As a youth, I loved seeing movies where the whole point was that grown-ups really don’t have anything figured out, that everyone’s just bumbling through adulthood, taking blind stabs in the dark and hoping they somehow add up to good decisions. The Big Chill is one of my favorites in that category – you’ve got all these well-sweatered adults, seemingly keeping it together with varying degrees of success in their personal and professional lives.
But the minute they’re reunited, everyone safely under the same roof again and kitchen dancing to Motown classics, the masks drop, and it becomes clear that, in one way or another, they’ve all been faking it. Faking their happiness with their families, faking their confidence in their career choices, faking their contentment with how their lives turned out so differently than they had imagined 15 years ago. What I remember so clearly – watching it as a kid who had the whole minefield of growing up still stretched out before her – is that the film doesn’t judge them for their attempts to trick the outside world (and sometimes themselves) that everything’s going better than it really is. Instead, in The Big Chill, we get an acknowledgement that most of the characters are doing what they have to in order to get by. Now, in the thick of adulthood, its complications and let-downs, I can confirm that for most of us, some faking it is necessary, even if its just so we can face the next day of bumbling through it all over again.
There’s a moment late in Matt Spicer’s new film, Ingrid Goes West, that reminded me of that hard truth. In it, a character who’s worked so incredibly hard at presenting her life as perfect, to her circle of hip acquaintances as well as to her thousands of social media followers, is confronted by the title character, Ingrid. Ingrid angrily points to the reality of this character’s situation – that the people closest to her are deeply flawed, that her relationships are built on delusions, that her life is anything but perfect. And what I loved about this moment is that it doesn’t break this character or even seem to upset her. Unlike Ingrid, she knows that creating a gulf between your private truth and your public face isn’t always a betrayal of some truer nature, but rather a survival tactic for the ups and downs of reality.
Of course, for the characters in the The Big Chill, that gulf existed before filters and hashtags came along to put a more curated, but also glaring, focus on its contradictions. Ingrid has gotten plenty of attention for skewering our social media obsession with avocado toast that is also #blessed in the digital age. There’s a frightening accuracy in the way the movies captures that Pavlovian system of desire and reward when your phone dings, and – there it is – another human validating your existence. As Ingrid, Aubrey Plaza takes the social anxiety that comes with constant updates and the dreaded FOMO and dials it up to a level of jittery paranoia that’s uncomfortable to watch. And yet, as scared as you become of what she might say or do next, you can’t look away – an opening shot of her mascara-streaked face, eyes hungrily searching as she scroll and taps, scroll and taps, speaks to anyone who’s ever looked at images of happy people doing exciting things on their phone and wondered, why are they there having fun while I’m here, crying in my car and eating handfuls of cold french fries. So all of us really.
It’s a brilliant performance that holds the film together. Plaza sometimes suffers from being typecast or underrated because she does one thing – dry, acerbic wit – incredibly well. But as in other roles I’ve seen her in, she imbues Ingrid’s emotional life with a kaleidoscope of feelings under its dark exterior. Ingrid is a broken outsider dealing with the emotional fall out from her mother’s recent death, and she pursues an Insta star she stumbles upon online (Taylor Sloane, played by Elizabeth Olsen) all the way to Los Angeles. With the money her mother leaves her, she scrambles to buy the trappings of a life that will launch her into Taylor’s orbit. But only once she lies and cheats her way there – to the status of a new neighbor and then trusted friend, does the real fun/horror show start. Watch Ingrid’s faces as she watches the “normal” people around her laugh and chit chat, and you can see the internal acrobatics she has to go through to try and mimic their interactions. Whenever the real Ingrid slips out, there’s an intensity, a hot need that doesn’t match her new LA friends’ casual coolness – and in those moments you can also see them start to question who this new person is and why she’s sitting among them.
Ingrid doesn’t understand the difference between the white lies and pretty pictures everyone else uses to tell a nice story about their lives and the complete fabrication she creates from her online stalking of Taylor. For most of the film it’s her downfall, though the ending suggests it could also provide a sort of twisted redemption. Ultimately the movie recognizes the absurdity of our current preoccupation with social media without demonizing it. The problem isn’t that our lives aren’t as amazing as we present them to be, because that’s been true long before we started posting pictures of every #OOTD and mimosa. The problem is that a million followers can never equal one household of old friends. However popular you get, you still need someone to share all the imperfection with, someone you can cry about it and laugh about it with, someone to dance through the kitchen with to Smokey Robinson, all the while knowing your adult lives will never perfect, but that this moment comes close enough.
Ingrid Goes West is playing in theaters now.
The Big Chill is available to rent on Amazon Video.
Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao Jr., affectionately known as Jr NTR, has consistently enthralled audiences with his dynamic performances and versatile acting prowess. Following the successful release of “Devara: Part 1” on September 27, 2024, fans are eagerly anticipating his forthcoming projects. Here’s an overview of what’s next for this action superstar.
1. Devara: Part 2
After the resounding success of “Devara: Part 1,” which grossed over ₹466 crore globally, the sequel is highly anticipated. Director Koratala Siva has hinted that “Devara: Part 2” will be even more intense, stating that if Part 1 showcased 10% of Jr NTR’s capabilities, Part 2 will unveil the remaining 90%. Filming is slated to commence in the first half of 2026, with a targeted release by the end of that year.
2. War 2
Expanding his horizons, Jr NTR is set to make his Hindi film debut with “War 2,” directed by Ayan Mukerji. This sequel to the 2019 blockbuster “War” will see him sharing screen space with Hrithik Roshan and Kiara Advani. The film is part of the YRF Spy Universe and is scheduled for release on August 14, 2025, coinciding with the Indian Independence Day weekend.
