New York Jewish Film Festival 2026 Roundup

New York Jewish Film Festival

Through January 28, 2026

Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center

filmlinc.org

The 35th annual edition of the New York Jewish Film Festival—co-presented by the Jewish Museum and Film at Lincoln Center—once again presents an enticing mix of documentaries and features. Here are capsule reviews of a handful of films I saw: 

Charles Grodin: Rebel with a Cause

Charles Grodin was many things: a terrific actor onscreen and onstage; an acerbically funny talk-show guest; and an impassioned political talking-head in the early days of MSNBC. All that is covered more than adequately in James L. Freedman’s heartfelt documentary, which includes interviews with many of his Hollywood colleagues and friends: Robert DeNiro and Martin Brest (his Midnight Run costar and director), Steve Martin, Elaine May, Martin Short, Carol Burnett, Ellen Burstyn and many others. But what’s eye-opening is Grodin’s activism for prison reform: he helped get several women who were wrongly jailed for drug offenses. There are countless hilarious film clips and appearances on Carson and Letterman, but the most poignant moments are the heartrending testimonials from the women Grodin helped release from prison.

All I Have Is Nothingness

When Claude Lanzmann died in 2018, his legacy was already cemented by his unforgettable nine-hour film Shoah, which eschewed archival Holocaust footage to instead let those who perpetrated and were victimized by the Nazi killing machine speak. Guillaume Ribot has made a valuable making-of feature using never-before-seen footage of Lanzmann meeting and ingratiating himself with several Shoah subjects and families. Lanzmann comes off as passionate, overbearing but always respectful—the perfect artist to create such a monumental work of witnessed history.

Orna and Ella

The closing of Orna and Ella, a beloved restaurant in Tel Aviv, after 25 years is recounted in this touching documentary by director Tomer Heymann, who records the final weeks leading up to the closing with sympathy and tact. We see these two graceful chefs-restauranteurs—whose intimate location was a rarity in that it made its own breads, pastas and ice cream on the premises—at the center of a bittersweet look at a beautiful personal and professional partnership.

Out of Exile: The Photography of Fred Stein

Renowned photographer Fred Stein, who grew up in Germany before fleeing Hitler and becoming famous after moving to France and America as a street portraitist and candidly capturing the likes of Albert Einstein, is the subject of this intimate documentary by his son Peter Stein and Dawn Freer. The filmmakers explore Fred’s compelling biography as well as a look at how his legacy is being handled by scholars and museum curators who are creating exhibitions of his historically important work. 

Sapiro v. Ford—The Jew Who Sued Henry Ford

This little-known but important story about a Jewish lawyer and labor activist who sued Henry Ford for libel in 1927 after the racist mogul ran a smear campaign against him in his Detroit newspaper is recounted in Gaylen Ross’ enlightening documentary. Stephen Kunken engagingly recites Sapiro’s own words about his life, business and battle with Ford, while Ross effectively uses newsreel footage and Ford’s own words against him. The outcome of the suit—Ford agreed to a retraction, eventually shutting down his paper—was the first time hate speech suffered consequences in America, which up to that time had no laws governing its misuse.

Frontier

Judith Colell’s trenchant drama about the residents of a Spanish village near the French-Spanish border, who risk their lives to help Jewish refugees escape Vichy France, has very few melodramatic flourishes as it concentrates on the humanity of good people hoping for a small triumph over evil. The performances by a first-rate cast—led by Miki Esparbé as customs officer Manel, Maria Rodríguez Soto as his wife Merce, Bruna Cusí  as helpful neighbor Juliana and Joren Seldeslachts as the local Nazi SS head—are superlative individually and together.

Fantasy Life (Closing Night)

Matthew Spear not only wrote and directed but also stars as Sam, a down-on-his-luck paralegal who gets a gig as a manny for a mostly invisible husband and his depressed and lonely wife, Dianne, watching their three young daughters, in this alternately amusing and enervating would-be rom-com. Although Amanda Peet is her usually winning self as Dianne, there’s nothing in Spear’s writing, directing, performance or bearing that would make anyone believe Sam would become her confidante and possibly something more. 

Broadway Play Review—Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime” with June Squibb and Cynthia Nixon

Marjorie Prime

Written by Jordan Harrison

Directed by Anne Kauffman

Performances through February 15, 2026

Hayes Theatre, 240 West 44th Street, New York, NY

2st.com

June Squibb in Marjorie Prime (photo: Joan Marcus)

When Marjorie Prime premiered in 2014, A.I. was still in its speculative stage. But now, with A.I. quickly becoming an all-encompassing nightmare, the plot of Jordan Harrison’s play is now disturbingly prescient. It begins with Marjorie, an elderly widow, sitting in her modest living room talking with a friendly young man named Walter, who turns out to be Marjorie’s deceased—but AI-generated—husband, who is part of a new computer program comprising what are called Primes, developed to help grieving people remember loved ones as they once were, keeping their (and the survivors’) memory alive.

Marjorie’s daughter Tess, however, hasn’t completely bought into the new technology—it does have some bugs, like a Prime not having sufficient initial knowledge to have a substantive conversation—but hopes that her octogenarian mother’s failing memory is not rattled by a long-ago tragedy that happened to Marjorie and Walter’s beloved son (which has also affected Tess’ relationship with her mother). Tess’ supportive husband Jon, for his part, feels that there’s no harm in using a Prime and it might actually help if Marjorie hears about past events she may have forgotten, however painful. The intriguing first part of Marjorie Prime explores the ethics and morality of this new technology, which goes hand in hand with these characters’ feelings of guilt and grief. 

