'Rush' Universal Studios

Ron Howard's "Rush" arrives just as Formula One is trying to find a parking space in the psyche of sports-minded America, which has preferred up till now to watch its race cars go around in circles. Which is one thing "Rush" doesn't do: It's a classic story of competitors on a headlong collision course, a 450-horsepower movie traveling at 220 miles per hour.

But for all its immersion in the roar, grease and danger of Formula One, the fact-based "Rush"—about the sport's great rivalry of the 1970s—is also more predictable than a pit stop, something well-suited to Mr. Howard. He's made perfectly palatable pictures, but never a truly great one, partly because he has such a weakness for the commercial and a consequent gift for the obvious. Nothing is ever suggested if it can be said out loud. Very little is beyond further simplification. And the two real-life personalities at the center of his story are so archetypal they may as well be a fuel-injected tortoise and hare.

The British champion James Hunt ( Chris Hemsworth ), dangerously handsome, dangerous behind the wheel, is in racing for the glory, the fun and the not-always-well-chosen women. Hunt's chief rival is Niki Lauda ( Daniel Brühl ), a Teutonic perfectionist with a matter-of-fact awareness of his own superiority, no compunction about explaining it to anyone who questions him, and a certain satisfied joy in describing a competitor's failings to his face. He exists beyond arrogance, but in close proximity to loathsome.

Focused on the 1976 racing season, "Rush" travels from the great European tracks to South Africa and Japan, as the Hunt-Lauda rivalry—no other drivers seem to exist—seesaws back and forth, with personal speed-bumps occasionally intruding on the aerodynamics: At one point, Hunt's estranged wife, the ravishing Suzy ( Olivia Wilde ), takes up with the actor Richard Burton, to the delighted agitation of the tabloids and Hunt's vague displeasure. Lauda's setbacks are far more serious. Without giving too much away, his recovery involves scenes far more disturbing than anything that happens on the track.

The great American car movies have usually involved crime ("Bullitt," "The Seven-Ups"), speed as an allegory ("Two-Lane Blacktop") and the occasional one-off masterpiece ("Smokey and the Bandit"). The closest thing to "Rush," other than "Days of Thunder" and "Le Mans" is "Senna," the 2010 documentary about a later Formula One rivalry, which had the real footage "Rush" often simulates. But what happens away from the racing often makes for the better "Rush" moments: A sequence in which Lauda meets his wife-to-be, Marlene ( Alexandra Maria Lara ), and—at the behest of a couple of backseat Italians—speeds them all through the provincial countryside, is simply wonderful, a moment deeper felt than almost anything else in the movie.

Like many directors who've made biographical films, Mr. Howard can't resist showing, in his movie's closing moments, photos of the real subjects, something that always feels like a betrayal of the actors. Nevertheless, the shots do show how close Messrs. Brühl and Hemsworth come, or don't, to replicating the originals. Mr. Brühl is equipped with a prosthetic overbite that not only enables him to chew more scenery, but displays why Hunt always called his rival a "rat." The real Mr. Hunt, who died in 1993, was not nearly as handsome as Mr. Hemsworth. But who is? With that long, blond mane, he suggests a young Brad Pitt, and at times seems to be channeling both Peter O'Toole and Errol Flynn. His face is his fortune and maybe the movie's, too: As was the case with "Thor," the advertisement for "Rush" is simply a closeup of Mr. Hemsworth. No smoke, no lightning, no race cars. And certainly no Niki Lauda.

Despite being a schematic exercise in storytelling, "Rush" does take one calculated gamble: Neither of the protagonists is close to likable. Both are arrogant, reckless, unfeeling and übercompetitive—qualities that no doubt make for world-class drivers, but not for naturally sympathetic movie heroes. It's a smart twist on the usual, though, a calibration in a film about a sport in which everything is oversized except the margins of error. Working from a very clever script by Peter Morgan ("The Queen"), Mr. Howard doesn't pick sides. He lets two distinctly abrasive characters rub up against his viewers, chafing them into gear.

