IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

Women warriors are on the rise again in American movies, and so, too, are hopes that they’ll be able to strike

where it counts: in the industry’s executive suites.Some of this faith can be traced, irratio-nally or exuberantly, to “The Hunger Games.”

Its second installment, “Catching Fire,” wasn’t only the highest grossing movie of

2013, it also pulled in a lot of guys, and not just, you know, women, that 52 percent of north American moviegoers who are deemed a limited demographic, a niche and a seemingly unsolvable problem. That no one would ever frame

male-driven franchises like “Iron man,” “Spi-der-man” and “The Dark Knight” as niche attractions helps explain that problem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumb movie that I hope makes major bank if only as a reminder of the obvious: Women can drive big and little movies, including the pricey franchises that fire up the box office and the culture.

To do so, though, they’re going to need direc-tors who can handle the demands of an industri-al production like this and a script that obscures rather than emphasizes the weakness of the source material. A good action choreographer will be crucial, as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woodley’s eye-lashes changes throughout “Divergent” may have been amusingly distracting for a while (maybe they’re mood lashes, a friend quipped), but such shoddiness also underscores the contempt that movie companies have for the medium and the audience.

Veronica Roth, who wrote the book “Diver-gent” and its two hot-selling follow-ups, tends to avoid mentioning “The Hunger Games,” but the similarities between these young-adult juggernauts are conspicuous in the extreme.

“The Hunger Games” is a dystopian tale set in a postwar north America divided into 13 districts; “Divergent” is a dystopian tale set in postwar Chicago divided into five factions. each series pivots on a gutsy teenage heroine who fights to the death like a classic male hero. each year, the young characters in the books undergo a weird ritual: In “The Hunger Games,” wee ones are sent into mortal com-bat; the initiation ritual in “Diver-gent,” much like the book itself, is rather more anti-climactic, because teenagers just choose which fac-tion to grow old in.

There is a crucial differ-ence: While Katniss everdeen doesn’t make much room for romance in “The Hunger Games” (she has a revolution to lead), Tris Prior spends a whole lot of time wondering why her instructor pays attention to her. He’s a guy, as if you didn’t know, because while “Di-vergent” celebrates individuality and break-ing out of the little boxes that its authoritarian leaders (i.e., adults) insist on putting teenagers in, the story sticks to the familiar gendered template. Girl warrior meets boy warrior and, in between punches, kicks and bullets, they hold hands. one of the few real surprises in the “Divergent” novel is that it’s nearly as chaste as the “Twilight” series, although ms. Woodley and her romantic foil, Four (Theo James), do

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

IFRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014 C1

N

Movies Performances

If a genie had sprung from my tea-kettle last week and offered to grantme three wishes, I might impulsivelyhave asked to be spared any more chil-dren’s musicals. Since a certain block-

buster feline arrivedwell over a decade ago,Broadway has beenlapped by wave afterwave of big, often gloppysongfests adapted fromanimated movies, most-

ly from the mother ship, Disney. So the prospect of “Aladdin,” promis-

ing another weary night in the pres-ence of a spunky youngster and wise-cracking animals, didn’t exactly set myheart racing. But this latest musicaladapted from one of Disney’s popularmovies, which opened on Thursdaynight at the New Amsterdam Theater,defied my dour expectations. As direct-ed and choreographed (and choreo-graphed, and choreographed) byCasey Nicholaw, and adapted by thebook writer Chad Beguelin, “Aladdin”has an infectious and only mildly syr-upy spirit. Not to mention enough bau-bles, bangles and beading to keep awhole season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”contestants in runway attire.

I don’t mean to suggest that Mr.Nicholaw, best known for the spectacu-larly smutty “Book of Mormon,” has in-fused the original material with sub-versive aspects, or even a singlenaughty word. But while it mostly

sticks to the formulaic pattern of themovie — spirited princess falls in lovewith cute commoner, evil vizier snarls,helpful genie makes like a veteran ofthe stand-up circuit — the stage “Alad-din” also joshes the somewhat ex-hausted conventions of the genre witha breezy insouciance that scrubs away

some of the material’s bland gloss.(“We don’t have time for self-discov-ery,” the villain, Jafar, snaps at onepoint.) And the score (by Alan Men-ken, Howard Ashman and Tim Rice),which features several songs writtenfor the movie that didn’t make it to the

SARA KRULWICH/THE NEW YORK TIMES

Sly Alchemy From That Lamp

Aladdin Courtney Reed as Jasmine and Adam Jacobs as Aladdin in this adaptationof the Disney movie that opened on Thursday at the New Amsterdam Theater.

Continued on Page 6

CHARLESISHERWOOD

THEATERREVIEW

Women warriors are on the riseagain in American movies, and so,too, are hopes that they’ll be able tostrike where it counts: in the indus-try’s executive suites.

Some of this faith canbe traced, irrationally orexuberantly, to “TheHunger Games.”

Its second installment,“Catching Fire,” wasn’tonly the highest grossing

movie of 2013, it also pulled in a lot ofguys, and not just, you know, women,that 52 percent of North Americanmoviegoers who are deemed a lim-ited demographic, a niche and aseemingly unsolvable problem. Thatno one would ever frame male-drivenfranchises like “Iron Man,” “Spider-Man” and “The Dark Knight” asniche attractions helps explain thatproblem.

So, yea for “Divergent,” a dumbmovie that I hope makes major bankif only as a reminder of the obvious:Women can drive big and little mov-ies, including the pricey franchises

that fire up the box office and the cul-ture.

To do so, though, they’re going toneed directors who can handle thedemands of an industrial productionlike this and a script that obscuresrather than emphasizes the weak-ness of the source material. A goodaction choreographer will be crucial,as will decent hair and makeup.

That the length of Shailene Woo-

This Dystopia

Has SomeSmooches

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Divergent Shailene Woodley is ateenage warrior in this filmadaptation that opens on Friday.

MANOHLADARGIS

FILMREVIEW

Continued on Page 10

A pressurized hush in a cavernous space:That was the sensory impression left by the

xx toward the end of its mesmeriz-ing performance at the Park Ave-nue Armory on Wednesday night.Considering the setting and theband’s trademark sound — itsdrowsy clarity and terse interiority— the feeling itself wasn’t a stretch.

What gave it depth was a larger context thatoften seemed as much an art installation as a

concert, and at every moment like a dynam-ic, self-aware commentary on the issue ofscale.

The xx, from London, builds songs out ofrigorous purpose and disarmingly fewpieces, which has earned it a reputation forreductionism. But the elements that make it

into the music are generally the essentials,chief among them an emotionally fraughtcounterpoint between two singers of slinkymagnetism, Romy Madley Croft and OliverSim. Intimacy is a base-line constant for thexx, but it’s also a source of endless tension.

At Wednesday’s show, it became some-

thing else besides: the invisible force behindan audience engagement intense and sol-emn enough to resemble a ceremonial rite. Itwas the opening of a highly anticipated resi-dency that continues at the Armory throughMarch 29, with the band playing to 45 peopleper show, two or three times a night. (What Isaw was technically a second set; the firsthad been a private function for Burberry, asponsor of the event.) The particulars of the

Intimate Ritual in a Ghostly Abyss The xx , the British band, performing Wednesday as part of its residency at the Park AvenueArmory. Only 45 people are admitted to each of the shows, which test perceptions of scale.

Continued on Page 6

MUSICREVIEW

NATECHINEN

CHAD BATKA FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES

10 FILM REVIEW

Here, duckie, duckie, duckie. BY STEPHEN HOLDEN

15 FILM REVIEW

“Nymphomaniac,” but justVolume 1. BY MANOHLA DARGIS

6 THEATER REVIEW

A one-man show takes onSatchmo. BY ANDY WEBSTER

4 DANCE REVIEW

Graham, a gala and theGreeks. BY ALASTAIR MACAULAY

C M Y K Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,001,Bs-4C,E1

open wide during several kisses.They make a fine duo. They’re easy on

the eyes, for one, and ms. Woodley has a gift for conveying a sense of genuine, deep-tissue sincerity, while mr. James, whose slashing cheekbones look as if they could do some serious damage, is good at keeping a straight face. (He’s had practice: Until now, he was best known for croaking in Lady mary’s bed in “Downton Abbey.”) The characters trade many moony looks as well as spit, but their cute, farcically overdetermined match — he thrusts with penetrating stares, while she parries by retreating and looking at her feet or a wall — grows wearisome when it becomes clear that there’s not much else going on. Lots of things happen, of course, as per the dysto-pian rule book, but for all the jumping and scal-ing of heights, the movie remains grounded.

