In Miranda Rose Hall’s mainly searing, occasionally syrupy hour-long two-hander, a couple speaks openly and explicitly about the difficult roads each travelled to arrive at where they are now: reluctantly but hopefully embarking on a new relationship. 

 

The title, Plot Points in Our Sexual Development, is anything but subtle: it literally describes what the couple does throughout Hall’s rather contrived but effective construction.

 

Cecily, a 30-something cis woman, and Theo, a 30-something genderqueer and transmasculine, at first alternate sharing their most enduring—and sometimes humiliating—memories of sexual initiation, gender confusion and other intimate experiences as they approach this current moment: tentatively (while more than a little scared), they decide to cement their growing relationship; even though it’s not guaranteed to work—physically or emotionally—it may turn out to be the necessary salve for their past wounds.

 

Hall’s dialogue is literate and biting, even if it sometimes approaches harangues for its own sake. But Margot Bordelon has directed simply and sympathetically on Andrew Boyce’s near-bare set, which visualizes the bare souls inhabiting it. 

 

And those souls are gracefully inhabited by Jax Jackson (Theo) and Marianne Rendón (Cecily), tremendously affecting and vital, whether speaking or listening to the other, pulling away or drawing closer—in short, running the gamut of emotions their characters go through. 

 

Blu-rays of the Week 

(Warner Bros)

The ludicrousness of this gargantuan shark movie—it’s Jaws on steroids—is beside the point when all anybody wants is to see, in CGI, how the ocean behemoth makes mincemeat of lots of awful—and some not so awful—characters.

 

 

 

This is the kind of movie that wears its influences not on its sleeve but right in front of the camera, so director Jon Turteltaub must have shrugged and said the hell with it: The Meg goes full speed ahead into campy monster movie craziness. It’s definitely not good, but it’s entertaining in its own ridiculous way. There’s a sterling hi-def transfer; extras are featurettes and interviews.

 

American Dresser 

(Cinedigm)

Tom Berenger is persuasively wounded as a widowed (and alcoholic) Vietnam vet who goes cross-country on his bike with a compatriot (Keith David) to find himself after his beloved wife (Gina Gershon) dies of cancer in this one-note character study written and directed by Carmine Cangialosi, who plays a handsome ladies’ magnet who joins the pair.

 

 

 

Although Berenger and David have terrific camaraderie, their director is content to wallow in clichés and superficial characters—Gershon, Penelope Ann Miller, Bruce Dern, Jennifer Damiano and Elle McLemore have literally nothing to do—which knocks this otherwise watchable buddy movie down a notch. Extras are featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

Bloodlust  

Supposedly based on a true story, this grimly sick little movie, directed by Marijan Vayda, follows a loner bullied at work and mocked by seemingly everyone who discovers he has a taste for the blood of dead females. Soon he is digging up cadavers in their coffins and going about his yucky business.

 

 

 

Obviously, you have to be a fan of a certain kind of demented films to enjoy chose, but those viewers know who they are. It all looks good and grainy in hi-def; extras are interviews with the assistant director and actress Birgit Zamulo.

 

Gaughin—Voyage to Tahiti

(Cohen Media)

Vincent Cassell throws himself into the role of painter Paul Gaughin, who infamously left France for the South Pacific in 1891 in order to start his art—and—life anew, in Edouard Deluc’s well-made but by-the-numbers biopic.

 

 

 

Shot luminously by Pierre Cottereau, the film gets the physical details of the artist’s new home right, but despite Cassell’s intensity, we never really get inside Gaughin’s head: there’s never a moment where Deluc illuminates his protagonist in a profound way. The film sparkles in hi-def; extras comprise on-set featurettes.

 

 

 

 

 

Midaq Alley 

Director Jorge Fons made this 1995 adaptation of a novel by Egyptian Naguib Mahfouz, relocating it to Mexico City: its interest today is primarily Salma Hayek appearing in one of her earliest roles, because, even at 145 minutes, this multi-character drama is too melodramatic and sentimental.

