AND WHILE WE WERE HERE — 2 stars
A woman has a journey of self-discovery in Italy.(1:24) NR: Sexuality. Cinema Village.
Kate Bosworth gives a still-waters-run-deep performance as Jane, a woman who, while visiting Italy with her husband, stumbles into an affair with a 19-year-old American living there.
Researching a book on her grandmother’s experiences in Italy during the World Wars, Jane is mismatched with her dullard British husband (Jamie Blackley). The passion we hear in Jane’s grandmother’s voice — the young woman has recorded their interviews, and plays them on headphones as she wanders the old country — is like a siren call to try something new. The motormouthed young Leonard (Iddo Goldberg) represents a dive toward passion, but director Kat Coiro overestimates his attractiveness and appeal.
Though the film plays like late-era Woody Allen — not necessarily a good thing — and Goldberg’s rambunctiousness is more annoying than liberating, there’s a serious depth of feeling here. Bosworth, thankfully, is attuned to that, and makes the most of it.
NAKED AS WE CAME — 3 stars
A dying woman’s family spends time with her and her groundskeeper. (1:30). NR: Sexuality. Cinema Village.
A committed cast and pensive insights into family and self-expression help make this indie drama work.
Playing a woman whose grown children arrive to unburden themselves of the past, the News’ own Lué McWilliams shines as Lilly, a woman whose colorful life included a relationship with a politician. Now, though, Lilly has terminal cancer, a fact her son Elliot (Ryan Vigilant) and daughter Laura (Karmine Alers) weren’t fully aware of. When they show up to care for her, they discover her groundskeeper, Ted (Benjamin Weaver), who may not be what he seems. But he does spark a passion that both complicates and clarifies things.
Writer and director Richard LeMay’s film plays from the heart, sometimes almost too blatantly. But on the whole, it nicely underscores how silences and shouts often come from the same place.
MOTHER OF GEORGE — 3 stars
A Nigerian couple in Brooklyn have trouble conceiving a child. (1:45) NR. Angelika.
This beautifully filmed, aching slice-of-life indie drama stars Danai Gurira as Adenike, whose culture and family place blessings — and burdens — on her upon her wedding to Ayodele (Isaach De Bankole). Children will be part of their life, they’re assured, and in turn the new family will fill a spot in the community.
But two years later, the couple is childless and Adenike, who watches as her friends start families, must push her reluctant husband to visit a fertility clinic. Director Andrew Dosunmu’s film is big-hearted and rich, frequently using slow motion to underscore an artful intimacy.
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