But Harrison short-circuits interest in this tantalizingly dramatic dilemma by repeating the plot device, to ever diminishing returns. Two more Primes appear following a couple of deaths; obviously, overwhelming grief makes the decisions to use Primes plausible, but since one of the deaths is so contrived—and the flimsy explanation so unpersuasive—it severely cuts into the rest of the play’s ability to insightfully explore its urgently thorny subject.

It’s also hamstrung by the shoehorning in of pop-culture touchstones from Rosemary’s Baby and My Best Friend’s Wedding to Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons and Beyonce’s “Single Ladies” (along with a mention of the Central Park installation The Gates), which is more cutesy than cutting. And the final scene shares thematic DNA with the ending of Steven Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence, to Marjorie Prime’s detriment. 

Still, there are moments that are both slyly humorous and touching, like this exchange between Marjorie and Tess, laying bare their volatile but mutually needy mother-daughter relationship:

MARJORIE Oh no.

TESS What is it? (Marjorie’s face crumples. She shakes her head.)

TESS Mom, what is it? Did you have an accident?

(Marjorie gives a small nod, eyes down, deeply ashamed.)

TESS Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up. 

MARJORIE I’m sorry.

TESS Don’t be sorry.

MARJORIE I’m so sorry.

TESS It’s okay—It’s Shower Day after all.

Although Michael Almereyda is far from my favorite director, his 2017 film adaptation of Marjorie Prime—starring Lois Smith, who originated the role of Marjorie in Los Angeles and Off-Broadway, along with Geena Davis, Tim Robbins and Jon Hamm—“opens up” the play in a few subtle ways, including the introduction of characters only mentioned in Harrison’s script, and ends up more memorably affecting. 

Onstage, the cast—under Anne Kauffman’s sharp direction on Lee Jellinek’s simultaneously realistic and symbolic set—can’t be faulted. Christopher Lowell makes an unnervingly gentle Walter and Danny Burstein is a sympathetic Jon. As Tess, Cynthia Nixon gives a devastating portrayal of a woman trying to bury long-held grievances, while 96-year-old June Squibb plays Marjorie with an oft-humorous bemusement that’s great fun to watch. Self-inflicted flaws abound, but Marjorie Prime still provides some needed theatrical food for thought.

January '26 Digital Week II

Streaming Releases of the Week 

Christy 

(Black Bear Pictures)

David Michôd’s fast-paced, Oscar-bait biopic about boxer Christy Martin—one of the first female (and first out lesbian) boxers to hit it big—Sydney Sweeney burrows into her character, trying on an outsized Dukes of Hazzard accent and enough sweaty physicality in her major awards-season bid. Of course, the movie went belly-up at the box office—most likely because the conservatives who defended her jeans/genes ad didn’t want to actually see a queer heroine—but it’s certainly watchable, proficiently tackling the high (and low) lights from the undoubtedly dramatic life of a woman who fought all comers, including her abusive, and murderous, manager and husband (Ben Foster, in another amusingly overdone portrayal). 

Nuremburg 

(Sony Pictures Classics)

Writer-director James Vanderbilt’s efficient dramatization of the postwar trials of Nazi officials spotlights Hitler’s right-hand man Hermann Göring, played menacingly but with a glint of amused hubris in his eye by Russell Crowe. His conversations with American army psychologist Douglas Kelley—played decently by Rami Malek—are the centerpiece of a film that gets many details right but doesn’t do much more than a documentary on the subject would. There’s also the long shadow of Stanley Kramer’s self-important but memorably acted Judgment at Nuremberg (1961) but, in these fraught times, a Cliff’s Notes version might speak to us more pointedly.

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

My Neighbor Adolf 

(Cohen Media)

When Mr. Polsky, a Holocaust survivor living in a rural area of Colombia, notices that his new and reclusive neighbor seems somewhat familiar, he starts collecting evidence that Mr. Herzog is actually Hitler himself in Leon Prudovsky’s goofy comedy-drama that has some laughs but never follows through on its premise. David Hayman is an amusingly exasperated Polsky and Udo Kier a wonderfully expressive Herzog, but the actors are let down by Prudovsky and Dmitry Malinsky’s soggy script, filled with superficial rather than subtler moments. 

No Other Choice 

(Neon)

This second adaptation of Donald Westlake’s sly novel The Ax—the first was a leaden Costra-Gavras film in 2005—Korean director Park Chan-wook’s version is less clunky but still too scattershot to truly work. When Man-su, a longtime employee of a paper factory, is laid off, he scrambles to find a new job while his stay-at-home wife, messed-up teenage son and young cello prodigy daughter all deal with what becomes a shockingly pared-down existence. Desperate, Man-su decides to get rid of any competitors for a job by killing each off. What in Westlake’s book is a spot-on satire on the excesses of capitalism—especially of the era it was written, in the late ‘90s—becomes in Park’s hands amusing but numbingly repetitive. So many sequences are dragged out that, accompanied by chipper music (when it’s not somberly classical), Park’s directorial sledgehammer is never more apparent. Even the acting, especially by Lee Byung-hun as the put-upon protagonist, suffers by approaching hysteria quickly instead of by degrees.

Sirāt 

(Neon) 

In Olivier Laxe’s apocalyptic slowburn, a father and his young son join a group of ravers in the Moroccan desert to look for his missing daughter; soon, though, the group starts being picked off one by one in a vast, unforgiving landscape that has become a theater of war. It begins promisingly but, as Laxe ratchets up the tension, his characters are interchangeable and mostly unsympathetic, which turns the film into a miserabilist stunt, viscerally effective but emotionally remote. And when the minefield explosions take over, it becomes a surprisingly lax and ultimately pointless exercise.