The story, adapted by evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor, opens with Tris living with her family in Abnegation, a faction whose inhabit-ants have embraced selflessness to the point of pride and who wear drab, flowing clothes that suggest that eileen Fisher managed to survive Armageddon. Tris, however, yearns to run wild with Dauntless, a faction that puts a premium on courage, fearlessness, piercings, tattoos and hair gel. each faction — the others are Amity, Candor and erudite — lives according to re-stricted values in order to keep the peace and considers an outlier like Tris, called Divergent, as a threat. It doesn’t make any sense, but ms. Roth’s prose style is good enough and Tris ap-pealing enough that, at least in the book, it’s easy to breeze past the plot holes.

It’s harder to ignore those flaws in the movie, partly because the director, neil Burg-er (“Limitless”), gives you little to hang onto — beauty, thrills, a visual style. The script, or what’s left of it, doesn’t help, because some-one (it’s impossible to know who merits most of the blame in a big enterprise like this) has

made the familiar blunder of thinking that the most important thing in adapting a book to the screen is the stuff that happens rather than to whom it happens. That the Dauntless inhabit-ants like to jump on and off moving trains or clamber up buildings like monkeys isn’t inter-esting or novel. What matters is how thrilling-ly free and alive Tris feels when she hurtles across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. “Fear doesn’t shut you down,” Four tells Tris, “it wakes you up.”

You have to take his word for it. It’s hard not to root for ms. Woodley, who has been coming on strong in recent indie titles like “The Descendants” and “The Spectacular now,” but she seems palpably uncomfortable here. There’s a tentative, awkward quality to her physical performance that at times reg-isters as a lack of confidence and that, as the story progresses, is badly at odds with her character’s intensifying ferocity. That hardly seems like ms. Woodley’s fault, given that she’s ill-served by the production on so many levels, from the fight choreography to the dialogue and those eyelashes. But it’s finally galling because women will never break out of the representational ghetto they’ve been relegated to if you watch a movie like this one and think that the heroine, metaphorically and otherwise, throws like a girl. n

C10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

The United States governmenttoday called on Walt Disney Pic-tures to delay or cancel the re-lease of “Muppets Most Wanted”on national security grounds. Or

at least, it shouldhave. Not onlymight this movieannoy Russia, withwhom the Ameri-can government isalready nose-to-

nose over Crimea, but it couldalso cause any European alliesbeing courted by President Oba-ma to unfriend him and the restof the country.

The film, a music-filled follow-up to the 2011 hit “The Muppets,”lands poor Kermit in a gulag inSiberia, which is depicted just asunflatteringly as gulags in Sibe-ria always are. Vladimir V. Putinis unlikely to be amused. But thereal concern, in terms of Ameri-ca’s international relations, is itssly skewering of our European al-lies, whose work habits, vacation-taking and such are mocked re-lentlessly.

That running gag is among the

funniest things in this film, whichmakes you wonder about themovie’s target audience. It’s agrown-up joke, and there aremany others lurking in the rathercomplicated globe-hopping plot.Adults will find more to amusethem than was offered in “TheMuppets,” but younger childrenmight be left behind.

In the story, the gang, drunk onthe success of the 2011 movie,signs on for a world tour with ashifty promoter named DominicBadguy (Ricky Gervais). Domi-nic is in cahoots with Constan-tine, a criminal frog who bears astriking resemblance to Kermit.The two work a mistaken-identitytrick that lands Kermit in thegulag and allows Constantine totake his place on the Muppetworld tour. The Muppet stageshows in various European cities

become a tool in a complexscheme by Dominic and Constan-tine to steal the crown jewels inBritain.

Besides Mr. Gervais, the filmfeatures Ty Burrell, of “ModernFamily,” as an Interpol agent(and the focal point of most ofthose Europe-bashing jokes) andTina Fey as a gulag guard. Ms.Fey’s talents are wasted, sinceshe is chained to a stereotypical

Russian character and accent,and she doesn’t seem to be enjoy-ing herself nearly as much as anA-list star in a Muppet movieought to.

The whole film seems to have avague heaviness to it. The bestMuppet movies have been greatbecause they had charm. There’sno charm here, really; just self-referential jokes, decent but notmemorable songs, and lots and

lots of cameos (again, for theadults; not many children are go-ing to be impressed by the pres-ence of Stanley Tucci or FrankLangella).

It all adds up to an eventful en-try in the Muppet film library butnot a classic one. There is, how-ever, one noteworthy moment: Ina fantasy sequence, we get aglimpse of what babies made byKermit and Miss Piggy mightlook like, something exploredonly rarely in the past. The mov-ie’s elaborate plot might not bethe only thing parents find them-selves explaining to youngstersafter the ending credits.

“Muppets Most Wanted” is rat-ed PG (Parental guidance sug-gested) for some mild cartoon vio-lence.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAY MAIDMENT/WALT DISNEY PICTURES

From left, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Floyd, Walter and Scooter; the muppets’ tour promoter, played by Ricky Gervais,below left with Kermit’s look-alike, Constantine; and Ty Burrell, right, the Interpol agent on their trail, with Sam Eagle.

Muppets Most WantedOpens on Friday. Directed by James Bobin; written by Mr.Bobin and Nicholas Stoller; director ofphotography, Don Burgess; score byChristophe Beck; songs by Bret McKen-zie; production design by Eve Stewart;costumes by Rahel Afiley; produced byDavid Hoberman and Todd Lieberman;released by Walt Disney Pictures. Run-ning time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

WITH: Kermit the Frog (Himself), RickyGervais (Dominic, a.k.a. Number Two),Miss Piggy (Herself), Ty Burrell (JeanPierre Napoleon), Tina Fey (Nadya),Constantine (Himself) and Sam Eagle(Himself).

Muppets, A FrontFor BiggerSchemes

NEILGENZLINGER

FILMREVIEW

With the new documentary“Anita,” the Oscar-winning direc-tor Freida Mock (“Maya Lin: AStrong Clear Vision”) brings afresh perspective to a somber

and awkward chapterof modern Americanpolitics: the Senatehearings to confirmClarence Thomas tothe Supreme Courtamid accusations of

sexual harassment by Anita Hill.In the first half of this marvel-

ously structured film, Ms. Mockdeftly segues from the hearingsto present-day interviews withpeople who were in that room in1991, including Ms. Hill, her law-yer and her friends. This gives asense of an annotated version offamiliar words and images.(Among those interviewed areJill Abramson, the executive edi-tor of The New York Times, whocovered the trial for The WallStreet Journal and wrote, withJane Mayer, the 1994 book“Strange Justice: The Selling ofClarence Thomas.”)

Ms. Mock shows the ways theSenate proceedings quickly col-lapsed amid racial unease afterMr. Thomas declared that hisconfirmation was imperiled as aresult of a “high-tech lynching.”He was referring to himself andnot to Ms. Hill.

“People think, when they thinkof those hearings, ‘He had a race,and she had a gender,’” Ms. Hilltells a group at Spelman Collegein the film. She then laughs un-easily at the absurdity beforecontinuing: “But it was really thecombination. And it changed thedynamics.”

“Anita” is an important histori-cal document about an event thatprompted a larger cultural con-versation about sexual harass-ment. But, perhaps more impor-tant, it conveys Ms. Hill’s journeyfrom an accuser alone to an activ-ist who shares with, and listensto, others. (She is now 57 and aprofessor at Brandeis Universi-ty.)

“Sexual harassment is justpart of a larger problem of gen-der inequality,” she says. “And Ididn’t realize that until I startedhearing from people.”

In the second half of the film,Ms. Mock takes Ms. Hill awayfrom that famous image of hertestifying before a panel of whitemen and places her in a contextof power as she speaks in front ofrooms full of women (like theBrooklyn-based group Girls forGender Equity). By showing thisevolution, Ms. Mock demon-strates that harassment holds itspower mainly in isolation.

MIRIAMBALEFILM

REVIEW

AnitaOpens on Friday in New York, LosAngeles and San Francisco. Produced and directed by Freida Mock;written by Ms. Mock and Ken Chowder;directors of photography, Bestor Cramand Don Lenzer; edited by Brian John-son; music by Lili Haydn; released bySamuel Goldwyn Films. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. This film is not rated.

Alone Then,SupportedToday

STAN HONDA/SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS

Anita Hill is now a professorat Brandeis University.

woods, David and his fellow bird-ers, Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Pe-ter (Michael Chen), worry that ifthey spot the duck, Lawrencewill steal the credit.

Mr. Kingsley, with his sharpfeatures and penetrating gaze,has a distinctively avian de-meanor, and his character re-inforces the impression thatsome people obsessed withwinged creatures display bird-like characteristics. Lawrence isno saintly sage.