 

 

 

The stories are presented straightforwardly, even cursorily, as if just watching several people intersecting through and divided by class and wealth is interest-holding enough. It’s not: Hayek is fine and the rest of the cast is equally good, but the total is much less than the sum of its parts. The hi-def transfer looks good; lone extra is a behind-the-scene featurette.

 

DVD of the Week

The Children Act 

(Lionsgate)

Ian McEwen’s novel about a British judge whose intense focus on cases involving children has pretty much destroyed her own marriage has become a talky, plodding drama by director Richard Eyre, whose streamlined adaptation—the script is by McEwen—strips away much of the book’s nuance.

 

 

 

Although this might straitjacket a lesser actor, Emma Thompson is able to make the judge sympathetic, even admirable, despite her own ethical and moral lapses.

 

The first-rate Hungarian National Ballet had its proper U.S. debut on the evenings of Wednesday, November 7th, Friday, the 9th, and the afternoon of Sunday, the 11th with dazzling productions of, respectively,Swan Lake and Don Quixote,and the elegant presentation of three works by the Dutch choreographer Hans van Manen, under the title LOL.

 

Swan Lake,the beloved masterpiece created by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov—and here reimagined by Rudi van Dantzig—with a glorious score by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, was brilliantly conducted by Balázs Kocsár, with beautiful sets and costumes designed by Toer van Schayk. Tatiana Melnik was a fabulous Odette (and Odile) expertly partnered by Gergely Leblanc as Prince Siegfried—he was memorable in the Pas de trois from Le Corsaireat the gala performancea few days previously. Mikalai Radziush was an effective Rothbart and Dmitry Diachkov a fine Alexander. Also extraordinary were Ellina Pokhodnykh and Diana Kosyreva in the Pas de trois and Kristina Starostina, Nadezhda Sorokina, Yuka Asai, Olga Chernakova, and Lili Felméry amongst the swans. The corps de ballet was superb. The artists received an exceedingly enthusiastic ovation. One hopes that this thrilling production will return and receive wider exposure.

 

Fluffier but immensely enjoyable, the current production of Don Quixote is a restaging by Michael Messerer based on the classic Marius Petipa original revised by Alexander Gorsky, with additions by Kasyan Goleizovsky. The tuneful score is by the underrated Ludwig Minkus, which, if not of the order of any of Tchaikovsky’s ballets, nonetheless consistently charms. The appealing sets were designed by István Róbzsa and the wonderful costumes are by Nóra Rományi. The cast was even more remarkable than in Swan Lake,led again spectacularly by the astonishing ballerina Melnik as Kitri, comparing not unfavorably with Natalia Osipova’s celebrated performance in the same role. Her partner, Igor Tsvirko was magnificent as Basil. Mesmerizing too were Iurii Kekalo as Espada, Sofia Ivanova-Skoblikova as Mercedes, Karina Sarkissova as the street dancer, and Lili Felméry and Rita Hangya as Kitri’s girlfriends. Entertaining in character parts were Attila Szakács in the title role, Maksym Kovtun as Sancho Panza, Alekszandr Komarov as Gamache, and Gábor Szigeti as Lorenzo. The corps de ballet was again superlative. The audience was enormously appreciative.

 

The first part of LOL was Trois Gnossiennes, set to the gorgeous, eponymous piano pieces by Erik Satie. It had been danced by a different couple at the gala performance the previous week but it was gratifying to have a chance to see Melnik again in this iteration, here ably partnered Igor Tsvirko. Judging from this program, van Manen seems to have minimalist leanings with some affinities with the corpus of George Balanchine. Regrettably, the remaining two works were presented with pre-recorded scores, beginning with the engaging 5 Tangos, set to music by Astor Piazzolla and starring Minjung Kim and Gergő Armín Balázsi. The afternoon concluded with the intermittently more avant-garde but also enjoyable Black Cake, with music by Jules Massenet, Pietro Mascagni, Igor Stravinsky, Leoš Janáček, and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and with attractive costumes by Keso Dekker.

 

I greatly hope that this exceptional company will return to the New York stages before long.