CD Release of the Week

Respighi—Maria Egiziaca 

(Naxos)

Italian composer Ottorino Respighi’s 1931 theatrical triptych follows the prostitute Maria of Alexandria, whose sacrifice later earned her Catholic sainthood, in a dramatically tense account accompanied by some of Respighi’s loveliest music. This audio recording of Pier Luigi Pizzi’s 2024 Venice production centers on the fiery aliveness of soprano Francesca Dotto, whose Maria could have been merely symbolic but instead is a flawed, fully achieved protagonist. Respighi’s score sounds luminous performed by the Venice State Opera orchestra and chorus under the baton of Manlio Benzi. The Blu-ray of this staging was released more than a year ago, and the visuals add immeasurably to the powerful story.

January '26 Digital Week I

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

The Housemaid 

(Lionsgate)

This often risible but entertaining drama based on Freida McFadden’s lively page-turner of a novel, tries a sleight of hand by pitting an unhinged mother, Nina, against her new, desperate housemaid, Millie—as Nina’s angelic husband, Andrew and young daughter Cece look on. Director Paul Feig could never be accused of subtlety, so when it’s obvious early on who the villain is, the rest of this overlong flick becomes a slog, especially when everything is spelled out with clunky flashbacks. Still, the twisty revelations and consequences meted out are fun to watch, as are Amanda Seyfried and Sydney Sweeney’s paired performances as Nina and Millie. 

Holding Liat 

(Meridian Hill Pictures)

When Liat Beinin Atzili and husband Aziz are taken hostage during the horrific October 7 Hamas attacks, her parents Yehuda and Chaya Beinin, sister Tal and children are left wondering if they are still alive and dealing with an unwanted notoriety, publicly discussing the hostages and navigating a minefield of political machinations from every side. Brandon Kramer’s powerful documentary—which has been unjustly criticized for not acknowledging the suffering of Palestinians as well as other Israelis attacked that day—explores the family’s anger, despair, hope, sadness and willingness to put their trust in politicians with whom they disagree (notably Netanyahu) in an almost unbearably intimate way.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

Black Phone 2 

(Universal)

In this unnecessary sequel, director Scott Derrickson—who also helmed the much cruder original—cleverly made this entry a creepy slowburn that nevertheless overstays its welcome with the usual dumb behavior and cheap scares typifying its genre. Still, the performances of Madeleine McGraw, Mason Thames and Miguel Mora as the teenage leads more than compensate, and even those not enamored of slasher flicks can find something worth their time. The UHD transfer looks superb; extras include deleted scenes and featurettes.

Bugonia 

(Universal/Focus Features)

Director Yorgos Lanthimos returns for yet another hamfisted, unfunny satire-cum-allegory-cum-cautionary tale that takes a few interestingly offbeat ideas from Korean director Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 film Save the Green Planet! and proceeds to make comic, dramatic and cinematic mincemeat of them. When two inept kidnapers somehow capture a pharmaceutical company CEO believing she’s an alien about to supplant humanity, little happens that is any way original, amusing or insightful. Even changing the gender of the second kidnaper makes no narrative or symbolic sense; and if Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons continue to put themselves at Lanthimos’ behest with diminishing returns, poor Aidan Delbis as the expendable autistic idiot is hung out to dry. The film does look impressive in 4K; extra is a making-of documentary. 

Streaming Release of the Week 

Visions 

(Dark Sky Films)

In this equally disturbing and enervating mystery, Diane Kruger gives a smoldering performance as Estelle, a jet pilot having an affair with another woman, Ana, who must figure out why she disappeared and whether her husband Guillaume (or Estelle herself) is involved. Yann Gozlan directs for maximum slickness, and considering the cast and locations, it all certainly looks good. But the script is a mess, and the attempt to make this a sort of erotic Twilight Zone episode is only partly successful. Kruger, Marta Nieto (Ana) and Mathieu Kassovitz (Guillaume) do their best to keep this from going off the rails before the risible ending reveal. 

Blu-ray Release of the Week

Good Fortune

(Lionsgate)

Keanu Reeves is having a good time as Gabriel, an inept angel who is literally clipped of his wings when he screws up and ends up working in menial jobs while waiting for another chance to redeem himself in writer-director-star’s Aziz Ansari’s rather mild gig-economy satire set in a Los Angeles of haves and have nots. Instead of concentrating on his own, drippy character Arj—hoping for a get-rich-quick break and winning the heart of Elena (the winning Keke Palmer)—Ansari should have junked it all (including the usual one-note Seth Rogen as Jeff, the rich tech bro who turns out to be a hero of sorts and the equally insufferable Sandra Oh as Martha, Gabriel’s angelic supervisor) and concentrated on Gabriel’s subplot, which is by far the best thing in the film. It all looks terrific on Blu-ray; extras are an audio commentary and featurettes.

CD Release of the Week 

Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra—A Hero’s Life

(Beau Fleuvre Records)

The latest excellent release from conductor JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) is an adventurous recording bringing together a seemingly unlikely pair: Richard Strauss’ virtuosic tone poem Ein Heldenleben—the English translation of which gives the disc its title—and the world-premiere recording of Behzad Ranjbaran’s Violin Concerto. A Persian composer, Ranjbaran filters thousands of years of his culture through the virtuosity of the orchestra and writes exquisitely for the violin. Strauss also powerfully unleashes large orchestral forces throughout, including a lovely violin line as well. BPO concertmaster Nikki Chooi is a masterly soloist in each piece, and Falletta conducts first-rate performances. 

