Jack and I liked this noir, violent dramedy about strangers with secrets who meet in a 1969 (probably) motel on the California-Nevada state line. With a kick-ass soundtrack, a good cast, and terrific production design, it's quite entertaining for most of its 2:22 running time (but could have been shorter).
Jon Hamm (last blogged for Nostalgia) shows his comedy chops as the brash salesman and Cynthia Erivo (I love briefly seeing her athleticism in the trailer for her upcoming movie Widows; she won the 2016 Tony for originating the role of Celie in The Color Purple on Broadway) beautifully sings her own songs as her character Darlene rehearses in her room. Jeff Bridges (most recently in these pages for Hell or High Water) is convincing as the addled priest and Dakota Johnson (last blogged for A Bigger Splash) is radiant as the foul-mouthed hippie Emily. The hapless hotel clerk is Lewis Pullman (the son of Bill Pullman, he played Bobby Riggs' son in Battle of the Sexes) and the handsome and usually bare-chested cult leader is Chris Hemsworth (most recently in Avengers: Infinity War).
Director writer Drew Goddard (who adapted The Martian's screenplay from a novel) directs his second feature and writes his fifth. I read somewhere before we saw it last week that a big studio movie from an original screenplay is a rarity these days. It's been said that the year is 1969 because of a clip of President Nixon on a TV. The motel, with the state line running right down the middle, is inspired by the Cal Neva Resort at Lake Tahoe (here's the wiki article).
We can thank Martin Whist (art director on Down with Love (2004) and A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) and production designer on other movies I haven't seen) for the wonderful production design, including many loving shots (we loved it, anyway) of a Wurlitzer jukebox.
I found two links for the songs, tunefind and spotify, and they're lots of fun, especially for us folks of a certain age. You may not even notice the original score by Michael Giacchino (composed the soundtrack for Coco) but I'm enjoying streaming it from this link while I write.
Rotten Tomatoes' critics and audiences, averaging 73 and 76%, respectively, are somewhat cool on this. We think it's worth watching.
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