We saw two films this weekend, both at the Avalon. The first was Pedro Almovodar’s first English language film, The Room Next Door, and the second, the Bob Dylan biopic, A Complete Unknown. Both films are getting by and large strong reviews from critics, and the Dylan film in particular is getting good audience reviews. I did read most of the critic reviews for both films on Rotten Tomatoes, and discovered that critics who like a film seem to like it for the same reasons, while dissenting critics each have a distinct set of reasons not to be so positive.

Let’s start with my conclusions. I didn’t think either film was a great film. And if I had to see only one of them again, I’d chose A Complete Unknown.

Now, a confession. I have never liked Bob Dylan. From the day I first heard him (not that I remember that day), I found his grating voice just grated on me, and his lyrics (which eventually somehow won him a Nobel Prize) never touched me in the least. As to the four other stars with major roles in the film, I love them all – Woody Guthrie, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Johnny Cash.

So, never being a Bob Dylan fan, I never paid much attention to his artistic arc. Some of his songs, I am naturally familiar with, although I certainly haven’t memorized any lyrics, and there are many of his songs, including some sung in the film, that I don’t know if I have ever heard before. I knew, from reading some pieces about the film in a cursory manner, that the culmination of the film would be Dylan playing an electronic instrument at the 1965 Newport Jazz Festival (I knew nothing about that, other than through the film), and I knew that Dylan and Baez had some sort of a relationship, although I am not sure I knew at the time.

The film shows Bob Dylan coming to New York in 1961 with a guitar and no money, of his learning that his idol Woody Guthrie was dying in a hospital in suburban New Jersey and his taking a taxi (which he did not have enough money to pay) there, going to Guthrie’s room and running into Pete Seeger, playing a song for Guthrie, and then going with Seeger to Pete Seeger’s house to spend a night or two. None of this is historic. This evening, I read an article from Rolling Stone, which generally liked the movie, but pointed out that it was not an historical film, discussing 27 places where the film and the truth went separate ways, including these.

The film shows Dylan, a “complete unknown”, coming to town and within hours becoming known by Guthrie and Seeger and within a few days being known by Baez, and on and on. It didn’t quite happen this way, but it makes a good story, and while I usually want films to be historically accurate, I must say that, with regard to Bob Dylan……what’s the difference?

As to the acting, critics are swooning over the various performances – all of them. I guess they were good enough. The only one that I really liked was Monica Barbaro, who played Joan Baez. As to Timothee Chalamet, I really don’t have an opinion. Because I don’t like watching or listening to Bob Dylan, I can’t hold the fact that I didn’t like watching or listening to Chalamet against him. The singing (and there was a lot of it) was not done through recordings, but by the actors. And they all did great. Chalamet sounded as bad as Dylan does, Edward Norton sounded just like Johnny Cash, and Barbaro sounded almost as good as Joan Baez (no one can sound just as good as she does).

Now, time for The Room Next Door. There are only two main characters, two old friends who had been out of touch played by Tilda Swinton (a former war reporter) and Julianne Moore (a writer of fiction). Swinton is under treatment for a cancer, and her treatment has ceased to be effective; an imminent death seems certain. Moore feels guilty she has not kept in touch, and vows to do better.

Swinton plans on suicide, using some sort of an illegal pill. Having failed to convince three other friends to help her, she does convince Moore, and rents a vacation home, somewhere (perhaps) in the Catskills, and the two of them go for a vacation to end in Swinton’s death. Moore will know that her friend has ended her life when she sees her bedroom door closed.

It tugs at the heartstrings, sure, but it is a very unlikely plot. And there are a few subordinate stories that are even less likely – a male personal trainer who wishes he was allowed to hug Moore, and Moore’s old boy friend, who is on a lecture tour not only talking about how climate change is destroying the world, but yelling and screaming about it in the most unpleasant of ways.

I did think that Swinton did a fine job wasting away and dying, and thought less of Moore’s performance. But…what do I know?

In between all of this, I read a short book by scholar Cecil Roth, Dona Gracia of the House of Nasi. I say that it’s a short book, because it is only 185 pages long. But, because the writing is so convoluted, it seems much longer. I mention the book here because this story would make a great movie.

The Jews of Portugal, at the end of the 15th century, can stay only if they become Christian. And the New Christians are soon in potential trouble because of the entrance of the Inquisition into Portugal, looking for backsliding New Christians. The Mendes family, one of the many prosperous Portuguese New Christian families, eventually all relocate to Antwerp, where they must remain New Christian, but there is no Inquisition.

This family becomes one of Europe’s wealthiest, perhaps the most wealthy, financing monarchies the way the Rothschild family did centuries later. After the death of her husband, the leader of the family businesses, Dona Gracia took over and ran them with great success. They were monopolizing the entire Dutch spice trade, among other things. When things got hot, they relocated to Italy, to Farrara (this was not easy to do, as they had to sneak not only themselves, but their assets out of Antwerp), and then to Constantinople, where they were able to revert to Judaism.

Dona Gracia became a financial leader in the Ottoman Empire, and a major philanthropist for Jews Europe-wide. The family’s trading business was now mainly carried on in Constantinople and on Italy’s Adriatic coast. Trouble came when a new Pope decided to go after the Portuguese New Christians on the Italian coast, and the Jewish world was torn as to how to respond.

This entire story, including the question as to how to respond to the Pope after twenty five New Christians were burnt to death in Arcona, and how this problem was solved, would make one great (yes, and expensive) film.

Any takers?