Surprisingly political for a kids’ film, not to mention a piece of cross-marketed product from a multinational corporation, Arnold’s subtext-including a subplot borrowed from Watergate-will probably go unnoticed by much of its audience, but that doesn’t make it any less refreshing or pointed. Arnold and his best friend are both a little bland, but the film wisely surrounds them with enough loopy scene-stealers for several movies, including an incorrigible, escape-prone grandmother and a monobrow-sporting oddball who professes to loathe Arnold while nursing a borderline-psychotic obsession with him. Thankfully, the film’s strengths rest elsewhere, most notably in its smart, funny, affectionate depiction of a close-knit, vibrant community filled with memorable characters. On a purely visual level, Hey Arnold! is an abomination: Arnold and his freakishly misshapen cohorts boast some of the creepiest character design this side of The Family Guy, while the limited animation recalls the hackwork of Hanna-Barbera. As in A Simple Plan, director Sam Raimi captures the desperation and sadness of life among the working poor through countless telling details-anachronistic hairstyles, Kmart ensembles, homes that barely qualify as functional-without resorting to the condescension and ridicule that typify most Hollywood depictions of working-class life. Although regarded with suspicion and contempt by much of the town, Blanchett is put to use by police after the promiscuous daughter (Katie Holmes) of a respected businessman disappears, and the process eventually leads to Reeves’ arrest after Holmes’ body is discovered. Although alternately blessed and cursed with legitimate psychic powers, Blanchett mostly provides support and counsel to her working-class clients, who include a terrified battered wife (Hilary Swank) whose husband (Keanu Reeves) doesn’t take kindly to the idea of her seeking supernatural advice. In a performance every bit as magnetic and powerful as her career-making turn in Elizabeth, Cate Blanchett stars in The Gift as a semi-professional psychic and widowed mother of three who serves as a paragon of virtue and honesty in a Southern small town desperately in need of both. Wuhan just happened to go through the wringer first, totally locking down a city more populous (11 million) than any in America. The visual interchangeability serves as a reminder that this exact same nightmare has played out all over the globe this year. The patients, similarly, have their faces largely obscured, either by standard face masks or (much too frequently) by oxygen masks and intubation tubes. All of the doctors and nurses working tirelessly to save lives are decked out in protective equipment that’s just one notch down from a hazmat suit the film occasionally names them via superimposed text, but it’s still nearly impossible to keep track of who’s who. That seems apropos in another way, though: Virtually everyone who appears on screen is functionally anonymous. One of the three people who directed 76 Days, a documentary portrait of the COVID-19 crisis in Wuhan, is credited only as Anonymous, perhaps due to some legally problematic association with the hospital where most of the film was shot.
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