The Sisters Brothers (Jacques Audiard, 2018)

Cast: John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, Riz Ahmed, Rebecca Root, Allison Tolman, Rutger Hauer, Carol Kane. Screenplay: Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain, based on a novel by Patrick DeWitt. Cinematography: Benoît Debie. Production design: Michel Barthélémy. Film editing: Juliette Welfling. Music: Alexandre Desplat. 

An American Western filtered through Gallic sensibilities, The Sisters Brothers was a box-office flop, but it remains one of the more intriguing movies of recent years. To its credit, it gives John C. Reilly another chance to show what a remarkable actor he is when he's given more than just a backup role to play; he somehow sends even such charismatic performers as Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Riz Ahmed into the background when he's on screen. Full of quirky dialogue and unexpected situations, the movie's chief flaws are that it feels a little longer than necessary and the narrative is occasionally more elliptical than necessary.    

Spider-Man: Far From Home (Jon Watts, 2019)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Tom Holland in Spider-Man: Far From Home

Cast: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L. Jackson, Jon Favreau, Marisa Tomei, Jacob Batalon, Tony Revolori, Angourie Rice, Remy Hii, Martin Starr, J.B. Smoove, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., Cobie Smulders, Numan Acar. Screenplay: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers. Cinematography: Matthew J. Lloyd. Production design: Claude Paré. Film editing: Leigh Folsom Boyd, Dan Lebental. Music: Michael Giacchino.

Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire are fine actors, but neither of them made the role of Spider-Man their own the way Tom Holland has done. His training as a dancer helped him get the moves right for the stunts as Spider-Man, and he's the right height (five-eight) and age (early 20s) to keep him credible as the adolescent Peter Parker. Beyond that, he's a gifted actor, more than holding his own in scenes with veterans like Samuel L. Jackson and Jake Gyllenhaal. It's hard to know what Marvel Studios will do when Holland eventually ages out of the role. He's the main reason I liked Spider-Man: Far From Home much more than the usual superhero movie. He makes the slam-bang special effects tolerable. It helps, too, that he's up against one of the more engaging villains in the genre, Gyllenhaal's Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio. Gyllenhaal -- who was once considered for the role of the webslinger in Spider-Man 2 (Sam Raimi, 2004) when Maguire was sidelined -- makes the seduction of Peter Parker into handing over the gizmo that gives him power credible, and then does a fine job of unveiling Beck's bad side. But mostly it's Holland's ability to sustain Peter's boyish gullibility, and his reluctance to give up his teenage life (and his pursuit of Zendaya's MJ) to become one of the Avengers, that brings the implausible superhero to life. The screenplay is efficient and sometimes witty, often at the expense of Peter, who gushes "Oh, I love Led Zeppelin!" when Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) plays a track by AC/DC and who gets zinged by Nick Fury (Jackson) with "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Stark said you wouldn't get that because it's not a Star Wars reference."

Okja (Bong Joon-ho, 2017)

Ahn Seo-hyn in Okja

Cast: Ahn Seo-hyun, Tilda Swinton, Paul Dano, Jake Gyllenhaal, Byun Hee-bong, Giancarlo Esposito, Steven Yeun, Lily Collins, Yun Jee-moon, Shirley Henderson, Daniel Henshall, Devon Bostick, Choi Woo-shik, Choi Hee-seo. Screenplay: Bong Joon-ho, Jon Ronson. Cinematography: Darius Khondji. Production design: Lee Ha-jun, Kevin Thompson. Film editing: Yang Jin-mo. Music: Jung Jae-il.