“Birds are my muses, and Istrive to be a true watcher,” hesays, referring to people whoseek a transcendent connectionbetween human and bird souls.But he acknowledges that hispreference for birding over ev-erything else has destroyed hishome life. “I’m 63 years old, andI have one leg and no driver’s li-cense,” he says. “Please don’tconfuse me with a role model.”

This gentle comedy, the first

feature directed by Rob Meyer,is an eye opener for anyone whotakes the everyday natural worldfor granted. It is also a quiet brieffor the cultivation of intellectualcuriosity and scientific explora-tion at an age when hormonesrule so much behavior. The re-minder that all around us existsa fascinating realm of almost in-finite variety is stimulating. Al-though the movie doesn’t shrinkfrom the notion that serious birdwatching is the tiniest bit cuckoo,its overall attitude toward these

juvenile naturalists and theirmentor is respectfully affection-ate.

The articulate screenplay, byMr. Meyer and Luke Matheny,sustains a steady tension. Thefriends’ trip takes place in thestolen car of David’s older cous-in, and it comes on the eve of hisfather’s marriage to the womanwho cared for his ailing motheruntil her death a year and a halfearlier. The father (James LeGros) and son have never pro-cessed their grief or discussed

the imminent marriage, whichDavid is too shy to say he deeplyresents, even though he agreedto be the best man.

David and his friends are well-drawn portraits of innocents atan excruciatingly awkward age.Timmy, who affects a transpar-ently bogus machismo, is really ascaredy-cat. After the discoveryof a bag of what might be crystalmeth under a seat of the car, hepanics and imagines that theyare being followed by a gang ofgun-toting drug dealers. These

adolescents are still youngenough to be afraid of the dark.

How do you survive the hu-miliation and embarrassment ofbeing 15 and desperate to be agrown-up? Through patienceand the instinctive realizationthat you’ve reached an awkwardtransition and that the worst willsoon be behind you.

“A Birder’s Guide to Every-thing” is rated PG-13 (Parentsstrongly cautioned) for language,drug and sex references.

“That’s the great thing aboutthis field,” Lawrence Konrad(Ben Kingsley), a bird-watchingfanatic, declares to a group of ad-olescent followers in “A Birder’s

Guide to Everything.”“It doesn’t matter ifyou’re a high schoolkid on your bike, or ifyou’re an eggheadlike me with a boat-load of degrees. Any-

body can be a birder.”Before the end of this smart,

likable coming-of-age movie, themembers of a high school’sYoung Birder Society go on anexpedition in search of the Lab-rador duck, a supposedly extinctspecies. The main character, 15-year-old David Portnoy (KodiSmit-McPhee), snapped a blurrypicture of the duck on the streetwhere he lives in a New Yorksuburb and showed it to Law-rence, who was intrigued. OnceLawrence joins them in the

A Birder’s Guide to EverythingOpens on Friday in Manhattan. Directed by Rob Meyer; written by LukeMatheny and Mr. Meyer; director of pho-tography, Tom Richmond; edited by VitoDiSario; music by Jeremy Turner; pro-duction design by Elizabeth J. Jones; cos-tumes by Anney Perrine; produced byKirsten Duncan Fuller, Lisa K. Jenkins,Dan Lindau and R. Paul Miller; releasedby Screen Media Films. At the VillageEast Cinema, Second Avenue at 12thStreet, East Village. Running time: 1 hour28 minutes.

WITH: Kodi Smit-McPhee (David Port-noy), James Le Gros (Donald Portnoy),Alex Wolff (Timmy Barsky), MichaelChen (Peter Nessbaum), Katie Chang(Ellen Reeves) and Ben Kingsley (Law-rence Konrad).

SCREEN MEDIA FILMS

Far afield: From left, Michael Chen, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

In Search of a Duck,And a Way ThroughThat Awkward Age

STEPHENHOLDEN

FILMREVIEW

dley’s eyelashes changesthroughout “Divergent” mayhave been amusingly distractingfor a while (maybe they’re moodlashes, a friend quipped), butsuch shoddiness also under-scores the contempt that moviecompanies have for the mediumand the audience.

Veronica Roth, who wrote thebook “Divergent” and its two hot-selling follow-ups, tends to avoidmentioning “The HungerGames,” but the similarities be-tween these young-adult jugger-nauts are conspicuous in the ex-treme. “The Hunger Games” is adystopian tale set in a postwarNorth America divided into 13districts; “Divergent” is a dysto-pian tale set in postwar Chicagodivided into five factions. Each

face. (He’s had practice: Untilnow, he was best known forcroaking in Lady Mary’s bed in“Downton Abbey.”) The charac-ters trade many moony looks aswell as spit, but their cute, farci-cally overdetermined match — hethrusts with penetrating stares,while she parries by retreatingand looking at her feet or a wall— grows wearisome when it be-comes clear that there’s not muchelse going on. Lots of things hap-pen, of course, as per the dystopi-an rule book, but for all the jump-ing and scaling of heights, themovie remains grounded.

The story, adapted by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor,opens with Tris living with herfamily in Abnegation, a factionwhose inhabitants have em-braced selflessness to the point ofpride and who wear drab, flowingclothes that suggest that EileenFisher managed to survive Ar-

mageddon. Tris, however, yearnsto run wild with Dauntless, a fac-tion that puts a premium on cour-age, fearlessness, piercings, tat-toos and hair gel. Each faction —the others are Amity, Candor andErudite — lives according to re-stricted values in order to keepthe peace and considers an outli-er like Tris, called Divergent, as athreat. It doesn’t make any sense,but Ms. Roth’s prose style is goodenough and Tris appealingenough that, at least in the book,it’s easy to breeze past the plotholes.

It’s harder to ignore thoseflaws in the movie, partly be-cause the director, Neil Burger(“Limitless”), gives you little tohang onto — beauty, thrills, a vis-ual style. The script, or what’s leftof it, doesn’t help, because some-one (it’s impossible to know whomerits most of the blame in a bigenterprise like this) has made the

familiar blunder of thinking thatthe most important thing inadapting a book to the screen isthe stuff that happens rather thanto whom it happens. That theDauntless inhabitants like tojump on and off moving trains orclamber up buildings like mon-keys isn’t interesting or novel.What matters is how thrillinglyfree and alive Tris feels when shehurtles across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. “Feardoesn’t shut you down,” Fourtells Tris, “it wakes you up.”

You have to take his word for it.It’s hard not to root for Ms. Woo-dley, who has been coming onstrong in recent indie titles like“The Descendants” and “TheSpectacular Now,” but she seemspalpably uncomfortable here.There’s a tentative, awkwardquality to her physical perform-ance that at times registers as alack of confidence and that, as thestory progresses, is badly at oddswith her character’s intensifyingferocity. That hardly seems likeMs. Woodley’s fault, given thatshe’s ill-served by the productionon so many levels, from the fightchoreography to the dialogue andthose eyelashes. But it’s finallygalling because women will neverbreak out of the representationalghetto they’ve been relegated toif you watch a movie like this oneand think that the heroine, meta-phorically and otherwise, throwslike a girl.

“Divergent” is rated PG-13(Parents strongly cautioned). Theold dystopian woes and violence.

This Dystopia Holds Some Smooches for Its Teenage Warriors

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior, an outlier in “Divergent.”

DivergentOpens on Friday. Directed by Neil Burger; written by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor, based onthe book by Veronica Roth; director ofphotography, Alwin Küchler; edited byRichard Francis-Bruce and Nancy Rich-ardson; music by Junkie XL; productiondesign by Andy Nicholson; costumes byCarlo Poggioli; produced by DouglasWick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahba-zian; released by Summit Entertainment.Running time: 2 hours 23 minutes.

WITH: Shailene Woodley (Tris), TheoJames (Four), Ashley Judd (Natalie), JaiCourtney (Eric), Ray Stevenson (Mar-cus), Zoë Kravitz (Christina), Miles Teller(Peter), Tony Goldwyn (Andrew), AnselElgort (Caleb), Maggie Q (Tori), MekhiPhifer (Max) and Kate Winslet (Jeanine).

From Weekend Page 1series pivots on a gutsy teenageheroine who fights to the deathlike a classic male hero. Eachyear, the young characters in thebooks undergo a weird ritual: In“The Hunger Games,” wee onesare sent into mortal combat; theinitiation ritual in “Divergent,”much like the book itself, is rath-er more anticlimactic, becauseteenagers just choose which fac-tion to grow old in.

There is a crucial difference:While Katniss Everdeen doesn’tmake much room for romance in“The Hunger Games” (she has arevolution to lead), Tris Priorspends a whole lot of time won-dering why her instructor paysattention to her. He’s a guy, as ifyou didn’t know, because while“Divergent” celebrates individ-uality and breaking out of the lit-tle boxes that its authoritarianleaders (i.e., adults) insist onputting teenagers in, the storysticks to the familiar genderedtemplate. Girl warrior meets boywarrior and, in between punches,kicks and bullets, they holdhands. One of the few real sur-prises in the “Divergent” novel isthat it’s nearly as chaste as the“Twilight” series, although Ms.Woodley and her romantic foil,Four (Theo James), do open wideduring several kisses.