Watch a clip from the film "Haute Cuisine," the story of Danièle Delpeuch and how she was appointed as the private chef for François Mitterrand. (Photo/Video: The Weinstein Company)

'Haute Cuisine'

"Witty and brisk" is not the name of a French breakfast cereal, but it does describe a certain brand of French film, the type that coquettishly flirts with comedy while sprinting in the direction of dry, sophisticated charm. Such is "Haute Cuisine," which is based on the memoir of Danièle Delpeuch, who served as private chef to François Mitterrand during several of his years as president of the republic. As played by Catherine Frot, the heroine is a model of efficiency, devotion to duty, everything one might expect and one thing more: The personification of creativity crushed by bureaucracy.

'Haute Cuisine' Weinstein Co.

As such, that character, here called Hortense Laborie, elevates what might have been a rather gloriously photographed trifle (the seafood! the patisserie! the salmon-stuffed cabbages!) into something considerably more, something that has led Hortense—as we see in the entrée to the film—to Antarctica. There, among a platoon of researchers apparently more accustomed to gruel, she has become beloved, the Marianne of gustatory integrity. Unfortunately, she's also become the target of an Australian television journalist who wants to tell her story. It's not a story Hortense necessarily wants retold. The viewer, however, is ready for the main course.

Four years earlier, in flashback, Hortense is tracked down on her truffle farm by a brusque team of government emissaries who are as short on charm as they are on information: They refuse to tell her where she's being taken, but she's willing to be patient. As it turns out, her destination—and her base of operations for the next several years—is the Elysée Palace in Paris. Mitterrand wants good, simple food for himself and his guests. Hortense is given a mission.

She's also given a rogue's gallery of bean counters, pencil pushers and one corpulent cook with which to contend. She immediately becomes the bête noire of Lepiq ( Brice Fournier ), the long-time ruler of the palace's main kitchen who views Hortense as an intruder, a pretender and a threat. Worse, she's a woman. There has never been a woman behind the stoves of the palace, or allowed to wield the copper cookware that dates back to Louis-Philippe. She must be overthrown.

Ms. Frot brings a sympathetic mix of determination and passion to Hortense, who dedicates herself to making dishes that suit the president. Jean D'Ormesson looks nothing like Mitterrand, but seems a bit dotty and is treated more like a king. He certainly eats like one. The preparation of his meals—cockles steaming, ducks being stuffed, a Sainte-Honoré cake being anointed with pastry cream—is hallucinatory. If some enterprising movie concessionaire offered the truffles on toast that Mitterrand enjoys during his late-night snack, audiences would be streaming to the lobby to snatch them up.

Even after the president's doctors, via the bureaucrats, start making Hortense's work impossible, she perseveres. For a while. Eventually, she's going to head for Antarctica, which is certainly a comment on public life, and the concept of égalité: It's warmer on the ice for Hortense, and among diners who appreciate what they're getting.



There's a near-sacred history in Hollywood of non-U.S.- born directors providing fresh perspectives on America. Miloš Forman. Alfred Hitchcock. Ang Lee. Ernst Lubitsch. Billy Wilder. For "Prisoners," a stress-inducing trip into child abduction, the director is Quebecois filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, who gives us an American "hero" guaranteed to push many buttons, many times, and who might not have been allowed to be quite so awful, under a different director's lens.

Jake Gyllenhaal Warner Bros.

That character, Keller Dover ( Hugh Jackman ), is a building contractor, survivalist and devout Christian who drives a pickup truck, sings "The Star-Spangled Banner" in the shower, and says an "Our Father" before helping his son shoot his first deer. He maintains a survivalist's philosophy ("Pray for the best, prepare for the worst") and a basement full of canned goods. When catastrophe strikes, he turns into a monster.