In comparison with the other films by Bong Joon-ho I've seen, Parasite (2019) and Snowpiercer (2013), Okja seems to me a bit of a misfire, like a kids' movie gone dark, Charlotte's Web crossed with The Shape of Water. It often feels over-frantic, when what I want it to do is score its points against corporate hype and hypocrisy cleanly and without shouting them at us. The film centers on the Mirando Corporation's attempt to develop and market a "superpig," which involves creating animals in a lab and then farming the superpiglets out around the world, seeing which environment is most successful. The winner is judged to be the superpig -- which looks like a cross between a pig, a dog, and a hippopotamus -- raised by Mija (Ahn Seo-yeun) and her grandfather (Byun Hee-bong) on their small farm in the mountains of South Korea. The kids' movie part of the film is the affection of the girl for her pig, but of course things go awry when the corporation, headed by the air-headed Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), decides to declare Okja the best of all superpigs -- followed, of course, by introducing all manner of superpig food products, something that Mija never suspects. Lucy's henchmen include Johnny Wilcox, a star of TV animal programs, played a little too frantically against type by Jake Gyllenhaal, and the  suave corporado Frank Dawson, in a more understatedly sinister performance by Giancarlo Esposito. Things go awry when an animal-rights organization, a caricature of PETA (which often seems to caricature itself), staffed by enthusiasts who give themselves pseudonyms like Jay (Paul Dano) and K. (Steven Yeun), take Okja's side and plot to expose the mistreatment of the superpigs in Mirando's terrifying abattoir. There's also a subplot about Lucy and her supposedly more evil sister, Nancy, also played by Swinton, but it feels unnecessary. There is some fun to be had in the film, with its elaborate chase scenes, but I found myself a little exhausted by its end.

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

Prisoners (Denis Villeneuve, 2013)

Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Hugh Jackman, Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Terrence Howard, Melissa Leo, Paul Dano, Dylan Minnette, Zoë Soul, Erin Gerasimovich, Kyla-Drew, Wayne Duvall, Len Cariou. Screenplay: Aaron Guzikowski. Cinematography: Roger Deakins. Production design: Patrice Vermette. Film editing: Joel Cox, Gary Roach. Music: Jóhann Jóhannson.

Overlong, overcomplicated, and sometimes just flat-out preposterous, Prisoners succeeds in casting a creepy spell even when you're questioning its improbabilities. It succeeds mainly because director Denis Villeneuve trusts that he can overcome the narrative flaws, and because he's working with a phenomenal cast headed by Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal and generously provided with other first-rank actors like Viola Davis, Maria Bello, Melissa Leo, and Paul Dano. To my mind, Gyllenhaal stands out among even this company for his richly internalized performance as the detective in charge of the disappearance of two little girls. He buttons his shirts to the top, shielding himself against the world, determined to solve the case even when he's taking shit from his own captain and from the angry father of one of the missing girls, a volcano of a man beautifully embodied by Jackman. Roger Deakins's Oscar-nominated cinematography also casts a cold spell over the film, in which the external weather -- rain, snow, bleak days -- is a correlative for the emotions haunting the souls of the characters. There comes a point when you realize that the film isn't meant to be subjected to literal-minded analysis, that it's a parable about cruelty and loss, a validation of Jackman's character's mantra: "Pray for the best, but prepare for the worst." Villeneuve's adherence to this vision and his cast's abundant skills somehow overcome any desire we may have to impose a more realistic view on the material, to pick apart its contrivances and inconsistencies.

Nocturnal Animals (Tom Ford, 2016)

Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon in Nocturnal Animals

Amy Adams in Nocturnal Animals

Susan Morrow: Amy Adams
Edward Sheffield / Tony Hastings: Jake Gyllenhaal
Bobby Andes: Michael Shannon
Ray Marcus: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
Laura Hastings: Isla Fisher
India Hastings: Ellie Bamber
Hutton Morrow: Armie Hammer
Lou: Karl Glusman
Turk: Robert Aramayo
Anne Sutton: Laura Linney
Samantha Morrow: India Menuez

Director: Tom Ford
Screenplay: Tom Ford
Based on a novel by Austin Wright
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey
Production design: Shane Valentino
Film editing: Joan Sobel
Music: Abel Korzeniowski