Broadway Play Review—Bess Wohl’s “Liberation”

Liberation

Written by Bess Wohl

Directed by Whitney White

Performances through February 1, 2026

James Earl Jones Theatre, 138 West 48th Street, New York, NY

liberationbway.com

The cast of Liberation (photo: Little Fang)

Playwright Bess Wohl has a happy talent for astutely observing families and individuals that are either broken or whole; from Make Believe to Grand Horizons, Wohl’s plays understand the constantly shifting push and pull animating such relationships. Her latest, Liberation, continues that steak—to an extent. Based on her mother’s story and cheekily subtitled A Memory Play About Things I Don’t Remember, Liberation is a way for Wohl to work out what her mother and other women of that generation did on behalf of women’s equality a half-century ago and whether it was all for naught.

The women of Liberation are from a small town in Ohio and meet in a school gym once a week in the slowly changing 1970s. The lead character is Lizzie, Wohl’s mother’s—and Wohl’s—stand-in, who toggles between both women while breaking the fourth wall to address the audience; she starts a discussion group of local women, not knowing who might show up. But several respond to her flyer, across a convenient spectrum—several white women (one a foreigner) and two Black women—and the play follows their ill-fitting first steps while they slowly gain confidence to have their voices heard in a protest about equal pay for equal work.

Alongside the 30ish Lizzie, there’s Margie, in her 50s; Susan, in her early 20s; Celeste, a Black woman in her late 30s; Isidora, an Italian woman around 40; Dora, also in her 20s; and Joanne, a Black woman in her early 30’s. After an initial thawing-out period, they start trusting one another by nudging others to take control of their own situations, whether it’s Margie belatedly realizing her lengthy marriage to a typical caveman of the time has been a sham or Dora leaving her secretarial job after her sexist boss bypasses her for a promotion in order to elevate another “neanderthal,” in Dora’s words. 

Although the situations occasionally turn sitcomish or saccharine, Wohl’s truthful dialogue allows her women to speak frankly and with an incisive bite, including hilarious interactions like Margie bringing her husband’s beer to share with the others (”he’s not going to miss it,” she says) or Isidora’s frequent foul-mouthed outbursts. Only Lizzie seems more a symbol than an individual, and Wohl’s decision to include Bill (Lizzie’s future husband and the narrator’s future father) as the play’s lone male is ill-advised not only because the feminine/feminist dynamic is unbalanced whenever he appears but also because such a dramatic crutch is a contrived way to get Wohl’s parents onstage together.

There are other missteps, like Joanne standing in for Lizzie in scenes that explore more intimate moments in Wohl’s mother’s and father’s relationship but simultaneously keep them at a safe distance. And the humor can also get arch, as in the opening scene when the women wander into the gym and there’s an argument about whether the “B” that Lizzie wrote on the flyer to denote “basement” looks more like an “8,” causing Isidora to walk all the way upstairs looking for a non-existent high floor.

But the uniformly excellent performances of the entire cast—led by Susannah Flood as Lizzie, another in this terrifically personable actress’ series of thoughtful portrayals (including another in Make Believe)—coupled with Whitney White’s empathetic direction on David Zinn’s pinpoint unit set let Liberation be pretty satisfying as a personal and political memory play.

December '25 Digital Week III

In-Theaters/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Blue Moon 

(Sony Classics)

Ethan Hawke throws himself into playing Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart—one-half of the immortal team of Rodgers and Hart, creators of such indelible musicals as Babes in Arms and Pal Joey—in Richard Linklater’s mostly inert biopic that concentrates on one day in Hart’s life, the opening night of Oklahoma, the first collaboration of Hart’s former partner Richard Rodgers with Oscar Hammerstein II. Set at the venerable theater restaurant Sardi’s, the film has a certain interest for musical theater fans (especially when a young Stephen Sondheim, a protégé of Hammerstein, appears), but Robert Kaplow’s script tries to cram too much into its single setting, taking away from its focus on Hart, who would be dead a few months after this night. Hawke does immerse himself poignantly in the songwriter’s messy personal life, and he’s the main reason to watch until the predictably tragic end.

Sentimental Value 

(Neon)

Danish-Norwegian director Joachim Trier’s latest melodrama explores a fractured family, as film director Gustav returns home after his ex-wife Sissel’s death to tell his two adult daughters—Agnes, a wife, mother and historian; and Nora, a temperamental stage actress having an affair with a married colleague—with the news that he’s making a film (with famous American actress Rachel Kemp) about his mother’s torture as a Nazi resistance fighter leading to her suicide when Gustav was young. The complications of family history rear their heads throughout, but Trier concentrates on too many loose ends, like standard-issue stage or on-set sequences that do little to illuminate matters. Stellan Skarsgård is perfectly cast as the boorish but boyish Gustav, Elle Fanning is an excellent Rachel and Renate Reinsve a fine Nora, but Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas steals each of her scenes as Agnes. Trier should have focused on her instead.

4K/UHD Releases of the Week 

David Byrne’s American Utopia 

(Criterion)

Director Spike Lee and cinematographer Ellen Kuras capture David Byrne’s groundbreaking 2019 Broadway show combining music and movement in exhilarating fashion, centered on Byrne’s unique stage presence, a savant leading his congregation in the holy gospel of song, with Annie-B Parson’s expressive choreography and Bob Sinclair’s inventive lighting visually complementing Byrne’s songs—from early Talking Heads to his recent solo material—accompanied by a dozen musicians, singers and dancers. Criterion’s new release comprises a 4K disc of the film, which looks and sounds immaculate; and two Blu-ray discs of the film and two extras: a 55-minute documentary about the show featuring Byrne, Kuras, Parson, and Sinclair, and a short Byrne and Lee conversation, socially distanced, from 2020.