They make a fine duo. They’reeasy on the eyes, for one, and Ms.Woodley has a gift for conveyinga sense of genuine, deep-tissuesincerity, while Mr. James, whoseslashing cheekbones look as ifthey could do some serious dam-age, is good at keeping a straight

Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,010,Bs-BW,E1

C10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

The United States governmenttoday called on Walt Disney Pic-tures to delay or cancel the re-lease of “Muppets Most Wanted”on national security grounds. Or

at least, it shouldhave. Not onlymight this movieannoy Russia, withwhom the Ameri-can government isalready nose-to-

nose over Crimea, but it couldalso cause any European alliesbeing courted by President Oba-ma to unfriend him and the restof the country.

The film, a music-filled follow-up to the 2011 hit “The Muppets,”lands poor Kermit in a gulag inSiberia, which is depicted just asunflatteringly as gulags in Sibe-ria always are. Vladimir V. Putinis unlikely to be amused. But thereal concern, in terms of Ameri-ca’s international relations, is itssly skewering of our European al-lies, whose work habits, vacation-taking and such are mocked re-lentlessly.

That running gag is among the

funniest things in this film, whichmakes you wonder about themovie’s target audience. It’s agrown-up joke, and there aremany others lurking in the rathercomplicated globe-hopping plot.Adults will find more to amusethem than was offered in “TheMuppets,” but younger childrenmight be left behind.

In the story, the gang, drunk onthe success of the 2011 movie,signs on for a world tour with ashifty promoter named DominicBadguy (Ricky Gervais). Domi-nic is in cahoots with Constan-tine, a criminal frog who bears astriking resemblance to Kermit.The two work a mistaken-identitytrick that lands Kermit in thegulag and allows Constantine totake his place on the Muppetworld tour. The Muppet stageshows in various European cities

become a tool in a complexscheme by Dominic and Constan-tine to steal the crown jewels inBritain.

Besides Mr. Gervais, the filmfeatures Ty Burrell, of “ModernFamily,” as an Interpol agent(and the focal point of most ofthose Europe-bashing jokes) andTina Fey as a gulag guard. Ms.Fey’s talents are wasted, sinceshe is chained to a stereotypical

Russian character and accent,and she doesn’t seem to be enjoy-ing herself nearly as much as anA-list star in a Muppet movieought to.

The whole film seems to have avague heaviness to it. The bestMuppet movies have been greatbecause they had charm. There’sno charm here, really; just self-referential jokes, decent but notmemorable songs, and lots and

lots of cameos (again, for theadults; not many children are go-ing to be impressed by the pres-ence of Stanley Tucci or FrankLangella).

It all adds up to an eventful en-try in the Muppet film library butnot a classic one. There is, how-ever, one noteworthy moment: Ina fantasy sequence, we get aglimpse of what babies made byKermit and Miss Piggy mightlook like, something exploredonly rarely in the past. The mov-ie’s elaborate plot might not bethe only thing parents find them-selves explaining to youngstersafter the ending credits.

“Muppets Most Wanted” is rat-ed PG (Parental guidance sug-gested) for some mild cartoon vio-lence.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAY MAIDMENT/WALT DISNEY PICTURES

From left, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Floyd, Walter and Scooter; the muppets’ tour promoter, played by Ricky Gervais,below left with Kermit’s look-alike, Constantine; and Ty Burrell, right, the Interpol agent on their trail, with Sam Eagle.

Muppets Most WantedOpens on Friday. Directed by James Bobin; written by Mr.Bobin and Nicholas Stoller; director ofphotography, Don Burgess; score byChristophe Beck; songs by Bret McKen-zie; production design by Eve Stewart;costumes by Rahel Afiley; produced byDavid Hoberman and Todd Lieberman;released by Walt Disney Pictures. Run-ning time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

WITH: Kermit the Frog (Himself), RickyGervais (Dominic, a.k.a. Number Two),Miss Piggy (Herself), Ty Burrell (JeanPierre Napoleon), Tina Fey (Nadya),Constantine (Himself) and Sam Eagle(Himself).

Muppets, A FrontFor BiggerSchemes

NEILGENZLINGER

FILMREVIEW

With the new documentary“Anita,” the Oscar-winning direc-tor Freida Mock (“Maya Lin: AStrong Clear Vision”) brings afresh perspective to a somber

and awkward chapterof modern Americanpolitics: the Senatehearings to confirmClarence Thomas tothe Supreme Courtamid accusations of

sexual harassment by Anita Hill.In the first half of this marvel-

ously structured film, Ms. Mockdeftly segues from the hearingsto present-day interviews withpeople who were in that room in1991, including Ms. Hill, her law-yer and her friends. This gives asense of an annotated version offamiliar words and images.(Among those interviewed areJill Abramson, the executive edi-tor of The New York Times, whocovered the trial for The WallStreet Journal and wrote, withJane Mayer, the 1994 book“Strange Justice: The Selling ofClarence Thomas.”)

Ms. Mock shows the ways theSenate proceedings quickly col-lapsed amid racial unease afterMr. Thomas declared that hisconfirmation was imperiled as aresult of a “high-tech lynching.”He was referring to himself andnot to Ms. Hill.

“People think, when they thinkof those hearings, ‘He had a race,and she had a gender,’” Ms. Hilltells a group at Spelman Collegein the film. She then laughs un-easily at the absurdity beforecontinuing: “But it was really thecombination. And it changed thedynamics.”

“Anita” is an important histori-cal document about an event thatprompted a larger cultural con-versation about sexual harass-ment. But, perhaps more impor-tant, it conveys Ms. Hill’s journeyfrom an accuser alone to an activ-ist who shares with, and listensto, others. (She is now 57 and aprofessor at Brandeis Universi-ty.)

“Sexual harassment is justpart of a larger problem of gen-der inequality,” she says. “And Ididn’t realize that until I startedhearing from people.”

In the second half of the film,Ms. Mock takes Ms. Hill awayfrom that famous image of hertestifying before a panel of whitemen and places her in a contextof power as she speaks in front ofrooms full of women (like theBrooklyn-based group Girls forGender Equity). By showing thisevolution, Ms. Mock demon-strates that harassment holds itspower mainly in isolation.

MIRIAMBALEFILM

REVIEW

AnitaOpens on Friday in New York, LosAngeles and San Francisco. Produced and directed by Freida Mock;written by Ms. Mock and Ken Chowder;directors of photography, Bestor Cramand Don Lenzer; edited by Brian John-son; music by Lili Haydn; released bySamuel Goldwyn Films. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. This film is not rated.

Alone Then,SupportedToday

STAN HONDA/SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS

Anita Hill is now a professorat Brandeis University.

woods, David and his fellow bird-ers, Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Pe-ter (Michael Chen), worry that ifthey spot the duck, Lawrencewill steal the credit.

Mr. Kingsley, with his sharpfeatures and penetrating gaze,has a distinctively avian de-meanor, and his character re-inforces the impression thatsome people obsessed withwinged creatures display bird-like characteristics. Lawrence isno saintly sage.

“Birds are my muses, and Istrive to be a true watcher,” hesays, referring to people whoseek a transcendent connectionbetween human and bird souls.But he acknowledges that hispreference for birding over ev-erything else has destroyed hishome life. “I’m 63 years old, andI have one leg and no driver’s li-cense,” he says. “Please don’tconfuse me with a role model.”

This gentle comedy, the first

feature directed by Rob Meyer,is an eye opener for anyone whotakes the everyday natural worldfor granted. It is also a quiet brieffor the cultivation of intellectualcuriosity and scientific explora-tion at an age when hormonesrule so much behavior. The re-minder that all around us existsa fascinating realm of almost in-finite variety is stimulating. Al-though the movie doesn’t shrinkfrom the notion that serious birdwatching is the tiniest bit cuckoo,its overall attitude toward these

juvenile naturalists and theirmentor is respectfully affection-ate.

The articulate screenplay, byMr. Meyer and Luke Matheny,sustains a steady tension. Thefriends’ trip takes place in thestolen car of David’s older cous-in, and it comes on the eve of hisfather’s marriage to the womanwho cared for his ailing motheruntil her death a year and a halfearlier. The father (James LeGros) and son have never pro-cessed their grief or discussed

the imminent marriage, whichDavid is too shy to say he deeplyresents, even though he agreedto be the best man.

