out in public alone. Mani follows several women working on protest actions against the government—focusing on dentist Zahra Mohammadi—as well as taking occasional detours to look in on women who have fled as refugees to Pakistan. Those latter moments, while a sad example of what it’s like when basic survival requires drastic action, never manage to match the urgency of the footage shot in Kabul; not having access to a washing machine starts to feel a bit insignificant compared to the activists being beaten and imprisoned. And as effectively as Mani captures the violent response to these protests, the actions often begin to run together with a sameness that starts to make it feel like a short film could have captured the same basic ideas. There’s one terrific sequence in which Mohammadi’s young nieces join in the expression of anger against the Taliban, a great example of the potential for generational change. I just wish more scenes like this had helped bring the movie to life. Available Nov. 22 via AppleTV+. (NR)

Gladiator II ***
“Are you not entertained?” Russell Crowe’s famously intoned at one point during 2000’s Gladiator—and in director Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his own Oscar-winner, it certainly feels like that question is always at the forefront. Set 16 years after the original, it follows an enslaved soldier named Hanno (Paul Mescal) brought by gladiator stablemaster Macrinus (Denzel Washington) to fight in Rome, where he finds himself confronting political machinations, his quest for revenge against a war-weary Roman general (Pedro Pascal) and his own mysterious legacy. Mescal does a solid enough job in the central role, even if he can’t quite match the movie-star gravitas that Crowe brought to Gladiator, and the reminders of this film’s connection to its predecessor—particularly through the presence of Connie Nielsen, returning as Lucilla—grow a little incessant. But there’s so much throwback swords-and-sandals epic energy on display in the action sequences, and plenty of stuff that’s just plain fun to watch: Washington’s juicy villain turn as the calculating Macrinus; Joseph Quinn and Fred Hechinger as the decadent twin emperors; filling the Colosseum with water to stage a full-scale naval battle, complete with sharks (!!!). David Scarpa’s screenplay even trots out an “I am Spartacus” moment to delight the movie nerds. When I get the rare two-and-a-half-hour spectacle that feels fleet-footed rather than lugubrious, am I not entertained? Hell yes, I am. Available Nov. 22 in theaters. (R)

Out of My Mind ***
Don’t be fooled by the Afterschool Special vibe of the premise; this adaptation of Sharon M. Draper’s YA novel offers a fully-developed character study, not just a lecture in tolerance. It’s the story of Melody Brooks (Phoebe-Rae Taylor), a wheelchair-bound, non-verbal 12-year-old with cerebral palsy who longs to leave her special-ed environment for a mainstream classroom, despite the practical and social challenges of her difficulty communicating. Viewers will have far less difficulty, as director Amber Sealey and screenwriter Daniel Stiepelman provide an internal monologue (voiced by Jennifer Aniston), but the real achievement is the way that narration, the flashes to Melody’s laminated communication cards, the electronic voice simulator Melody eventually receives and Taylor’s physical performance meld seamlessly to create a singular individual full of life but also frustration and not being able to share her unique self with the world. And Rosemarie DeWitt and Luke Kirby do terrific work as Melody’s parents, capturing their own frustrations and ferocious advocacy. It’s perhaps inevitable that the story would oversimplify the villainy of educational bureaucracy, and somewhat of a distraction that so much time is ultimately spent on a “Whiz Kids” competition Melody participates in. The real kick comes from the authentic emotion of feeling locked away from a world you desperately want to be a part of. Available Nov. 22 via Disney+. (NR)

The Piano Lesson **1/2
I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a stage production of August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 play, so I can only speculate that director Malcolm Washington hasn’t found a particularly effective way of translating its merits to the screen. Set in 1937 Pittsburgh, it follows a Black family—patriarch Doaker Charles (Samuel L. Jackson), his hard-drinking brother Wining Boy (Michael Potts), and their niece Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) and nephew Boy Willie (John David Washington, Malcolm’s brother)—as they reckon with their legacy as descendants of slaves on a Mississippi plantation, and specifically the history of a piano stolen from the family that once owned their ancestors. Wilson’s text turns this into a complex ghost story where the reason they’re being haunted only gradually comes into focus, and it’s powerful watching Berniece and Boy Willie spar over how best to honor those who preceded them. Yet it often feels like Malcolm Washington isn’t sure where to leave the material feeling like a theatrical work (like John David’s loud and projected performance) and when more cinematic conventions get in the way (like an intrusive music score and over-editing the suspense out of the climax). All the pieces are there to make the thematic resonance of the source material evident, while it’s just as evident that those themes might be even more resonant in their original form. Available Nov. 22 via Netflix. (PG-13)

Wicked **1/2
See feature review. Available Nov. 22 in theaters. (PG)