Fall is only weeks away, but here at Watch With Us, we’re already in the autumnal mood.
Maybe that’s why we selected three underrated movies on Hulu to watch this weekend that are a bit more introspective and moody than, say, Superman or Minecraft.
Michael Cera reassesses his life in the road movie Sacramento, while three friends discover a shocking secret in the sci-fi drama Never Let Me Go.
Finally, a woman finds life as a rich wife is hard to take in the disturbing thriller Swallow.
‘Sacramento’ (2024)
Glenn (Cera) hasn’t seen his childhood best friend, Rickey (Michael Angarano), in years, so it’s a huge shock when he turns up at Glenn’s L.A. home asking him to accompany him on a road trip to Sacramento. Glenn, whose wife, Rodie (Kristen Stewart), is about to give birth, reluctantly agrees, but as the trip progresses, he realizes Rickey might not be the friend he once knew so well. Both men will have to come to terms that they’re different now, and the ties that once bound them so close together might not be there at all now.
Primarily a road movie, Sacramento is a darkly humorous examination of male friendship and the difficulties of growing up in your late 30s. Cera’s still known for his roles in the teen comedies Superbad and Juno, but here he shows a surprising dramatic range as a man whose stable life isn’t as solid as he thinks it is. Like A Real Pain, Sacramento is an intimate study of two men who need each other to accept responsibility and grow up, even if they still long to be their immature past selves.
Sacramento is streaming on Hulu.
‘Never Let Me Go’ (2010)
Kathy (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightley) are childhood friends who grew up in the same isolated orphanage somewhere in England. Now young adults, they make a shocking discovery — they’re all clones who have to donate their organs to their original hosts. That means death, unless they can prove they have souls by showing some kind of artistic ability or falling in love with another clone. Kathy already loves Tommy, but so does Ruth. With time running out, the three friends will have to make some tough choices if they want to continue to live.
Adapted from Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel of the same name, Never Let Me Go is serious sci-fi in the same vein as Arrival and The Assessment. Like those films, it explores what it means to be human and who has a soul and who doesn’t. All three leads are terrific, with Knightley standing out for making what could’ve been a villainous character the most sympathetic person in the cast. The ending is bleak, but what else would you expect from a dystopian story like this one?
Never Let Me Go is streaming on Hulu.
‘Swallow” (2019)
From the outside, Hunter Conrad (Haley Bennett) appears to have everything: a good-looking and successful husband, a beautiful home in upstate New York and a lifestyle that doesn’t require her to work at all. But her husband is cold and distant, and she feels neglected and useless. One day, she impulsively consumes a marble and feels great. Soon, she’s swallowing thumbtacks and batteries to alleviate her depression, but her psychological disorder hides something far more troubling. What’s wrong with Hunter? And can she stop her compulsion to ingest inanimate objects before it kills her?
Swallow is an unusual thriller in that the protagonist’s chief enemy is herself. But Hunter only harms herself because she’s trying to solve a problem she doesn’t really know she has. As she looks beyond her dead marriage and into her past, she realizes the seeds of her disorder were planted even before she was born. Swallow is hard to take, but by the time the film’s devastating ending is over, you’ll be grateful you’ve watched it.
Swallow is streaming on Hulu.
Read the full article here