David and his friends are well-drawn portraits of innocents atan excruciatingly awkward age.Timmy, who affects a transpar-ently bogus machismo, is really ascaredy-cat. After the discoveryof a bag of what might be crystalmeth under a seat of the car, hepanics and imagines that theyare being followed by a gang ofgun-toting drug dealers. These

adolescents are still youngenough to be afraid of the dark.

How do you survive the hu-miliation and embarrassment ofbeing 15 and desperate to be agrown-up? Through patienceand the instinctive realizationthat you’ve reached an awkwardtransition and that the worst willsoon be behind you.

“A Birder’s Guide to Every-thing” is rated PG-13 (Parentsstrongly cautioned) for language,drug and sex references.

“That’s the great thing aboutthis field,” Lawrence Konrad(Ben Kingsley), a bird-watchingfanatic, declares to a group of ad-olescent followers in “A Birder’s

Guide to Everything.”“It doesn’t matter ifyou’re a high schoolkid on your bike, or ifyou’re an eggheadlike me with a boat-load of degrees. Any-

body can be a birder.”Before the end of this smart,

likable coming-of-age movie, themembers of a high school’sYoung Birder Society go on anexpedition in search of the Lab-rador duck, a supposedly extinctspecies. The main character, 15-year-old David Portnoy (KodiSmit-McPhee), snapped a blurrypicture of the duck on the streetwhere he lives in a New Yorksuburb and showed it to Law-rence, who was intrigued. OnceLawrence joins them in the

A Birder’s Guide to EverythingOpens on Friday in Manhattan. Directed by Rob Meyer; written by LukeMatheny and Mr. Meyer; director of pho-tography, Tom Richmond; edited by VitoDiSario; music by Jeremy Turner; pro-duction design by Elizabeth J. Jones; cos-tumes by Anney Perrine; produced byKirsten Duncan Fuller, Lisa K. Jenkins,Dan Lindau and R. Paul Miller; releasedby Screen Media Films. At the VillageEast Cinema, Second Avenue at 12thStreet, East Village. Running time: 1 hour28 minutes.

WITH: Kodi Smit-McPhee (David Port-noy), James Le Gros (Donald Portnoy),Alex Wolff (Timmy Barsky), MichaelChen (Peter Nessbaum), Katie Chang(Ellen Reeves) and Ben Kingsley (Law-rence Konrad).

SCREEN MEDIA FILMS

Far afield: From left, Michael Chen, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

In Search of a Duck,And a Way ThroughThat Awkward Age

STEPHENHOLDEN

FILMREVIEW

dley’s eyelashes changesthroughout “Divergent” mayhave been amusingly distractingfor a while (maybe they’re moodlashes, a friend quipped), butsuch shoddiness also under-scores the contempt that moviecompanies have for the mediumand the audience.

Veronica Roth, who wrote thebook “Divergent” and its two hot-selling follow-ups, tends to avoidmentioning “The HungerGames,” but the similarities be-tween these young-adult jugger-nauts are conspicuous in the ex-treme. “The Hunger Games” is adystopian tale set in a postwarNorth America divided into 13districts; “Divergent” is a dysto-pian tale set in postwar Chicagodivided into five factions. Each

face. (He’s had practice: Untilnow, he was best known forcroaking in Lady Mary’s bed in“Downton Abbey.”) The charac-ters trade many moony looks aswell as spit, but their cute, farci-cally overdetermined match — hethrusts with penetrating stares,while she parries by retreatingand looking at her feet or a wall— grows wearisome when it be-comes clear that there’s not muchelse going on. Lots of things hap-pen, of course, as per the dystopi-an rule book, but for all the jump-ing and scaling of heights, themovie remains grounded.

The story, adapted by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor,opens with Tris living with herfamily in Abnegation, a factionwhose inhabitants have em-braced selflessness to the point ofpride and who wear drab, flowingclothes that suggest that EileenFisher managed to survive Ar-

mageddon. Tris, however, yearnsto run wild with Dauntless, a fac-tion that puts a premium on cour-age, fearlessness, piercings, tat-toos and hair gel. Each faction —the others are Amity, Candor andErudite — lives according to re-stricted values in order to keepthe peace and considers an outli-er like Tris, called Divergent, as athreat. It doesn’t make any sense,but Ms. Roth’s prose style is goodenough and Tris appealingenough that, at least in the book,it’s easy to breeze past the plotholes.

It’s harder to ignore thoseflaws in the movie, partly be-cause the director, Neil Burger(“Limitless”), gives you little tohang onto — beauty, thrills, a vis-ual style. The script, or what’s leftof it, doesn’t help, because some-one (it’s impossible to know whomerits most of the blame in a bigenterprise like this) has made the

familiar blunder of thinking thatthe most important thing inadapting a book to the screen isthe stuff that happens rather thanto whom it happens. That theDauntless inhabitants like tojump on and off moving trains orclamber up buildings like mon-keys isn’t interesting or novel.What matters is how thrillinglyfree and alive Tris feels when shehurtles across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. “Feardoesn’t shut you down,” Fourtells Tris, “it wakes you up.”

You have to take his word for it.It’s hard not to root for Ms. Woo-dley, who has been coming onstrong in recent indie titles like“The Descendants” and “TheSpectacular Now,” but she seemspalpably uncomfortable here.There’s a tentative, awkwardquality to her physical perform-ance that at times registers as alack of confidence and that, as thestory progresses, is badly at oddswith her character’s intensifyingferocity. That hardly seems likeMs. Woodley’s fault, given thatshe’s ill-served by the productionon so many levels, from the fightchoreography to the dialogue andthose eyelashes. But it’s finallygalling because women will neverbreak out of the representationalghetto they’ve been relegated toif you watch a movie like this oneand think that the heroine, meta-phorically and otherwise, throwslike a girl.

“Divergent” is rated PG-13(Parents strongly cautioned). Theold dystopian woes and violence.

This Dystopia Holds Some Smooches for Its Teenage Warriors

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior, an outlier in “Divergent.”

DivergentOpens on Friday. Directed by Neil Burger; written by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor, based onthe book by Veronica Roth; director ofphotography, Alwin Küchler; edited byRichard Francis-Bruce and Nancy Rich-ardson; music by Junkie XL; productiondesign by Andy Nicholson; costumes byCarlo Poggioli; produced by DouglasWick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahba-zian; released by Summit Entertainment.Running time: 2 hours 23 minutes.

WITH: Shailene Woodley (Tris), TheoJames (Four), Ashley Judd (Natalie), JaiCourtney (Eric), Ray Stevenson (Mar-cus), Zoë Kravitz (Christina), Miles Teller(Peter), Tony Goldwyn (Andrew), AnselElgort (Caleb), Maggie Q (Tori), MekhiPhifer (Max) and Kate Winslet (Jeanine).

From Weekend Page 1series pivots on a gutsy teenageheroine who fights to the deathlike a classic male hero. Eachyear, the young characters in thebooks undergo a weird ritual: In“The Hunger Games,” wee onesare sent into mortal combat; theinitiation ritual in “Divergent,”much like the book itself, is rath-er more anticlimactic, becauseteenagers just choose which fac-tion to grow old in.

There is a crucial difference:While Katniss Everdeen doesn’tmake much room for romance in“The Hunger Games” (she has arevolution to lead), Tris Priorspends a whole lot of time won-dering why her instructor paysattention to her. He’s a guy, as ifyou didn’t know, because while“Divergent” celebrates individ-uality and breaking out of the lit-tle boxes that its authoritarianleaders (i.e., adults) insist onputting teenagers in, the storysticks to the familiar genderedtemplate. Girl warrior meets boywarrior and, in between punches,kicks and bullets, they holdhands. One of the few real sur-prises in the “Divergent” novel isthat it’s nearly as chaste as the“Twilight” series, although Ms.Woodley and her romantic foil,Four (Theo James), do open wideduring several kisses.

They make a fine duo. They’reeasy on the eyes, for one, and Ms.Woodley has a gift for conveyinga sense of genuine, deep-tissuesincerity, while Mr. James, whoseslashing cheekbones look as ifthey could do some serious dam-age, is good at keeping a straight

Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,010,Bs-BW,E1

C10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

The United States governmenttoday called on Walt Disney Pic-tures to delay or cancel the re-lease of “Muppets Most Wanted”on national security grounds. Or

at least, it shouldhave. Not onlymight this movieannoy Russia, withwhom the Ameri-can government isalready nose-to-

nose over Crimea, but it couldalso cause any European alliesbeing courted by President Oba-ma to unfriend him and the restof the country.

The film, a music-filled follow-up to the 2011 hit “The Muppets,”lands poor Kermit in a gulag inSiberia, which is depicted just asunflatteringly as gulags in Sibe-ria always are. Vladimir V. Putinis unlikely to be amused. But thereal concern, in terms of Ameri-ca’s international relations, is itssly skewering of our European al-lies, whose work habits, vacation-taking and such are mocked re-lentlessly.

