Even with the many streaming-induced changes to the film industry’s operations, July remains a month for blockbusters. This July will include an intriguing mix of madcap comedies, sweeping action epics and independent fare hoping to get as many viewers into theaters — or in front of their televisions — as possible.
‘Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass’
Gail (Zoey Deutch) is so shocked when her fiance, Tom (Michael Cassidy), uses his half-joking “celebrity sex pass” — an exception to marriage vows if the opportunity arises to sleep with your most-lusted-after famous person — that she decides to even the score by traveling to Los Angeles and convincing actor Jon Hamm to go to bed with her. Featuring a “tone that’s broad, antic, overemphatic and a bit wacked,” director David Wain (“Wet Hot American Summer”) brings us a film “so aggressive in its meta absurdity that it makes an episode of ‘Seinfeld’ look like Ingmar Bergman,” said Owen Gleiberman at Variety. (in theaters July 10)
‘Reading Lolita in Tehran’
After a year of protests and war for Iran, the timing for an adaptation of Azar Nafisi’s celebrated 2003 memoir is exquisite. Golshifteh Farahahi (“Invasion”) stars as Nafisi in Israeli director Eran Riklis’ film that follows her from her sacking as an English professor at the University of Tehran following the 1979 revolution to her emigration to the United States in 1997.
The book gets its title from the secret book club Nafisi conducted in her home for her students, including Sanaz (Zar Amir Ebrahimi) and Mahshid (Bahar Beihaghi), after her dismissal. The film’s “message about the humane power of literature” makes it a “work of art rather than an exercise in sloganeering,” said Arash Azizi at The Atlantic. (in theaters July 10)
‘The Odyssey’
There may be no more bankable director working in Hollywood today than Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”). He has succeeded at everything from science fiction (“Interstellar”) to war (“Dunkirk”).
In “The Odyssey,” Nolan tackles Homer’s epic story of Odysseus (Matt Damon), the king of Ithaca, and his journey home to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), following the Trojan War. An extraordinary cast includes Zendaya as the goddess Athena and Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, the king of Sparta. Nolan “has been circling this kind of scale for much of his career, but ‘The Odyssey’ marks a new technical milestone even for him,” said Rodrigo Perez at The Playlist. (in theaters July 17)
‘The Dink’
Sports comedies like “Dodgeball” don’t always get the critical love they deserve. In “The Dink,” director Josh Greenbaum (“Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar”) looks to capture the zeitgeist with this big-hearted satire of the pickleball phenomenon.
Jake Johnson stars as Dusty Boyd, an over-the-hill tennis pro slumming it as a children’s tennis teacher at his father Chuck’s (Ed Harris) country club, where pickleball is squeezing out tennis. When an injury forces Dustin to try pickleball, he meets Candace (Mary Steenburgen) and reevaluates his kneejerk loathing of the sport. It has “all the hallmarks of a typical sports redemption story,” said Ryan O’Rourke and Maggie Lovitt at Collider. (July 24 on Apple TV+)
‘A Sad and Beautiful World’
Nino (Hasan Akil) and Yasmina (Mounia Akl), who were born on the same day in a Beirut hospital, are childhood friends who rediscover each other as young adults and fall in love against the backdrop of Lebanese political turmoil and violence. The country’s tragic 21st-century travails provide much of the fodder for the couple’s drama in director Cyril Aris’s moving film, including whether to stay or emigrate, with touches of magical realism and whimsy providing levity. A movie that “combines exuberant comedy with soft-hearted drama,” it “builds its entire thesis on the idea that there is still reason for hope,” said Matthew Joseph Jenner at International Cinephile Society. (in theaters July 24)
Celebrity sex passes, Odysseus and a converted pickleball skeptic highlight July’s cinematic offerings