Andrea Gronvall
Andrea Gronvall's reviews only count toward the Tomatometer when
published at the following Tomatometer-approved publication(s):
Chicago Reader,
Time Out
| Biography: |
Chicago Reader film critic.
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| Publications: | Chicago Reader, Time Out |
Movie Reviews Only
| Rating | T-Meter | Title | Year | Review |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Score Yet | Breath (Nafas) (2016) |
An unsentimental perspective distinguishes this 2016 Iranian drama from earlier youth-centered classics.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Apr 14, 2018
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| 100% | White Sun (Seto Surya) (2017) |
[Deepak] Rauniyar gets the most out of the actors, a mix of pros and amateurs, and cinematographer Mark Ellam generates exhilarating images of this vertiginous corner of the world. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jan 29, 2018
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| 89% | Wait for Your Laugh (2017) |
Timing is everything in comedy, and according to this nostalgic documentary portrait of Rose Marie, she always knew when to jump to the next big thing. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jan 18, 2018
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| 76% | Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017) |
Like a video game, the narrative lacks any character development, relying on obstacles, chases, and the threat of elimination. Hart delivers his one-liners with precision and verve, and Johnson is sweetly funny as the muscular incarnation of a gawky nerd.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 31% | Pitch Perfect 3 (2017) |
The wafer-thin plot barely sustains the songs and romance.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Dec 21, 2017
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| 92% | Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017) |
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri tells the story of a woman emulating God's vengeance when she might profit more by emulating his forgiveness, especially toward herself.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Nov 30, 2017
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| 98% | BPM (Beats Per Minute) (120 battements par minute) (2017) |
[BPM] devotes significant screen time to philosophical debate but also appeals to the senses with graphic sex and a throbbing techno score by Arnaud Rebotini.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Nov 16, 2017
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| 92% | Thor: Ragnarok (2017) |
This is a colorful mashup of Scandinavian myth, interplanetary sci-fi, Old Testament references, and crossover comic book characters.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 87% | Novitiate (2017) |
Writer-director Maggie Betts balances the naturalistic exchanges of her sympathetic young cast with bravura set pieces for the seasoned actors.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 64% | Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) |
The movie's focus on the caustic effects of celebrity make this narrative set in the first half of the 20th century particularly relevant for the media-frenzied 21st.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Nov 2, 2017
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| 93% | Thelma (2017) |
[Thelma] links supernatural horror to repressed memories, raging hormones, and fundamentalist zealotry, crafting a sexy and unsettling brain-teaser.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 83% | Marshall (2017) |
This real-life case makes for an entertaining courtroom drama that nonetheless reduces Marshall to the level of Perry Mason and consigns to the end credits his greater triumphs.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 62% | The Foreigner (2017) |
Martin Campbell directed this twisty, bracing political thriller, giving Chan room to display his dramatic ability and letting Brosnan flesh out a vigorous, complex character who's surrounded by frenemies with secrets of their own.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Oct 19, 2017
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| 2/4 | 66% | Victoria & Abdul (2017) |
Victoria & Abdul may capture the ugly side of Britain's colonial past, but its demeaning portrait of Abdul reinforces the Orientalism it purports to lampoon. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Oct 13, 2017
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| 40% | The Mountain Between Us (2017) |
The movie works as far-fetched escapism with some genuinely moving moments.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Oct 5, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Against the Law (2017) |
This somber BBC production... intercuts eyewitness accounts from grizzled survivors of homophobia in postwar England with a dramatic treatment of the life of journalist and activist Peter Wildeblood.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| No Score Yet | B&B (2018) |
the plot is overly reliant on such technology as smart phones and night goggles, gizmos that eventually hamper the paranoiac suspense.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| 52% | Kingsman: The Golden Circle (2017) |
Exaggerated, cartoonish violence, deliberately cheesy CGI, and a buoyant pop soundtrack make this a stylish if overstuffed romp.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Sep 21, 2017
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| 32% | Home Again (2017) |
Witherspoon lacks the abandon the May-December love angle requires, and the movie is so tidily formulaic that it feels as if it's been airbrushed; the send-up of Hollywood falls flat too.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2017
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| 34% | American Assassin (2017) |
Somewhere along the way Michael Cuesta morphed from a creator of thoughtful indie dramas... into an action director (Showtime's Homeland); if he ever wants to tackle a James Bond movie, this nonstop spy thriller should serve as his audition.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Sep 14, 2017
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| 87% | Wind River (2017) |
The pace was breakneck in Sheridan's previous thrillers, but in this whodunit the mood is more ruminative and the dialogue is portentous. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Aug 17, 2017
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| 70% | Annabelle: Creation (2017) |
The constant floating, spinning, shattering, and slamming of household objects gradually saps the movie's tension.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Aug 10, 2017
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| 80% | An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth To Power (2017) |
Some might see the film as lionizing Gore, but it's a fascinating primer on how to engage and train citizen activists, from the grass roots to the corridors of power.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2017
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| 77% | Atomic Blonde (2017) |
Adapting Sam Hart and Antony Johnston's graphic novel The Coldest City, Kurt Johnstad has written a smart exploitation thriller.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2017
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| 95% | Step (2017) |
For most of the film the dancing is unsteady, but in the final number director Amanda Lipitz, a Tony Award-winning producer, makes the gutsy amateurs look like pros.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Aug 3, 2017
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| 90% | Girls Trip (2017) |
