海角大神

A documentary about families in which the parents and children are very different and a romantic comedy based on a Nick Hornby novel were two of Monitor film critic Peter Rainer's highest-ranked movies to have been released this month.

鈥榃hat Will People Say鈥� presents a cultural divide with urgency

Nisha (Maria Mozhdah), in the extraordinary new film 鈥淲hat Will People Say,鈥� is a 16-year-old girl who lives on the outskirts of Oslo with her tightknit Pakistani immigrant family.聽When her boyfriend sneaks into her bedroom at night and they engage in some chaste smooching, Nisha鈥檚 father, Mirza (Adil Hussain), walks in on them, and assumes the worst. Her father kidnaps her and takes her to live with his extended clan in Pakistan.聽

Iram Haq, the writer-director, is a Pakistani woman who grew up in Norway and endured an experience similar to Nisha鈥檚 when she was 14. This may explain why the movie has such bite and urgency. In a sense, 鈥淲hat Will People Say鈥� is a real-life terror trip but with human ghouls and goblins. Except that Haq does something quite complicated and, given her own past experience, almost heroic: She gives Mirza and his family their due.聽

Although I thought that, given the film鈥檚 overall humanistic temper, they were portrayed perhaps a shade too unfeelingly, it is always clear from scene to scene why Nisha鈥檚 family members act as they do. (The film would have been stronger if Nisha had demonstrated some conflicted, deep-set attraction to the ways of her ancestors as well.)聽

Although the role may not have been written with great depth, Hussain鈥檚 performance as Mirza is richly layered. Clearly he loves his daughter and he is aghast both at her supposed wrongdoing and, even more so, by the indignities he is capable of committing against her. In the end, he is as riven as she is.聽Grade: A- (This movie is not rated.)

鈥楾he Bookshop鈥� evokes nostalgia for all things literary

Based on the 1978 novel by Penelope Fitzgerald and written and directed by Isabel Coixet, 鈥淭he Bookshop鈥� is set far enough in the past 鈥� 1959, in the English coastal town of Hardborough in Suffolk 鈥� to evoke an instant nostalgia for all things literary. If nothing else, it makes you want to stock up on Penguin paperbacks.

Florence Green (Emily Mortimer) loves books and decides to convert the run-down home she owns and occupies into a bookshop, the only one within many miles. It鈥檚 a daring enterprise since the coastal inhabitants 鈥� a mix of working-class and upper echelon 鈥� are apparently not big readers.聽The one notable exception is Edmund Brundish (Bill Nighy), a crusty widower who has essentially been a recluse for decades.

For a movie that is about a collection of oddballs, it can sometimes feel rather generic. But the eccentricities issue from real adversity.聽Florence鈥檚 chief adversary is Violet Gamart, played by Patricia Clarkson, the town鈥檚 reigning society matron. She can鈥檛 abide anybody else acting as any kind of arbiter of taste, least of all someone who does not occupy her social stratum.

Coixet is rather heavy-handed in making her classist points. It also doesn鈥檛 help that the community is so sketchily filled in that it鈥檚 never clear whether a bookstore would indeed serve its people or engender new readers.聽But the acting in the film mostly triumphs over these defects.聽Clarkson鈥檚 is a remarkably pure performance, affirming once again the actor鈥檚 truism that a scoundrel should never be played as such. They all think they have their reasons. And Nighy is quite touching.聽Grade: B+ (Rated PG for some thematic elements, language, and brief smoking.)

'Far From the Tree' chronicles very different children, parents

Author and psychologist Andrew Solomon鈥檚 bestselling 2012 book 鈥淔ar From the Tree: Parents, Children, and the Search for Identity鈥� chronicled some 300 case histories of families in which a child and the child鈥檚 parents were vastly unalike. Director Rachel Dretzin聽focuses on six families, in addition to Solomon鈥檚 story, and each one is compelling in ways that initially may seem disparate but gradually cohere into a thesis. Dretzin and Solomon are promoting that old inspirational chestnut about triumphing over adversity.聽聽

Besides Solomon, we also encounter Jack, who was born severely autistic, and Loini, who felt isolated by her dwarfism until she attended a Little People of America convention and connected with her 鈥渢ribe.鈥� Married couple Leah Smith and Joseph Stramondo are also of that tribe, seem joyful together.聽Jason was born with Down syndrome.聽Most problematic in the movie is Trevor, who at 16, for no apparent reason, stabbed to death an 8-year-old boy. The family鈥檚 attitude toward Trevor is extremely complicated. His mother asks, 鈥淗ow can you stop loving your child?鈥澛營t is the core question posed by the film.

In their own very different ways, the parents in this movie have achieved a measure of acceptance and even uplift from their predicament. That the parents, and many of their children, were no doubt chosen for displaying this uplift skews the sample. But Solomon is on a good-news crusade here.聽Grade: B+ (This movie is not rated.)

Rom-com 'Juliet Naked' is indeed romantic and comedic

鈥淛uliet, Naked,鈥� directed by Jesse Peretz and adapted from the 2009 Nick Hornby novel, will never be mistaken for a classic, but it鈥檚 rather sweet and unprepossessing. Unusual for a rom-com these days, it actually manages to be both romantic and comedic.

Annie (Rose Byrne) lives with her boyfriend, Duncan (Chris O鈥橠owd), in an English coastal town. Dutiful to a fault, she tolerates Duncan鈥檚 fixation on an obscure 鈥�90s rocker, Tucker Crowe.聽Annie finds her mettle when she thinks a demo by Crowe is mediocre and says so on Duncan's fan blog. This sacrilege has the unintended effect of drawing out the actual Tucker Crowe, who agrees with her. An email 鈥渃ourtship鈥� ensues.

If all this sounds a bit twee and Nora Ephron-ish, you would not be wrong, but Peretz and the screenwriters 鈥� Evgenia Peretz, Jim Taylor, and Tamara Jenkins 鈥� keep things refreshingly funky. And when Tucker, played by Ethan Hawke, enters the picture, lured to London on a rather contrived pretext, the dual elements in this rom-com cohere.聽

Hawke is perfect casting because, as an actor, he already carries the superannuated Generation X vibes that define Tucker.聽Byrne is such a quicksilver presence that it is not always believable that Annie would often be so lacking in self-esteem. But her somewhat generic British reserve plays well opposite Tucker鈥檚 shambling Americanness. They fulfill one of the central tenets of the rom-com genre: Opposites attract. But the attraction is tentative and slow-growing, and this saves the movie from slickness. We seem to discover them as they are discovering each other.聽Grade: B+ (Rated R for language.)