Boogie Nights 

(Warner Bros)

Paul Thomas Anderson’s second feature, made in 1997, is now considered a classic—unaccountably, in my view; this shrill, cartoonish, shallow look at the L.A. porn scene of the late ‘70s and early ‘80s fails as both a satire of and affectionate tribute to its dim denizens. In a cast of banal caricatures, Mark Wahlberg and Burt Reynolds come off best; following his auspicious debut Hard Eight, this overstuffed would-be epic is the first of similar films that have dotted Anderson’s career—Magnolia, The Master, Licorice Pizza, One Battle After Another—but I realize I’m in the minority. It all looks great in 4K; extras include commentaries by Anderson and by the cast, American Cinematheque Q&A and deleted scenes.

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Maria Roumagnac 

(Icarus Films)

Two legends of the silver screen—Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin—appeared for the only time together in French director Georges Lacombe’s doomed soap-operaish romance between a shop owner very popular with men and a working-class building contractor, whose jealousy over her sexually adventurous past (and present) pushes him over the edge tragically. Despite the stiffness of the characterizations and the dialogue—especially in the climactic court sequence—the onscreen chemistry between Dietrich and Gabin more than compensates. The restored 1946 B&W film looks ravishing on Blu. 

DVD/CD Release of the Week

Nicola Porpora—Polifemo 

(Chateau de Versailles)

Italian composer Nicola Porpora (1686-1768) wanted to challenge reigning opera genius George Frideric Handel at his own game in London, and the result was this 1735 Baroque epic romance populated by the goddess Galatea, the Cyclops, and ordinary men including Ulysses, whose appearance presages a conflict between the gods and the mortals. This live performance from Versailles in 2024 is colorfully over-the-top both vocally and visually; it’s too bad that it’s only a DVD instead of superior sharpness of a Blu-ray. Still, it’s nice to have a visual record of this performance, along with three CDs housing the audio recording.

Broadway Musical Review—“The Queen of Versailles” with Kristin Chenoweth

The Queen of Versailles

Music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz, book by Lindsey Terrentino

Directed by Michael Arden; choreographed by Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant

Performances through December 21, 2025

St. James Theater, 246 West 44th Street, NY

queenofversaillesmusical.com

Kristin Chenoweth in The Queen of Versailles (photo: Julieta Cervantes)

Proof that lightning does not strike twice, the latest Stephen Schwartz musical starring Kristen Chenoweth already posted its premature closing date on Broadway, while an earlier collaboration you might have heard about, Wicked, keeps going. But The Queen of Versailles is a cautionary tale for collaborators about what not to do when creating a Broadway musical.

It’s to Schwartz’s credit to try something original, and the story of Jackie Siegel, as seen in the eponymous 2012 documentary film directed by Lauren Greenfield, certainly qualifies. (Has there been another Broadway musical based on a documentary?) Greenfield’s film explores Jackie’s and ultra-rich husband David’s conspicuous consumption with both sympathy and bemusement, something difficult to finesse in a big-budget stage musical. 

So Lindsey Ferrentino’s book and Schwartz’s songs try and have it both ways. We root for Jackie as she lucks into getting rich after some bad decisions, but as she and David start to throw around their money on a mansion nicknamed Versailles, it becomes increasingly difficult to spend time with them, especially since David is so heartless a millionaire villain, and F. Murray Abraham plays him as a comic caricature.

Chenoweth, on the other hand, remains enjoyable and funny, which makes Jackie less nuanced and, when she’s in financial and personal doldrums—the 2008 recession brings mansion construction to a halt, then her teenage daughter Victoria commits suicide—there’s a gaping dramatic hole that no amount of teary songs—including the Act I finale, “This Is Not the Way,” which Chenoweth carries effortlessly—can fill.

This might have worked shorter, making Jackie’s roller-coaster ride faster. Instead, it lumbers around for a bloated 2-1/2 hours, with sympathy gone and dramatic comeuppance obvious. Even appearances Louis XIV to make explicit the parallels between the Versailles of the 17th and 21st centuries are less amusingly pointed as they recur.

Needless to say, director Michael Arden’s slick staging can’t reconcile the inherent messiness of the subject and Schwartz’s and Terrentino’s treatment, while the first-rate trappings—Dane Laffery’s clever sets and video design, Christian Cowan’s tongue-in-cheek costumes, Natasha Katz’s brilliant lighting—only obscure the dramatic emptiness.

Chenoweth, of course, dominates any show she’s in, but that only shows up the rest of the cast. Abraham’s David has a few amusingly nasty moments and Nina White’s Victoria has the needed pathos, but they are shunted aside by the hurricane at the center. Even though Chenoweth gives it her all, she can’t save The Queen of Versailles from being guillotined.

December '25 Digital Week II

In-Theater Releases of the Week 

Hamnet 

(Focus Features)

Chloé Zhao has made an enveloping adaptation of Maggie O’Farrell’s novelistic flight of fancy about how the death of 11-year-old son Hamnet affected William Shakespeare and his wife Anne (in the film, Agnes)—directly leading to the Bard’s most celebrated tragedy (which includes the ghost of a beloved father and many ruminations about dying by the protagonist), Hamlet. Beautifully filmed and filled with more nature shots than anything by Terrence Malick—who should get a co-directing credit—Hamnet is at its most persuasive showing how death was perceived four centuries ago, as personal and up-close rather than clinical and distant. The acting is immaculate, especially by Jessie Buckley as Agnes and Paul Mescal as Will.

