Landline

Another spiked-punch punch-puller from Obvious Child auteur Gillian Robespierre, once again headlined and nearly saved by Jenny Slate. Slate plays Dana, the jittery bride-to-be to a doughy schmuck in the analog mid-1990s. Just as Dana starts cheating on her fiancee, her teenage sister Ali uncovers evidence of their father’s infidelities. Like Obvious Child, Landline brings a consistent energy without ever going anywhere, offering barbed insights while allowing space for the actors to breathe. It’s impossible for me to dislike a film that relies so heavily on 1990s alternative rock to set the mood, but it’s also impossible to deny that Robespierre once again falters in the finish. Landline is the sort of film that heroically refuses to be the sort of film where everyone works out their problems by hugging and smiling, until suddenly it’s the sort of film where everyone works out their problems by hugging and smiling, the end. D.B.