That running gag is among the

funniest things in this film, whichmakes you wonder about themovie’s target audience. It’s agrown-up joke, and there aremany others lurking in the rathercomplicated globe-hopping plot.Adults will find more to amusethem than was offered in “TheMuppets,” but younger childrenmight be left behind.

In the story, the gang, drunk onthe success of the 2011 movie,signs on for a world tour with ashifty promoter named DominicBadguy (Ricky Gervais). Domi-nic is in cahoots with Constan-tine, a criminal frog who bears astriking resemblance to Kermit.The two work a mistaken-identitytrick that lands Kermit in thegulag and allows Constantine totake his place on the Muppetworld tour. The Muppet stageshows in various European cities

become a tool in a complexscheme by Dominic and Constan-tine to steal the crown jewels inBritain.

Besides Mr. Gervais, the filmfeatures Ty Burrell, of “ModernFamily,” as an Interpol agent(and the focal point of most ofthose Europe-bashing jokes) andTina Fey as a gulag guard. Ms.Fey’s talents are wasted, sinceshe is chained to a stereotypical

Russian character and accent,and she doesn’t seem to be enjoy-ing herself nearly as much as anA-list star in a Muppet movieought to.

The whole film seems to have avague heaviness to it. The bestMuppet movies have been greatbecause they had charm. There’sno charm here, really; just self-referential jokes, decent but notmemorable songs, and lots and

lots of cameos (again, for theadults; not many children are go-ing to be impressed by the pres-ence of Stanley Tucci or FrankLangella).

It all adds up to an eventful en-try in the Muppet film library butnot a classic one. There is, how-ever, one noteworthy moment: Ina fantasy sequence, we get aglimpse of what babies made byKermit and Miss Piggy mightlook like, something exploredonly rarely in the past. The mov-ie’s elaborate plot might not bethe only thing parents find them-selves explaining to youngstersafter the ending credits.

“Muppets Most Wanted” is rat-ed PG (Parental guidance sug-gested) for some mild cartoon vio-lence.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAY MAIDMENT/WALT DISNEY PICTURES

From left, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Floyd, Walter and Scooter; the muppets’ tour promoter, played by Ricky Gervais,below left with Kermit’s look-alike, Constantine; and Ty Burrell, right, the Interpol agent on their trail, with Sam Eagle.

Muppets Most WantedOpens on Friday. Directed by James Bobin; written by Mr.Bobin and Nicholas Stoller; director ofphotography, Don Burgess; score byChristophe Beck; songs by Bret McKen-zie; production design by Eve Stewart;costumes by Rahel Afiley; produced byDavid Hoberman and Todd Lieberman;released by Walt Disney Pictures. Run-ning time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

WITH: Kermit the Frog (Himself), RickyGervais (Dominic, a.k.a. Number Two),Miss Piggy (Herself), Ty Burrell (JeanPierre Napoleon), Tina Fey (Nadya),Constantine (Himself) and Sam Eagle(Himself).

Muppets, A FrontFor BiggerSchemes

NEILGENZLINGER

FILMREVIEW

With the new documentary“Anita,” the Oscar-winning direc-tor Freida Mock (“Maya Lin: AStrong Clear Vision”) brings afresh perspective to a somber

and awkward chapterof modern Americanpolitics: the Senatehearings to confirmClarence Thomas tothe Supreme Courtamid accusations of

sexual harassment by Anita Hill.In the first half of this marvel-

ously structured film, Ms. Mockdeftly segues from the hearingsto present-day interviews withpeople who were in that room in1991, including Ms. Hill, her law-yer and her friends. This gives asense of an annotated version offamiliar words and images.(Among those interviewed areJill Abramson, the executive edi-tor of The New York Times, whocovered the trial for The WallStreet Journal and wrote, withJane Mayer, the 1994 book“Strange Justice: The Selling ofClarence Thomas.”)

Ms. Mock shows the ways theSenate proceedings quickly col-lapsed amid racial unease afterMr. Thomas declared that hisconfirmation was imperiled as aresult of a “high-tech lynching.”He was referring to himself andnot to Ms. Hill.

“People think, when they thinkof those hearings, ‘He had a race,and she had a gender,’” Ms. Hilltells a group at Spelman Collegein the film. She then laughs un-easily at the absurdity beforecontinuing: “But it was really thecombination. And it changed thedynamics.”

“Anita” is an important histori-cal document about an event thatprompted a larger cultural con-versation about sexual harass-ment. But, perhaps more impor-tant, it conveys Ms. Hill’s journeyfrom an accuser alone to an activ-ist who shares with, and listensto, others. (She is now 57 and aprofessor at Brandeis Universi-ty.)

“Sexual harassment is justpart of a larger problem of gen-der inequality,” she says. “And Ididn’t realize that until I startedhearing from people.”

In the second half of the film,Ms. Mock takes Ms. Hill awayfrom that famous image of hertestifying before a panel of whitemen and places her in a contextof power as she speaks in front ofrooms full of women (like theBrooklyn-based group Girls forGender Equity). By showing thisevolution, Ms. Mock demon-strates that harassment holds itspower mainly in isolation.

MIRIAMBALEFILM

REVIEW

AnitaOpens on Friday in New York, LosAngeles and San Francisco. Produced and directed by Freida Mock;written by Ms. Mock and Ken Chowder;directors of photography, Bestor Cramand Don Lenzer; edited by Brian John-son; music by Lili Haydn; released bySamuel Goldwyn Films. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. This film is not rated.

Alone Then,SupportedToday

STAN HONDA/SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS

Anita Hill is now a professorat Brandeis University.

woods, David and his fellow bird-ers, Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Pe-ter (Michael Chen), worry that ifthey spot the duck, Lawrencewill steal the credit.

Mr. Kingsley, with his sharpfeatures and penetrating gaze,has a distinctively avian de-meanor, and his character re-inforces the impression thatsome people obsessed withwinged creatures display bird-like characteristics. Lawrence isno saintly sage.

“Birds are my muses, and Istrive to be a true watcher,” hesays, referring to people whoseek a transcendent connectionbetween human and bird souls.But he acknowledges that hispreference for birding over ev-erything else has destroyed hishome life. “I’m 63 years old, andI have one leg and no driver’s li-cense,” he says. “Please don’tconfuse me with a role model.”

This gentle comedy, the first

feature directed by Rob Meyer,is an eye opener for anyone whotakes the everyday natural worldfor granted. It is also a quiet brieffor the cultivation of intellectualcuriosity and scientific explora-tion at an age when hormonesrule so much behavior. The re-minder that all around us existsa fascinating realm of almost in-finite variety is stimulating. Al-though the movie doesn’t shrinkfrom the notion that serious birdwatching is the tiniest bit cuckoo,its overall attitude toward these

juvenile naturalists and theirmentor is respectfully affection-ate.

The articulate screenplay, byMr. Meyer and Luke Matheny,sustains a steady tension. Thefriends’ trip takes place in thestolen car of David’s older cous-in, and it comes on the eve of hisfather’s marriage to the womanwho cared for his ailing motheruntil her death a year and a halfearlier. The father (James LeGros) and son have never pro-cessed their grief or discussed

the imminent marriage, whichDavid is too shy to say he deeplyresents, even though he agreedto be the best man.

David and his friends are well-drawn portraits of innocents atan excruciatingly awkward age.Timmy, who affects a transpar-ently bogus machismo, is really ascaredy-cat. After the discoveryof a bag of what might be crystalmeth under a seat of the car, hepanics and imagines that theyare being followed by a gang ofgun-toting drug dealers. These

adolescents are still youngenough to be afraid of the dark.

How do you survive the hu-miliation and embarrassment ofbeing 15 and desperate to be agrown-up? Through patienceand the instinctive realizationthat you’ve reached an awkwardtransition and that the worst willsoon be behind you.

“A Birder’s Guide to Every-thing” is rated PG-13 (Parentsstrongly cautioned) for language,drug and sex references.

“That’s the great thing aboutthis field,” Lawrence Konrad(Ben Kingsley), a bird-watchingfanatic, declares to a group of ad-olescent followers in “A Birder’s

Guide to Everything.”“It doesn’t matter ifyou’re a high schoolkid on your bike, or ifyou’re an eggheadlike me with a boat-load of degrees. Any-

body can be a birder.”Before the end of this smart,

likable coming-of-age movie, themembers of a high school’sYoung Birder Society go on anexpedition in search of the Lab-rador duck, a supposedly extinctspecies. The main character, 15-year-old David Portnoy (KodiSmit-McPhee), snapped a blurrypicture of the duck on the streetwhere he lives in a New Yorksuburb and showed it to Law-rence, who was intrigued. OnceLawrence joins them in the

A Birder’s Guide to EverythingOpens on Friday in Manhattan. Directed by Rob Meyer; written by LukeMatheny and Mr. Meyer; director of pho-tography, Tom Richmond; edited by VitoDiSario; music by Jeremy Turner; pro-duction design by Elizabeth J. Jones; cos-tumes by Anney Perrine; produced byKirsten Duncan Fuller, Lisa K. Jenkins,Dan Lindau and R. Paul Miller; releasedby Screen Media Films. At the VillageEast Cinema, Second Avenue at 12thStreet, East Village. Running time: 1 hour28 minutes.