Happy Holidays 

(Film Movement)

Palestinian director Scandar Copti’s drama about the interactions of several family members through four interlocking stories set in Jerusalem insightfully shows how women are still often treated as second-class citizens in supposedly enlightened patriarchal societies. A Jewish woman, Shirley, decides to keep her baby over her Palestinian ex Rami’s objection; Rami’s mother Hanan deals with financial difficulties that are exacerbated by an accident involving her daughter Fifi, who’s having a secret affair; and Shirley’s sister Miri, dealing with her teenage daughter’s depression, tries convincing Shirley to have an abortion. The acting, by a mainly amateur cast, is unforgettably real in front of Copti’s vigorously probing camera.

Little Trouble Girls 

(Kino Lorber)

Slovenian writer-director Urška Djukić’s auspicious debut is set in a girls’ school where the members of the choir—including shy 16-year-old Lucija—become friends and adversaries, finding humor in and mocking each other’s budding sexuality as well as dealing with their mercurial male chorus master. Without condescension, Djukić shows how these teenagers act together and separately, while her excellent young actresses are led by Jara Sofija Ostan, who gives a star-making performance as Lucija. 

Rosemead 

(Vertical)

Lucy Liu is astonishingly good as Irene, a terminally ill Chinese mother in San Gabriel Valley, California, who’s worried about her schizophrenic 17-year-old son Joe’s future without her in director Eric Lin and writer Marilyn Fu’s heartbreaking study that’s enormously sympathetic but also unrelievedly depressing. Liu’s wrenching portrayal, superbly complemented by Lawrence Shou as Joe, leads to a shocking but understandable final decision that makes this film hard to shake.

In-Theater/Streaming Release of the Week 

Man Finds Tape 

(Magnolia)

In this cleverly constructed found-footage thriller, documentary filmmaker Lynn returns to her small Texas hometown to study footage that captures weird phenomena happening to locals that no one can remember—and that’s before she has to deal with the legacy of her brother and a newly-arrived stranger. Directors Peter Hall and Paul Gandersman don’t do anything particularly original here, but their eerie premise and the terrific acting by Kelsey Pribilski as Lynn give this just enough to make it weirdly watchable.  

Streaming Release of the Week

After the Hunt 

(Amazon MGM)

The latest mild provocation from Italian director Luca Guadagnino is a soggy #MeToo drama that plays out on the Yale campus as Margaret, a bright student of professor Alma, accuses another professor, Hank—with whom Alma has been carrying on an affair under her therapist husband Frederik’s nose—of sexual abuse, triggering an investigation that could ultimately derail Alma’s chances of getting tenure. There’s some good material in Laura Garrett’s script, but the personal relationships are navigated by Guadagnino in a way that eschews depth for obviousness. The performances follow suit: Ayo Edebiri (Margaret), Julia Roberts (Alma), Michael Stuhlbarg (Frederik) and Andrew Garfield (Hank) give solid but uninspired portrayals, further stranding what aspires to be a mature drama. 

CD Release of the Week 

Saint-Saëns— L’ancêtre

(Palazzetto Bru Zane)

French composer Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) is best known for his glorious Biblical grand opera, Samson et Delilah, which premiered in 1877; nearly three decades later, he wrote this lyrical opera set in Corsica that has much beautiful music but a less well thought-out plot. Happily, listening to this richly produced audio recording means that one can elide the hackneyed story and characters and concentrate on the imposing orchestral and vocal writing.  Kazuki Yamada conducts the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo and the Philharmonic Chorus of Tokyo in a first-rate performance that includes a top-notch group of singers led by Jennifer Holloway, Gaëlle Arquez, Hélène Carpentier, Julien Henric, Michael Arivony, Matthieu Lécroart. As always with Bru Zane releases, this two-CD set houses an impressive 127-page booklet that comprises the libretto and several essays about the opera, including a report from Saint-Saëns’ most famous student, composer Gabriel Fauré, about its 1906 premiere in Monte Carlo.

Off-Broadway Play Review—Martyna Majok’s “Queens”

Queens

Written by Martyna Majok; directed by Trip Cullman

Performances through December 7, 2025

Manhattan Theatre Club, 131 West 55th St, New York, NY

manhattantheaterclub.com

Marin Ireland and Anna Chlumsky in Queens (photo: Valerie Terranova)

In her sprawling, messy play Queens, Martyna Majok shows real sympathy for and insight into the women—mostly immigrants, living at one time or another in a basement apartment in the eponymous borough—whose relationships, hopes and fears ring even truer now during the second Trump administration than when the play premiered, during the first Trump administration.

Renia, from Poland, runs things, first helping out the (unseen) landlord after arriving then eventually taking over the place herself. Other women drift in and out over the years the play covers (from the months after the terrorist attacks in 2001 to the early summer of 2017), including Pelagiya, from Belarus; Aamani, from Afghanistan; and Isabela, from Honduras. Later, Isabela’s daughter Glenys shows up as well as Inna, a young Ukrainian woman looking for her mother, who left Inna back home for a new life in America, and another woman from Poland, Agata, who gives Renia a surprising update about her family.

Queens opens with a bang—literally, as the newly-arrived Inna confronts Renia on the street and punches her in anger—and soon settles into a realistically belligerent tone, as these women remain on edge even during good times. Personal difficulties, biases, disagreements and misunderstandings rear their heads, and alternating events 16 years apart show that these women are always dealing with external political forces beyond their control.

Majok smartly concentrates on the women as individuals and not as symbols, although the charged atmosphere makes it almost inevitable that soapbox speechifying is included. But the strength and solidarity of the play’s eight women are never in doubt, even as pettiness or insecurity makes them antagonists.

One of those eight appears only in a flashback to Ukraine, just prior to Inna leaving for the U.S. Inna babysits for Lera, who returns home from an evening out trying to impress young American men in the hopes that she can join them in America. Instead, Inna hijacks Lera’s would-be sugar daddy in an implausible scene and ends up being the one to leave Ukraine, although she quickly realizes she’s been conned.

