Review
Under Review
Kate Atkinson’s Dark Dance with Genre
The novelist has long put her own twist on conventional forms. In “Shrines of Gaiety,” she uses the night clubs of nineteen-twenties London to tell a broader story.
Page-Turner
The Short Story at the Center of the “Bad Art Friend” Saga
A Times Magazine feature has prompted feverish discourse about the ethics of artistic appropriation. Is the art in question any good?
The Front Row
“Little Girl,” Reviewed: A Brilliantly Directed Documentary About a Transgender Child
A French girl’s confrontation with transphobia reveals the country’s hidden fractures and her own strength of character.
On Television
“The Pursuit of Love” Is a Scathing Satire of the British Upper Classes
In a new adaptation of the novel, two cousins navigate family, marriage, and their complicated friendship.
Listening Booth
Vince Staples Opens Up on “Vince Staples”
The rapper offers intimate introspection on his excellent new album.
The Front Row
Jazz Review: A Crucial Charles Mingus Concert Finally Gets Its Due
The new album “Mingus at Carnegie Hall” makes a 1974 performance available in full for the first time.
Podcast Dept.
Dave Chappelle’s Freewheeling Podcast
On “The Midnight Miracle,” the comedian brings his rogue sensibility to the world of podcasting.
The Front Row
“Nomadland,” Reviewed: Chloé Zhao’s Nostalgic Portrait of Itinerant America
The film exalts the working class, but it doesn’t let working people present themselves.
The Front Row
“Saint Maud,” Reviewed: A Delusional Home Health Aide, Trapped in a Horror Movie
Religion gives rise to madness in an intriguing yet frustrating début feature.
Cultural Comment
How “Promising Young Woman” Refigures the Rape-Revenge Movie
The twisty thriller upends a dark genre’s most familiar tropes, telling the story of a long aftermath and the guilt shared by those in power.
The Front Row
The Literary Frenzy of Werner Schroeter’s “Malina”
With a surprising and canny economy of means, this drama from 1991 captures a great novelist’s prodigious imagination.
The Front Row
“Cuties,” the Extraordinary Netflix Début That Became the Target of a Right-Wing Campaign
The subject of Maïmouna Doucouré’s film isn’t twerking; it’s children who lack the resources to put sexualized media and pop culture into perspective.
The Front Row
What to Stream: “Alexandria: Again and Forever,” a Masterpiece Hiding on Netflix
The 1989 movie by the Egyptian filmmaker Youssef Chahine is a bold combination of many genres: it’s a romantic melodrama and a riotous comedy, a political drama, a memory piece, and a work of self-referentiality.
The Front Row
“Boys State,” Reviewed: A Frustratingly Hermetic View of Texas Teen Politicos
The void left by the filmmakers’ invisibility in their documentary eclipses the details and events they present.
The Front Row
“An Easy Girl,” Reviewed: Rebecca Zlotowski’s Brilliant Portrayal of a Teen-Ager’s Brush with Glitz
The French director's new film borrows tropes, tones, and even a lead actress from reality TV, but it also looks behind the genre’s vulgar appeal.
Second Read
“Chronicle of a Plague, Revisited” and the Inner Life of Catastrophe
Andrew Holleran’s essays about the AIDS crisis have acquired an eerie familiarity during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Front Row
“Downhill,” Reviewed: An Inert Remake of “Force Majeure”
The failure of the movie resides in its too-easy sense that characters can be recognized and defined by their type.
Under Review
“The House of God,” a Book as Sexist as It Was Influential, Gets a Sequel
Opening “Man’s 4th Best Hospital,” I wondered if a forty-year career as a psychiatrist had acquainted Samuel Shem with the notion that women have inner lives, but the book’s depiction of gender—and race, and privilege—is still old-fashioned.
Page-Turner
Carmen Maria Machado’s Many Haunted Stories of a Toxic Relationship
In her new memoir, “In the Dream House,” Machado achieves a formally inventive representation of a difficult subject.
The Front Row
“Frankie” and the Performance of Life in the Face of Death
In Ira Sachs’s restrained melodrama, Isabelle Huppert plays an actress who is dying of cancer and summons her family and friends to bid her goodbye.