Mr. Villeneuve leans heavily on "Zodiac" and "Silence of the Lambs" for his mood, and on screenwriter Aaron Guzikowski for his nightmare story. While Keller and wife, Grace ( Maria Bello ), celebrate Thanksgiving with their neighbors, Nancy and Franklin Birch (Viola Davis, Terrence Howard ), their young daughters go outside and immediately go missing. An RV had been parked outside; the older kids say there was someone in it. Panic ensues, as does rain, which under the circumstances—aberrant religion informs the entire story—seems vengeful and Old Testament.

The local police are on the case right away, chiefly the department's ace detective, Loki ( Jake Gyllenhaal ), who tracks down the camper, arrests the driver, Alex Jones ( Paul Dano ) and decides he's got the wrong guy. Alex is too simple-minded to have abducted two preteen girls in broad daylight and hidden them away. Loki moves on. Keller can't.

In addition to the skin-crawling camera moves and the understated dread that bolsters the surface tensions of "Prisoners" there is a fascinating actor's duel going on. Mr. Jackman is all seething anger and righteous pain; his character clearly wants to be an avenging angel, as he kidnaps Alex and tries to torture the truth out of him.

Mr. Gyllenhaal's performance is different. He internalizes Loki's evident problems, which include an insubordinate contempt for his higher ups, a supreme confidence in his own investigative judgment and the kind of control over his passions that is very deliberate and fragile. Mr. Jackman may well get awards. Mr. Gyllenhaal gets our attention.

'After Tiller'

Nothing has encapsulated the craziness of the so-called abortion "debate" than the murder—in church—of George Tiller by an antiabortion religious zealot. So it takes a bit of imagination to think that even a movie as sober, and sobering, as "After Tiller" will have much useful effect on an issue so seemingly immune to reason. Directed by Lana Wilson and Martha Shane, "Tiller" addresses the issue of late-term abortion by sweeping aside rhetoric and hysterics, providing valuable information (i.e., that such abortions account for less than 1% of the total in this country) and delivers a useful debunking of certain ideas, including the notion that ending a pregnancy in the final trimester is something done casually, as birth control, or without enormous anguish on the part of both patient and doctor. "It seems barbaric," agrees Dr. Shelley Sella. "Unless people understand what's going on with the woman, it's impossible to support." "After Tiller" may not be an exhaustive study of the issue, but it does provide some understanding.

You Can Count on Me (2000)

'You Can Count on Me'

Directed by Kenneth Lonergan ("Margaret"), this bittersweet story of a drifter brother and his stalwart sister proved to be a breakout for both Mark Ruffalo and Laura Linney, who earned her first Oscar nomination as a single mother in upstate New York, juggling her son, her brother and her miserable boss, played with pitch-perfect petulance by Matthew Broderick. Once described as a film about "beautiful losers," it is just that, and Mr. Lonergan and company make it all very memorable. Jon Tenney and Rory Culkin also appear. Mr. Lonergan wrote the screenplay.

Senna (2010)


Director Asif Kapadia's portrait of Brazilian Formula One legend Ayrton Senna—and his ugly rivalry with French driver Alain Prost —was the beneficiary of the ban against cigarette advertising on television: Tobacco companies, desperate for exposure, starting channeling their ad money into racing, sponsoring drivers, pasting logos on everything that moved and filming every race with multiple cameras. Mr. Kapadia, given unprecedented access to the Formula One archives, was able to make a nonfiction film with the same kind of visual storytelling options available to a Hollywood director. The result: One of the better documentaries on the theme.

Zodiac (2007)


Jake Gyllenhall plays the obsessive rather than the detective—the cop is portrayed by Mark Ruffalo—in this highly atmospheric David Fincher thriller, shot with characteristic moodiness by Harris Savides. Based on murders committed in the Bay Area during the 1960s and '70s by a murderer known as Zodiac, it also stars Robert Downey Jr., who eats a bit of scenery as the reporter assigned to the case but is as fascinating to watch as Mr. Gyllenhaal, who is driven from boyish to bonkers by a serial killer with a flair for the dramatic. And whose identity remains unknown.