WITH: Kodi Smit-McPhee (David Port-noy), James Le Gros (Donald Portnoy),Alex Wolff (Timmy Barsky), MichaelChen (Peter Nessbaum), Katie Chang(Ellen Reeves) and Ben Kingsley (Law-rence Konrad).

SCREEN MEDIA FILMS

Far afield: From left, Michael Chen, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

In Search of a Duck,And a Way ThroughThat Awkward Age

STEPHENHOLDEN

FILMREVIEW

dley’s eyelashes changesthroughout “Divergent” mayhave been amusingly distractingfor a while (maybe they’re moodlashes, a friend quipped), butsuch shoddiness also under-scores the contempt that moviecompanies have for the mediumand the audience.

Veronica Roth, who wrote thebook “Divergent” and its two hot-selling follow-ups, tends to avoidmentioning “The HungerGames,” but the similarities be-tween these young-adult jugger-nauts are conspicuous in the ex-treme. “The Hunger Games” is adystopian tale set in a postwarNorth America divided into 13districts; “Divergent” is a dysto-pian tale set in postwar Chicagodivided into five factions. Each

face. (He’s had practice: Untilnow, he was best known forcroaking in Lady Mary’s bed in“Downton Abbey.”) The charac-ters trade many moony looks aswell as spit, but their cute, farci-cally overdetermined match — hethrusts with penetrating stares,while she parries by retreatingand looking at her feet or a wall— grows wearisome when it be-comes clear that there’s not muchelse going on. Lots of things hap-pen, of course, as per the dystopi-an rule book, but for all the jump-ing and scaling of heights, themovie remains grounded.

The story, adapted by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor,opens with Tris living with herfamily in Abnegation, a factionwhose inhabitants have em-braced selflessness to the point ofpride and who wear drab, flowingclothes that suggest that EileenFisher managed to survive Ar-

mageddon. Tris, however, yearnsto run wild with Dauntless, a fac-tion that puts a premium on cour-age, fearlessness, piercings, tat-toos and hair gel. Each faction —the others are Amity, Candor andErudite — lives according to re-stricted values in order to keepthe peace and considers an outli-er like Tris, called Divergent, as athreat. It doesn’t make any sense,but Ms. Roth’s prose style is goodenough and Tris appealingenough that, at least in the book,it’s easy to breeze past the plotholes.

It’s harder to ignore thoseflaws in the movie, partly be-cause the director, Neil Burger(“Limitless”), gives you little tohang onto — beauty, thrills, a vis-ual style. The script, or what’s leftof it, doesn’t help, because some-one (it’s impossible to know whomerits most of the blame in a bigenterprise like this) has made the

familiar blunder of thinking thatthe most important thing inadapting a book to the screen isthe stuff that happens rather thanto whom it happens. That theDauntless inhabitants like tojump on and off moving trains orclamber up buildings like mon-keys isn’t interesting or novel.What matters is how thrillinglyfree and alive Tris feels when shehurtles across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. “Feardoesn’t shut you down,” Fourtells Tris, “it wakes you up.”

You have to take his word for it.It’s hard not to root for Ms. Woo-dley, who has been coming onstrong in recent indie titles like“The Descendants” and “TheSpectacular Now,” but she seemspalpably uncomfortable here.There’s a tentative, awkwardquality to her physical perform-ance that at times registers as alack of confidence and that, as thestory progresses, is badly at oddswith her character’s intensifyingferocity. That hardly seems likeMs. Woodley’s fault, given thatshe’s ill-served by the productionon so many levels, from the fightchoreography to the dialogue andthose eyelashes. But it’s finallygalling because women will neverbreak out of the representationalghetto they’ve been relegated toif you watch a movie like this oneand think that the heroine, meta-phorically and otherwise, throwslike a girl.

“Divergent” is rated PG-13(Parents strongly cautioned). Theold dystopian woes and violence.

This Dystopia Holds Some Smooches for Its Teenage Warriors

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior, an outlier in “Divergent.”

DivergentOpens on Friday. Directed by Neil Burger; written by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor, based onthe book by Veronica Roth; director ofphotography, Alwin Küchler; edited byRichard Francis-Bruce and Nancy Rich-ardson; music by Junkie XL; productiondesign by Andy Nicholson; costumes byCarlo Poggioli; produced by DouglasWick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahba-zian; released by Summit Entertainment.Running time: 2 hours 23 minutes.

WITH: Shailene Woodley (Tris), TheoJames (Four), Ashley Judd (Natalie), JaiCourtney (Eric), Ray Stevenson (Mar-cus), Zoë Kravitz (Christina), Miles Teller(Peter), Tony Goldwyn (Andrew), AnselElgort (Caleb), Maggie Q (Tori), MekhiPhifer (Max) and Kate Winslet (Jeanine).

From Weekend Page 1series pivots on a gutsy teenageheroine who fights to the deathlike a classic male hero. Eachyear, the young characters in thebooks undergo a weird ritual: In“The Hunger Games,” wee onesare sent into mortal combat; theinitiation ritual in “Divergent,”much like the book itself, is rath-er more anticlimactic, becauseteenagers just choose which fac-tion to grow old in.

There is a crucial difference:While Katniss Everdeen doesn’tmake much room for romance in“The Hunger Games” (she has arevolution to lead), Tris Priorspends a whole lot of time won-dering why her instructor paysattention to her. He’s a guy, as ifyou didn’t know, because while“Divergent” celebrates individ-uality and breaking out of the lit-tle boxes that its authoritarianleaders (i.e., adults) insist onputting teenagers in, the storysticks to the familiar genderedtemplate. Girl warrior meets boywarrior and, in between punches,kicks and bullets, they holdhands. One of the few real sur-prises in the “Divergent” novel isthat it’s nearly as chaste as the“Twilight” series, although Ms.Woodley and her romantic foil,Four (Theo James), do open wideduring several kisses.

They make a fine duo. They’reeasy on the eyes, for one, and Ms.Woodley has a gift for conveyinga sense of genuine, deep-tissuesincerity, while Mr. James, whoseslashing cheekbones look as ifthey could do some serious dam-age, is good at keeping a straight

Nxxx,2014-03-21,C,010,Bs-BW,E1

C10 N THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MARCH 21, 2014

The United States governmenttoday called on Walt Disney Pic-tures to delay or cancel the re-lease of “Muppets Most Wanted”on national security grounds. Or

at least, it shouldhave. Not onlymight this movieannoy Russia, withwhom the Ameri-can government isalready nose-to-

nose over Crimea, but it couldalso cause any European alliesbeing courted by President Oba-ma to unfriend him and the restof the country.

The film, a music-filled follow-up to the 2011 hit “The Muppets,”lands poor Kermit in a gulag inSiberia, which is depicted just asunflatteringly as gulags in Sibe-ria always are. Vladimir V. Putinis unlikely to be amused. But thereal concern, in terms of Ameri-ca’s international relations, is itssly skewering of our European al-lies, whose work habits, vacation-taking and such are mocked re-lentlessly.

That running gag is among the

funniest things in this film, whichmakes you wonder about themovie’s target audience. It’s agrown-up joke, and there aremany others lurking in the rathercomplicated globe-hopping plot.Adults will find more to amusethem than was offered in “TheMuppets,” but younger childrenmight be left behind.

In the story, the gang, drunk onthe success of the 2011 movie,signs on for a world tour with ashifty promoter named DominicBadguy (Ricky Gervais). Domi-nic is in cahoots with Constan-tine, a criminal frog who bears astriking resemblance to Kermit.The two work a mistaken-identitytrick that lands Kermit in thegulag and allows Constantine totake his place on the Muppetworld tour. The Muppet stageshows in various European cities

become a tool in a complexscheme by Dominic and Constan-tine to steal the crown jewels inBritain.

Besides Mr. Gervais, the filmfeatures Ty Burrell, of “ModernFamily,” as an Interpol agent(and the focal point of most ofthose Europe-bashing jokes) andTina Fey as a gulag guard. Ms.Fey’s talents are wasted, sinceshe is chained to a stereotypical

Russian character and accent,and she doesn’t seem to be enjoy-ing herself nearly as much as anA-list star in a Muppet movieought to.