Jake Gyllenhaal and Amy Adams are two of our best actors, but even they can't do what writer-director Tom Ford calls on them for in Nocturnal Animals: pull the two halves of his movie into coherence. Part of the film is a savage satire on the art world's high end and its wealthy patrons. The other part is a story of sexual violence and revenge. Adams's Susan Morrow exists in the first part as a wealthy gallery owner in Los Angeles with a husband who is cheating on her. One day she receives a manuscript from her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield. It provides the second story, about Tony Hastings, who is waylaid by vicious young thugs while driving across West Texas by night. His wife, Laura, and his teenage daughter, India, are in the car with him, but Tony, who survives by hiding from the men, is unable to save Laura and India from being raped and murdered. With the help of Bobby Andes, a detective who is dying of lung cancer, he gets his revenge but, as they say, at a cost. As Susan reads the manuscript, she envisions Tony as Edward, whom she had betrayed by leaving him and aborting their child, then marrying the wealthy Hutton Morrow, with whom she has a now-grown daughter, Samantha. The story so disturbs Susan that she wonders why Edward chose to send it to her after so many years -- is this tale of revenge itself  a kind of threat? As well-done as the Tony Hastings story is, with strong performances by not only Gyllenhaal but also Michael Shannon as Andes and Aaron Taylor-Johnson as the vicious Ray Marcus, it never comes into the same focus as the "real" story of Susan and the rather decadent art world in which she moves. That said, the best scene in the film may be the one in which Susan has lunch with her mother, a big-haired Texas grande dame played with finesse by Laura Linney. Ford has a way of tossing in secondary characters whose backstories sound potentially more interesting than the ones in the foreground. Nocturnal Animals is a disappointment, but only because it feels like it skims the surface of what it has to tell us.

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy, 2014)

That an actor as good as Jake Gyllenhaal, still in his 30s, should have to resort to transformative tricks to get a noticeable role is regrettable. Ever since the Brits learned to do American accents that don't sound like they're talking through their noses while chewing gum, young American actors have had it hard. Why should producers take a chance on a Yank when they can hire a Hiddleston or a Cumberbatch or one of the Dominics (Cooper or West)? So you're doing a TV series about a Russian spy pretending to be an American? Naturally you hire Matthew Rhys, a Welshman. Want a fresh face? Check out RADA or that young guy who just got raves playing Hamlet in Bristol. What's an American actor got to do to get a break? If you're Matthew McConaughey trying to avoid getting cast in another rom-com, you lose 47 pounds and win an Oscar. Or if you're Gyllenhaal, you lose all the muscle you built for the turkey Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Mike Newell, 2010), let your hair go long and greasy, turn yourself into one of the more fascinatingly repellent characters in recent films and get the best reviews you've had since Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005). Nightcrawler is a solid drama with a satiric edge, in which Gyllenhaal plays Louis Bloom, a sociopath who roams the streets of Los Angeles at night, listening to a police scanner for reports of shootings, fires, car crashes -- anything that comes under the TV news rubric, "If it bleeds, it leads." He films whatever gore he can worm his way past police lines to witness, then sells it to a local TV news outlet. There are semi-legitimate, better-equipped outfits doing this sort of thing, but they have some scruples. Bloom has none; his amorality is hair-raising. This was the first film as a director for Dan Gilroy, who also wrote the screenplay, and it has a terrific cast supporting Gyllenhaal. Rene Russo plays a TV news producer whose ethical standards are only a shade higher than Bloom's. She makes Faye Dunaway's Diana Christensen in Network (Sidney Lumet, 1976) look almost namby-pamby. Riz Ahmed plays Rick, a homeless kid whom Bloom hires as an assistant and abuses and profoundly exploits. After his turn in HBO's miniseries The Night Of (2016), Ahmed is in danger of getting typed as a wide-eyed patsy. Bill Paxton, one of those actors whose presence always helps make a film better, plays an older and more experienced TV news freelancer who shows Bloom the ropes and winds up getting sabotaged for his efforts.