THE NIGHT CLERK (2020)

Rated:  R

STARS: Tye Sheridan, Ana De Armas, Helen Hunt, John Leguizamo
DIRECTOR: Michael Cristofer
GENRE: Mystery/Suspense

With Helen Hunt, Tye Sheridan, Ana De Armas, and John Leguizamo, The Night Clerk doesn't lack for star power. What it does lack is that edge-of-your-seat tension and buildup to an explosive climax. The film, which has now made its way to Netflix, creeps along at an escargot pace, getting creepier by the minute. You might be okay with that, because The Night Clerk is a character study of a most fascinating dude. And the plot challenges you to stay on your toes and be your own amateur sleuth. At just 90 minutes running length, this is one you might easily watch a second time, in case you're sketchy about some things after the first go round.

Bart Bromley (Tye Sheridan) works the overnight shift as a hotel desk clerk. He's a young guy, socially awkward. More than most. He has Asperger's Syndrome. He's set up cameras in some of the rooms so he can observe the guests. He's not after sexual gratification. He likes to study people.Their speech patterns and mannerisms. So that he might develop, he thinks, a more "normal" public persona.

A woman named Karen (Jacque Gray) checks into the hotel. She lets a man into her room. They have an altercation that turns violent and Karen ends up dead. Bart has recorded the whole thing. When questioned by the police, his quirky behavior arouses the suspicions of detective Espada (John Leguizamo). 

Bart gets transferred to one of the hotel chain's other properties. An intriguing young woman named Andrea (Ana De Armas) checks in, Bart has his spy equipment observing her in her room. Andrea is drawn to Bart because she had a brother with Asperger's. Eventually they get around to spending the night together in a nonsexual, cuddly kind of way. Bart is falling hard for her. Andrea lets it slip that she is seeing a married man.

In a deja vu kind of moment, Bart observes a man with Andrea in her room. The man's behavior turns abusive. At this point, we've got to be thinking there's more here than meets the eye. Oh, how brilliant you are! Andrea's admission about the married man should point you (if you've been using your noodle) to a possible connection between herself and Karen's killer. 

I bought into Tye Sheridan's portrayal of Bart. He makes him quirky, but doesn't overdo it. Bart's an intelligent guy, and there's a balance that needed to be struck in order to bring that out within the framework of his social awkwardness.  

Ana De Armas, as Andrea, had a meaty part in the previously reviewed Knives Out. She's getting a lot of work and is becoming a fast rising star.

Helen Hunt, as Bart's overprotective mother, has a couple of emotive scenes, but it seems they could have plugged anybody into this non essential role. But then they wouldn't have had Helen Hunt to put up on the marquee.

John Leguizamo, as the detective, gives an understated performance, in line with the mood of this understated film.

The ending of The Night Clerk may have  you saying: WHA???  But then I do that every morning when I open my eyes to this creepy and strange world we live in.

Grade: B -

JILL'S TAKE

Finally, a Netflix offering I didn't hate. In fact, I rather enjoyed it. Unlike Tim, I felt the pace worked and I couldn't tear myself away from this offbeat film. (Not even for a bathroom break.)

At 23 years of age with a mere duo of film credits, Tye Sheridan played the main character in The Night Clerk with a clarity and consistency that is indeed impressive. However, I did find it slightly questionable that someone with Asperger's Syndrome, who flinched when a barber accidentally touched his skin, would permit the lip-lovely Ana De Armas to caress and kiss him.

It reminded me of that movie As Good As It Gets (that won Helen Hunt an Oscar in 1998) when Jack Nicholson's character was "cured" of his OCD because of love. ("You make me want to be a better man.") Hokey, yes. But then movie goers are natural born romantics, aren't they.... I guess the blame for that psychological disparity would have to be placed on Pulitzer prize-winner (The Shadow Box) screenwriter and director Michael Christofer.

I've had such a mad-on about watching movies on Netflix rather than in movie theaters that I was beginning to wonder if I'd ever be able to appreciate any film I watched on TV – which, in the past, has been reserved for Netflix "series." Thankfully, with the advent of The Night Clerk I was able to!

Grade: B +

  



    

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA (playing at home where you absentmindedly stuck your gum onto the underside of your easy chair)

One of my favorite things to do is to find, among all the films that I see, ones that I truly love and feel a special connection with--then impart those feelings to the world in hopes that at least SOMEONE will be intrigued enough to see the film and, perhaps, develop that same kind of connection. You could say it's a mission of love, and my primary purpose in authoring this blog.
And that brings us to Love In The Time of Cholera, based on the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Young Florentino Ariza (Javier Bardem) has a powerful thing for the lovely Fermina Daza, (Giovanna Mezzogiorno) in this exquisite tale set against the backdrop of a cholera epidemic in South Ameerica on the cusp of the 20th century. Fermina is intrigued by Florentino's fascination with her, but her father doesn't want her to marry a lowly telegraph operator. Nonetheless, she accepts her lovestruck suitor's proposal with the statement: "I will marry you if you promise not to make me eat eggplant."

But a short time later, Fermina mysteriously changes her mind (a woman's perogative, as all men know) and Florentino is devastated. Florentino carries that torch...and carries it...even when Fermina marries a prominent doctor and seems to want no part of her former paramour.

Florentino's attempted cure for his lovesickness is to run through a series of female conquests, (in scenes that hand us a healthy helping of feminine pulchritude) which eventually grows to the kind of numbers that would make any man envious (except, I suppose, Gene Simmons of Kiss). But even through all that, there is something of the monomaniacal in Florentino's obsession with Fermina, and he will wait forever, if need be, to fulfill his dream.

It must have been more than half way through the film before I realized that this lush romantic drama is also a comedy--what else would you call it when a cat pounces on your bare ass during a scene of lovemaking?

Directed by Mike Newell, with a haunting score from Antonio Pinto and original songs by Shakira. Also featuring Benjamin Bratt, Hector Elizondo, and John Leguizamo. Love In The Time of Cholera is a film for the ages about a love that survives the ages.

GRADE: A


TIMMY'S TIDBITS: Javier Bardem hails from Spain and has starred in more than two dozen films in that country. It is reported that he does not know how to drive. (Neither does my girlfriend, but she THINKS she does.)

Giovanna Mezzogiorno wanted to be a ballerina and studied dancing for 13 years. She is a Scorpio, and has a tattoo of the scorpion zodiac sign on her ankle.