Happily, Majok otherwise keeps contrivance to a minimum and, even if some of what the women face is melodramatic, it often rings true. The production couldn’t be bettered. Trip Cullman directs resourcefully on Marsha Ginsberg’s realistically bedraggled set of the women’s apartment, lit magisterially by Ben Stanton. And the eight performers are splendid, led by Marin Ireland’s stoic Renia; this is a cast so authentic individually and collectively as to bring out the humanity of the play more subtly than Majok. 

Kudos to them for not only mastering difficult Eastern European accents, for the most part, but also learning to speak Polish (Ireland and Anna Chlumsky, as Agata) and Ukrainian (Julia Lester, as Inna, and Andrea Syglowski, as Lera). Despite its faults, Queens is a memorable theatrical melting pot.

December '25 Digital Week I

CD Release of the Week 

Taylor Momsen’s Pretty Reckless Christmas 

(Fearless)

Sure, it’s a calculated move, but why not? Taylor Momsen—lead singer of one of the best rock bands around right now, the Pretty Reckless—played, at age 7, Cindy Lou Who in the annoying movie adaptation of Dr. Seuss’ How the Grinch Stole Christmas, with Jim Carrey in green prosthetics as the dastardly villain. A quarter-century later, Momsen returns to full-throatedly sing “Where Are You Christmas,” which she warbled in the movie (and which Faith Hill made into a holiday perennial). 

The new version, backed by her band, rocks nicely but would have been even better if they really cranked it up. It returns at the end, slightly changed, as “Christmas, Why Can’t I Find You,” which allows the adult Momsen to cede her EP’s opening and closing voices to her younger self. The other songs are fun holiday originals: the finger-snapping “I Wanna Be Your Christmas Tree,” with its hilarious double entendres like “Stuff that turkey with your Pepperidge Farm/Cover it in gravy and all your charm”; the irresistible power pop of “Christmas Is Killing Me,” with its immortal couplet “Christmas is killing me/Someone stop Mariah Carey”; and the, well, very bluesy “Blues for Christmas,” all of which let Momsen show off her incredibly versatile voice. But now that she’s gotten Cindy Lou out of her system, here’s hoping the new year brings a new Pretty Reckless album on the order of the group’s killer recent single, “For I Am Death.”  

In-Theater Release of the Week

A Private Life 

(Sony Pictures Classics)

Jodie Foster gives an impressive performance, primarily in French, in Rebecca Zlotowski’s typically genre-bending study of a divorced analyst dealing with professional and personal crises: she has a strained relationship with her son, his wife and their young baby, while she follows up on her suspicions of a longtime patient’s supposed suicide. Always good with actors, Zlotowski follows suit here: supporting Foster’s accomplished turn are Daniel Auteil as her frisky ex, Vincent Lacoste as their chip-on-his-shoulder son, Virginie Efira as the dead patient and Mathieu Almaric as her grieving widower. But the script by Zlotowski, Anne Berest and Gaëlle Macé has characterization problems and plot holes that prevent the movie from really taking flight.

Streaming Releases of the Week 

The Best You Can 

(Sony)

Pairing real-life husband-and-wife Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick as Stan (a single father with a musician daughter, Sammi) and Cynthia (married to the much older Warren—who’s beginning to show signs of dementia) has its charms, especially in the easy rapport of the couple’s scenes together in what may or may not become an affair. Yet writer-director Michael J. Weithorn doesn’t know what to do with the rest of his sitcomish comedy-drama, so good actors like Judd Hirsch (Warren) and Brittany O’Grady (Sammi) are left adrift. 

Reflection in a Dead Diamond 

(Shudder)

The latest contraption from Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani—French husband and wife writers-directors based in Belgium—blends James Bond spoofing with bloody revenge melodrama: a retired spy, John D (played by Fabio Testi and Yannick Renier as his older and younger incarnations), remembers his youthful exploits when his fascinating new neighbor disappears. Cattet and Forzani always bring their A game to their often dazzling visuals, although they inevitably overdose on gorgeously composed shots at the expense of their tale. 

WTO/99 

(Foghorn Features)

In 1999, Seattle was the location for a meeting of the nascent World Trade Organization, which looked to negotiate new trade deals to link the world economy and generate prosperity, but strange bedfellows like unions, chambers of commerce and liberal activists declared the WTO antithetical to human rights, the environment and labor and came to protest in the tens of thousands. Director Ian Bell has painstakingly assembled a compelling and eye-opening look back at living history: that volatile moment presaging the unholy mess we find ourselves in, told exclusively through archival footage from TV news reports and amateur home videos.

Blu-ray Release of the Week

The Long Walk 

(Lionsgate)

Stephen King’s short novel about a dystopian U.S. where the eponymous event takes place, with the lone survivor winning a jackpot—an unoriginal but workable premise on the page—has been turned into an enervating film by director Francis Lawrence and writer JT Mollner, who do little with the anti-dramatic storyline of young men walking alongside soldiers who shoot anyone who falls off the pace. Flashbacks to our main protagonist Garraty’s home life with mom and dad (Judy Greer and Josh Hamilton, both wasted) and occasional closeups of blown-off heads don’t alleviate the tedium. Cooper Hoffman (Garraty) and a cast including Charlie Plummer and David Jonsson try to bring individuality to this faceless crew, but Mark Hamill’s cartoonish antagonist makes that nearly impossible. The film looks great on Blu; lone extra is a 75-minute making-of documentary.