Bridesmaids proved that women could be just as smutty onscreen as men, but this fast-paced comedy is ruder, cruder, funnier, and more explicit.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jul 20, 2017
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| 16% | Wish Upon (2017) |
This horror flick is so predictable it feels not raw but antiseptic.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jul 13, 2017
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| 93% | Baby Driver (2017) |
Oozing menace as addicted bank robbers, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm are all the more charismatic thanks to Bill Pope's luscious noir photography. Credit Jonathan Amos and Paul Machliss for the razor-sharp editing.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 29, 2017
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| 55% | 47 Meters Down (2017) |
The only thing this so-called thriller has going for it is widescreen cinematography by Mark Silk.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 15, 2017
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| 96% | The Women's Balcony (Ismach Hatani) (2017) |
With an eye for artful detail, director Emil Ben-Shimon orchestrates a resolution both plausible and jubilant.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 13, 2017
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| 56% | Family Life (Vida de Familia) (2017) |
Nudity and scenes of energetic lovemaking spice up the meager narrative but can't make up for a flat ending.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 8, 2017
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| 84% | Megan Leavey (2017) |
This is an affecting story about loyalty, sacrifice, and the forging of identity.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 8, 2017
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| 16% | The Mummy (2017) |
How fitting that the makers of this action-adventure movie about tomb raiders plunder the Universal Pictures vault, from the 1932 and 1999 versions of The Mummy to An American Werewolf in London and the Abbott and Costello monster fests.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jun 8, 2017
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| 18% | Baywatch (2017) |
Who'd have thought a flimsy, witless TV series like Baywatch could have spawned this boisterous, cheeky comedy?‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted May 25, 2017
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| 1/4 | 45% | Paris Can Wait (Bonjour Anne) (2017) |
This is nothing but a vanity project, relying on the conceit that Anne has been unfairly languishing in her husband's shadow. Eleanor Coppola must have made many sacrifices for her husband's art, but with Paris Can Wait the sacrifice is all ours.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted May 18, 2017
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| 30% | King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword (2017) |
After directing a number of British crime comedies, Guy Ritchie applied his rapid-fire wisecracks, gleeful violence, and flashy cutting and camera moves to the Sherlock Holmes franchise; that same method works well for this big-budget Arthurian legend.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted May 11, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Between Land and Sea (2016) |
The character's scenes with his mother (Vicky Hernandez) and the next-door-neighbor he adores (Viviana Serna) are engrossing in their unfussy realism, as Cruz...uses the tiniest of movements to suggest the red-blooded man trapped inside the infirm body. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Apr 27, 2017
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| No Score Yet | The Projects (Danchi) (2016) |
The movie's high point is an inventive sequence inside a massive UFO... The sequence reflects a traditional Japanese reverence for nature, and it helps compensate for the claustrophobic early scenes.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Apr 4, 2017
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| 86% | Mr. Gaga: A True Story of Love and Dance (2017) |
Naharin's style is both idiosyncratic and accessible, his movements both angular and supple, but above all his dances celebrate the body, built for the joy of motion.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Mar 31, 2017
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| 90% | Frantz (2017) |
This sublime mature work by François Ozon borrows liberally from Ernst Lubitsch's Broken Lullaby (1932) but supplants its fevered melodrama with erotically charged mystery.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Mar 16, 2017
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| 65% | Slack Bay (Ma loute) (2017) |
Cannibalism may not be everyone's idea of funny, but French director Bruno Dumont (L'Humanité, Hadewijch) elevates it to ghoulish camp in this slapstick skewering of the French bourgeoisie.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Mar 9, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Cock and Bull (2016) |
Cao may not have Tarantino's bravura, but he does have his own style and attitude, conveyed in inventive low-angle shots and snide jabs at modern-day robber barons.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Mar 9, 2017
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| 86% | Apprentice (2017) |
Benoit Soler's fluid, revolving camera frequently visualizes what the main character can't verbalize, and writer-director Boo Junfeng treats his thorny topic with sensitivity, but the pat ending is a letdown. ‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Feb 27, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Daughter (Dokhtar) (2016) |
[Cinematographer Hamid Khozouie Abyane] brings to his widescreen images an array of vivid colors and patterns, an architectural sense of composition, and a feel for climate and terrain.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Feb 23, 2017
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| 10% | Fifty Shades Darker (2017) |
Other than Dornan's exceptional physique, the movie offers little gratification, delayed or otherwise.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2017
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| 100% | 2017 Oscar Nominated Shorts: Documentary (2017) |
The strongest entry this year is Orlando von Einsiedel's British short The White Helmets.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Feb 10, 2017
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| 95% | Hunter Gatherer (2016) |
By turns whimsical and touching.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Feb 2, 2017
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| No Score Yet | We Are One (I Am You) (2017) |
Originally titled I Am You, this documentary stresses our connection to each other and the planet, though director Kevin Mukherji undermines his theme with sloppy methodology and lazy thinking.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2017
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| 55% | The Ardennes (D'Ardennen) (2017) |
Amid the plot twists lies a tricky conundrum about the relative culpability of miscreants and their enablers.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jan 26, 2017
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| No Score Yet | Little Wound's Warriors (2017) |
McClellan sticks largely to close-ups, letting the students weigh in on subjects from tribal culture to dysfunctional parents, from school spirit to suicide. Stunning aerial shots of the Badlands help illustrate how the Lakota find renewal and purpose.‐ Chicago Reader
Read More | Posted Jan 19, 2017
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