3. NTR 31 (Tentative Title: Dragon)
In collaboration with acclaimed director Prashanth Neel, Jr NTR will star in a period drama tentatively titled “Dragon.” The film is set to delve into themes of immigration and is expected to be one of the most expensive projects for both the actor and the director. The movie is slated for a grand release on January 9, 2026.
Why Jr NTR is the Action Hero Everyone Wants to See
Jr NTR’s appeal as an action hero stems from his ability to seamlessly blend intense physicality with deep emotional resonance. His performances are characterized by a compelling screen presence, dynamic energy, and a remarkable ability to connect with audiences across diverse roles. This unique combination of skills has solidified his status as a leading figure in Indian cinema, making him the action hero everyone wants to see.
With a lineup of diverse and high-profile projects, Jr NTR continues to push cinematic boundaries and captivate audiences worldwide. His dedication to his craft and ability to reinvent himself with each role ensure that fans have much to look forward to in the coming years.
Headed to a wilderness retreat of a wealthy pharmaceutical CEO to hopefully land a lucrative job, widower Elliot and his reluctant daughter Ridley manage to have a car accident with a heretofore-thought creature out of legend, and hijinks ensue!
Oh this is an absolute gem of a movie y’all, brought to you by the genius minds of film production company A24, a delightful blend of horror and campy, almost idiotic, comedy. Make sure your seatbelt is buckled and let’s dive into this!
So Ridley (Jenna Ortega) is you typical teenager, angsty and missing her passed-on mother, full of acne troubles and secretly vaping while her dad Elliot (Paul Rudd) ignores her for much more than appearance purposes, while he schmoozes his way into the good graces of the family they’re going to stay with. Elliot ignores everything but his continued greed, for both money and continuous stability for him and Ridley, really, he swears, so when the misty mountains cause their electronics to go haywire and Elliot’s busy with that crisis, he doesn’t notice until it’s too late and BAM. You’ve hit an actual unicorn with your car.
Like most girls, Ridley can’t help but be fascinated by the poor mythical horse-like creature, and of course she reaches out to grasp the glowing horn, filling her head full of magic and her eyes full of stars and the cosmos, while Elliot has a much more, let’s say visceral, reaction. But rather than calling, I dunno, some sort of wildlife preserve or the cops or even considering burying the unfortunate horned horse, no, the baby is loaded like a downed stag into the back of Elliott’s car and they hurry on to the CEO’s wilderness retreat.
It makes sense that the changes to Ridley’s appearance are the first thing that allows O’Dell (Richard E. Grant) and his greedy, grasping family to understand that the body of the unicorn has healing properties. Wife Belinda (Tea Leoni) is your typical utterly vapid socialite who helps the poor downtrodden of whatever’s currently popular third world country, not for the do-gooder part of it, but for the optics. And their son Shepard (Will Poulter) is a walking poster boy for the arrogant frat boy type who could never settle on just one thing to be or do, and so he tries them all – archery, photography, mixology, music and various forms of pharmaceuticals, all while sporting these terrible fashion choices in shorts and rambling proudly about his nonexistent accomplishments. Griff (Anthony Carrigan) is the family butler and general verbal punching bag, and let us not forget the unfortunate pair of doctoral research scientists who get called in to examine the unicorn, Dr. Song (Steve Park) and Dr. Bhatia (Sunita Mani).
So we have a family of covetous types who all want to divy the unicorn up and sell its various parts for as much wealth and power as they can get, plus the pair of scientists who are flabbergasted to find themselves dissecting an actual unicorn that, hey, guess what, isn’t actually dead for really-real yet. Elliott’s trying to procure his and Ridley’s slice of the action, though honestly, his lawyerly powers of persuasion seem to be rather lacking in this regard, while Ridley is off doing some actual research on medieval unicorns and what the ancient legends in tapestries had to say about them. You know how the modern genie, with his Arabian lamp and his three wishes with their horrifically ironic consequences, actually stems from the ancient legend of that old monster, the creature born from fire that wants nothing more than to destroy all human life on Earth, the Djinn? Our modern legends and beliefs about unicorns is kinda like that.
So everyone, even our scientists with their experiments and O’Dell supposedly being an experienced animal hunter, seems to have forgotten that a horse is a mammal and therefore, has parents. And while everyone is concerning themselves with what to use the babies’ various parts for, only Ridley seems to have realized, that the babies’ sire and dam are coming for it!
We all know horses are smart, and that humans and horses can form an almost mythical bond, but when a stallion or even a dam’s ire is raised, they can attack and defend just as well as any rampaging beast, and do present a very real and dire threat. And these particular horses, with their shaggy midnight-black coats and hooves the size of monster-truck hubcaps, their fangs and absolute righteous rage at their baby being stolen, not to mention both mom and dad’s inherently magical nature, and those utterly badass war-unicorn horns, are here to wreak utter destruction and death upon the humans that would dare to eat, drink and snort, their baby!
Full of utterly ridiculous fun with human greed and the scarcely-remembered wonder of those magical creatures you heard about as a child, cheer along with the Jurassic Park-like screech of our rampaging parents to save their baby, in Death of a Unicorn, in theaters now!
Upcoming NTR Junior projects
“Death of a Unicorn: A24’s Twisted Fairytale You Won’t Forget”
WonderCon 2025: A Faith Full Dickens Tale & The King of Kings Animated Movie
WonderCon 2025: Fade to Black Interviews
Top 10 Unexpected Movies Where The Bad Guy Wins