November '25 Digital Week III

Streaming Releases of the Week 

Anniversary 

(Lionsgate)

A political film that demands to be treated seriously is a rarity nowadays, but this apocalyptic drama, slickly directed by Jan Komasa from a hamfisted script by Lori Rosene-Gambino, pretends to be a daring cautionary tale when it’s only a pedestrian treatment of how a sea change in American politics (called, blandly, “the change”) takes its toll on an affluent family. The country is turned upside down along with the Taylors, but despite politically motivated killings and a suicide bombing, little of it rings true or plausible, mainly because it fails at being clinical and probing. Convincing performances by Diane Lane (mom), Kyle Chandler (dad), Zoey Deutsch, McKenna Grace and Madeline Brewer (daughters), Dylan O’Brien (son), and Phoebe Dynevor (son’s wife and main catalyst) can only do so much. 

Frankenstein 

(Netflix)

Mary Shelley’s classic Gothic thriller remains unnerving and relevant, with movie adaptations as far flung as James Whale’s 1931 talkie that made a star of monster Boris Karloff and Mel Brooks’ explosively funny but faithful parody-cum-homage, 1974’s Young Frankenstein. Now Guillermo del Toro lumbers into view with a typically overwrought, stuffed-to-the-gills adaptation whose elaborate visuals makes it seem as if we’re watching a video game. Bluntly directed with a sledgehammer, the film evaporates from memory as soon as it’s over, stranding good performers as Jacob Elordi (monster), Oscar Isaac (doctor) and Mia Goth (love interest). 

Vindication Swim 

(Brilliant Pictures)

The story of Mercedes Gleitze—a young Englishwoman who was the first female to swim the English Channel in 1927, then tried to do it again when her achievement was questioned—is certainly inspiring, and director/writer Elliott Hasler milks it for all its worth in this entertaining if conventional biopic. As Mercedes, Kirsten Callaghan is highly impressive both in and out of the water, and the era’s anti-woman, pro-white male politics makes for a good antagonist, yet this could have been so much more memorable than it turns out to be.  

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

The Conjuring—Last Rites 

(Warner Bros)

This latest (and last?) dramatization of the pioneering paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren’s exploits with malevolent hauntings uses the same blueprint as the series’ three earlier entries, but Michael Chaves’ overly fussy direction makes this all too familiar as its 2 hours and 15 minutes drag unnecessarily. On the plus side, there’s solid acting by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warrens and well-cast support from Mia Tomlinson, Ben Hardy and others as the affected Smurl family. There’s a superior UHD transfer; extras include on-set featurettes and interviews.

Howards End 

(Cohen Film Collection)

The peak of the uneven James Ivory-Ismail Merchant-Ruth Prawer Jhabvala team’s career was this absorbing 1992 adaptation of E.M. Forster’ classic novel about the shifting relations and attitudes among the different classes in Edwardian England: it’s old-fashioned filmmaking done so well that it’s transfixing to watch. Ivory’s directing and Jhabvala’s writing were never equaled by them before or after, while the cast—Emma Thompson, Anthony Hopkins, Helena Bonham Carter and Vanessa Redgrave, for starters—is flawless. The film has a spectacular film-like sheen in 4K; extras include a new audio commentary, vintage Ivory and Merchant interviews,  and on-set interviews and featurettes.

Blu-ray Releases of the Week

Strauss—Intermezzo 

(Naxos)

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote 15 operas—among them classics Salome, Der Rosenkavalier, Arabella and Capriccio—but this talky drama based on his personal life has never really caught on, despite lovely music and a wonderful lead role for the soprano playing a famous conductor’s wife, whose complicated relationship with her husband makes her seek out an affair. Tobias Kratzer’s 2024 Berlin State Opera staging is set in the present day, which neither harms nor helps the storytelling—happily, the orchestra and conductor Donald Runnicles are in fine form, and, as Christine, Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson gives the towering portrayal the opera needs to succeed. There’s first-rate hi-def video and audio.   

The Island Closest to Heaven 

(Cult Epics)

Morimura Katsura’s story about Mari, a Japanese teenager visiting the ravishingly beautiful islands of New Catalonia, becomes, in director Nobuhiko Obayashi’s capable hands, a tender character study that is the opposite of his earlier, often delirious films House and School in the Crosshairs. Buoyed by an accomplished, understated performance by Tomoyo Harada as Mari, this is a  modest, satisfying drama. There’s a good hi-def transfer; extras include an audio commentary and making-of featurette.

CD Releases of the Week

Rachmaninoff/Elgar—The Bells/Falstaff 

(Harmonia Mundi)

Two works inspired by two great American and English writers make up this terrific disc, starting with The Bells, a choral symphony by Sergei Rachmaninoff whose texts have been freely adapted from poems of Edgar Allan Poe—the creative fusion of the Russian composer’s rich melodies and American author’s unsettling imagery results in a truly unique work. Edward Elgar and William Shakespeare are a less surprising combo, and Elgar’s symphonic study about the Bard’s wondrous comic creation Sir John Falstaff is rollicking and contemplative by turns. Vasily Petrenko leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in an outstanding Falstaff, and the Philharmonia Chorus and three fine soloists contribute to a superb version of The Bells. 

Grace Williams—Works for Orchestra 

(Lyrita)

Welsh composer Grace Williams (1906-77)—barely known on this side of the Atlantic, at least—wrote attractive music in various genres, and this disc is a worthwhile primer to anyone (like me) heretofore unfamiliar with her music. Williams’ shimmering violin concerto has a persuasive soloist in Geneva Lewis; her supple Sinfonia concertante for piano and orchestra sounds exquisite in soloist Clare Hammond’s hands. On the concerti and brooding Elegy for string orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales sounds remarkably cohesive, considering there’s a different conductor for each work.