With rare exception with some movies like Gladiator in 2000, Joaquin Phoenix has been making low budget art movies throughout his career. Most of this is admirable because its obvious that he is not interested in the money, only the art form of making movies. His new movie “You Were Never Really Here” is another example of one his art movies and this film is unusual in many ways including the story telling and the over the top method of showing flashbacks to explain the action and the main character’s abusive childhood.

Like the recent movie Traffik this film deals with the tragedy of human trafficking. Joaquin portrays a man whose job it is to find young girls who have been abducted and return them to their families. This story is about one abduction that becomes far more involved and violent than others he has done in the past, although the details on the reasons behind why all of this is happening is never explained. In other reviews I have done in this blog in the past, I have said several times that its one thing try something new but if that idea is too off the wall or doesn’t make sense, then this is not a movie I will review positively. You Were Never Really Here is pretty close to going off course but for the most part, the movie made sense and was not too strange to give a negative review.

I give a marginal recommendation to You Were Never Really Here.

It all starts with a logline: “A woman with low self esteem hits her head and suddenly thinks she is extremely attractive”. This idea is simple, brilliant and perfect for Amy Schumer, who has made a huge career out of self deprecating comedy and now with her third movie “I Feel Pretty”.

Why the ratings for this movie are so low I have no idea because I thought this was a very solid comedy that in the end had a very strong message. There were several laugh out loud moments in this movie not only for me but for several other people in the audience, which is always the most important test of any comedy.

This is Amy Schumer’s third movie, her first “Trainwreck” was very good and her second movie, “Snatched” did not work. There were moments in this film where I was impressed with Schumer’s acting as I was with her acting in Trainwreck. She is one of the few comedic actresses who can be funny with her eyes by just looking at the camera. I have seen this innate ability in very few other actors including Will Farrell, Steve Martin and the late John Candy.

The message of this movie through the transformation of Renee played by Schumer from someone who hates herself to after a head injury to someone who loves herself I thought was very strongly portrayed in this film. There is a scene in this movie that for me stood out the most – when a salesperson in a clothing store went out of her way to go over to Schumer and knock her down by telling her that she would have to go online to find her size. People like this are everywhere in life; callous, diseased people who believe they can be the judge over someone they don’t know and in many cases over someone who is obviously hurting. There are many people like this in this story, as Renee works for a high fashion makeup company. For me the best message in this film is why do so many of us give others the power to judge us. Why is the opinion of others, even total strangers so important to so many of us, even to the point of hating ourselves.

This movie also stars Michelle Williams in what I think is her first comedy performance and Lauren Hutton who is the creator of the fictional fashion company and I thought both were very good in their roles. Renee’s friends are played by Saturday Night Live cast member Aidy Bryant and Busy Phillips who were also very good in their roles as well providing some funny moments in this movie.

I thought Renee’s transition to a likable self hating person to someone who became an egomaniacal jerk due to her head injury was another very important message in this film – the message being love yourself but show respect to those around you, especially your friends.

I thought I Feel Pretty is the best comedy of 2018 and I recommend it. Once again the critics are very wrong about this very solid comedy.

I can only assume that the reason for the title of the new movie “Traffik” being spelled with a K so it wont be confused with the movie Traffic that won won 4 Academy Awards in 2001. Assuming this was the reason, I would have called this movie Trafficking because of what this movie is all about – Human Trafficking.

The ratings for Traffik on rotten tomatoes are very low at 24% and most of the reviews are saying that this movie is exploitative of the 150 billion dollar business of human trafficking that is a world wide epidemic. My review is that this movie has too many scenes that we have all seen before and does not have that many new ideas, but I did not think this film is exploitative.

Traffik stars Paula Patton and Omar Epps who were both effective in their roles within a story that I thought achieved its goal to be an engaging thriller. Unlike Rotten Tomatoes I am giving this movie a score of 50% mainly because of the lack of original content. For this main reason, I give Traffik only a marginal recommendation.