The whole film seems to have avague heaviness to it. The bestMuppet movies have been greatbecause they had charm. There’sno charm here, really; just self-referential jokes, decent but notmemorable songs, and lots and

lots of cameos (again, for theadults; not many children are go-ing to be impressed by the pres-ence of Stanley Tucci or FrankLangella).

It all adds up to an eventful en-try in the Muppet film library butnot a classic one. There is, how-ever, one noteworthy moment: Ina fantasy sequence, we get aglimpse of what babies made byKermit and Miss Piggy mightlook like, something exploredonly rarely in the past. The mov-ie’s elaborate plot might not bethe only thing parents find them-selves explaining to youngstersafter the ending credits.

“Muppets Most Wanted” is rat-ed PG (Parental guidance sug-gested) for some mild cartoon vio-lence.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY JAY MAIDMENT/WALT DISNEY PICTURES

From left, Gonzo, Miss Piggy, Kermit the Frog, Floyd, Walter and Scooter; the muppets’ tour promoter, played by Ricky Gervais,below left with Kermit’s look-alike, Constantine; and Ty Burrell, right, the Interpol agent on their trail, with Sam Eagle.

Muppets Most WantedOpens on Friday. Directed by James Bobin; written by Mr.Bobin and Nicholas Stoller; director ofphotography, Don Burgess; score byChristophe Beck; songs by Bret McKen-zie; production design by Eve Stewart;costumes by Rahel Afiley; produced byDavid Hoberman and Todd Lieberman;released by Walt Disney Pictures. Run-ning time: 1 hour 47 minutes.

WITH: Kermit the Frog (Himself), RickyGervais (Dominic, a.k.a. Number Two),Miss Piggy (Herself), Ty Burrell (JeanPierre Napoleon), Tina Fey (Nadya),Constantine (Himself) and Sam Eagle(Himself).

Muppets, A FrontFor BiggerSchemes

NEILGENZLINGER

FILMREVIEW

With the new documentary“Anita,” the Oscar-winning direc-tor Freida Mock (“Maya Lin: AStrong Clear Vision”) brings afresh perspective to a somber

and awkward chapterof modern Americanpolitics: the Senatehearings to confirmClarence Thomas tothe Supreme Courtamid accusations of

sexual harassment by Anita Hill.In the first half of this marvel-

ously structured film, Ms. Mockdeftly segues from the hearingsto present-day interviews withpeople who were in that room in1991, including Ms. Hill, her law-yer and her friends. This gives asense of an annotated version offamiliar words and images.(Among those interviewed areJill Abramson, the executive edi-tor of The New York Times, whocovered the trial for The WallStreet Journal and wrote, withJane Mayer, the 1994 book“Strange Justice: The Selling ofClarence Thomas.”)

Ms. Mock shows the ways theSenate proceedings quickly col-lapsed amid racial unease afterMr. Thomas declared that hisconfirmation was imperiled as aresult of a “high-tech lynching.”He was referring to himself andnot to Ms. Hill.

“People think, when they thinkof those hearings, ‘He had a race,and she had a gender,’” Ms. Hilltells a group at Spelman Collegein the film. She then laughs un-easily at the absurdity beforecontinuing: “But it was really thecombination. And it changed thedynamics.”

“Anita” is an important histori-cal document about an event thatprompted a larger cultural con-versation about sexual harass-ment. But, perhaps more impor-tant, it conveys Ms. Hill’s journeyfrom an accuser alone to an activ-ist who shares with, and listensto, others. (She is now 57 and aprofessor at Brandeis Universi-ty.)

“Sexual harassment is justpart of a larger problem of gen-der inequality,” she says. “And Ididn’t realize that until I startedhearing from people.”

In the second half of the film,Ms. Mock takes Ms. Hill awayfrom that famous image of hertestifying before a panel of whitemen and places her in a contextof power as she speaks in front ofrooms full of women (like theBrooklyn-based group Girls forGender Equity). By showing thisevolution, Ms. Mock demon-strates that harassment holds itspower mainly in isolation.

MIRIAMBALEFILM

REVIEW

AnitaOpens on Friday in New York, LosAngeles and San Francisco. Produced and directed by Freida Mock;written by Ms. Mock and Ken Chowder;directors of photography, Bestor Cramand Don Lenzer; edited by Brian John-son; music by Lili Haydn; released bySamuel Goldwyn Films. Running time: 1 hour 17 minutes. This film is not rated.

Alone Then,SupportedToday

STAN HONDA/SAMUEL GOLDWYN FILMS

Anita Hill is now a professorat Brandeis University.

woods, David and his fellow bird-ers, Timmy (Alex Wolff) and Pe-ter (Michael Chen), worry that ifthey spot the duck, Lawrencewill steal the credit.

Mr. Kingsley, with his sharpfeatures and penetrating gaze,has a distinctively avian de-meanor, and his character re-inforces the impression thatsome people obsessed withwinged creatures display bird-like characteristics. Lawrence isno saintly sage.

“Birds are my muses, and Istrive to be a true watcher,” hesays, referring to people whoseek a transcendent connectionbetween human and bird souls.But he acknowledges that hispreference for birding over ev-erything else has destroyed hishome life. “I’m 63 years old, andI have one leg and no driver’s li-cense,” he says. “Please don’tconfuse me with a role model.”

This gentle comedy, the first

feature directed by Rob Meyer,is an eye opener for anyone whotakes the everyday natural worldfor granted. It is also a quiet brieffor the cultivation of intellectualcuriosity and scientific explora-tion at an age when hormonesrule so much behavior. The re-minder that all around us existsa fascinating realm of almost in-finite variety is stimulating. Al-though the movie doesn’t shrinkfrom the notion that serious birdwatching is the tiniest bit cuckoo,its overall attitude toward these

juvenile naturalists and theirmentor is respectfully affection-ate.

The articulate screenplay, byMr. Meyer and Luke Matheny,sustains a steady tension. Thefriends’ trip takes place in thestolen car of David’s older cous-in, and it comes on the eve of hisfather’s marriage to the womanwho cared for his ailing motheruntil her death a year and a halfearlier. The father (James LeGros) and son have never pro-cessed their grief or discussed

the imminent marriage, whichDavid is too shy to say he deeplyresents, even though he agreedto be the best man.

David and his friends are well-drawn portraits of innocents atan excruciatingly awkward age.Timmy, who affects a transpar-ently bogus machismo, is really ascaredy-cat. After the discoveryof a bag of what might be crystalmeth under a seat of the car, hepanics and imagines that theyare being followed by a gang ofgun-toting drug dealers. These

adolescents are still youngenough to be afraid of the dark.

How do you survive the hu-miliation and embarrassment ofbeing 15 and desperate to be agrown-up? Through patienceand the instinctive realizationthat you’ve reached an awkwardtransition and that the worst willsoon be behind you.

“A Birder’s Guide to Every-thing” is rated PG-13 (Parentsstrongly cautioned) for language,drug and sex references.

“That’s the great thing aboutthis field,” Lawrence Konrad(Ben Kingsley), a bird-watchingfanatic, declares to a group of ad-olescent followers in “A Birder’s

Guide to Everything.”“It doesn’t matter ifyou’re a high schoolkid on your bike, or ifyou’re an eggheadlike me with a boat-load of degrees. Any-

body can be a birder.”Before the end of this smart,

likable coming-of-age movie, themembers of a high school’sYoung Birder Society go on anexpedition in search of the Lab-rador duck, a supposedly extinctspecies. The main character, 15-year-old David Portnoy (KodiSmit-McPhee), snapped a blurrypicture of the duck on the streetwhere he lives in a New Yorksuburb and showed it to Law-rence, who was intrigued. OnceLawrence joins them in the

A Birder’s Guide to EverythingOpens on Friday in Manhattan. Directed by Rob Meyer; written by LukeMatheny and Mr. Meyer; director of pho-tography, Tom Richmond; edited by VitoDiSario; music by Jeremy Turner; pro-duction design by Elizabeth J. Jones; cos-tumes by Anney Perrine; produced byKirsten Duncan Fuller, Lisa K. Jenkins,Dan Lindau and R. Paul Miller; releasedby Screen Media Films. At the VillageEast Cinema, Second Avenue at 12thStreet, East Village. Running time: 1 hour28 minutes.

WITH: Kodi Smit-McPhee (David Port-noy), James Le Gros (Donald Portnoy),Alex Wolff (Timmy Barsky), MichaelChen (Peter Nessbaum), Katie Chang(Ellen Reeves) and Ben Kingsley (Law-rence Konrad).

SCREEN MEDIA FILMS

Far afield: From left, Michael Chen, Alex Wolff, Katie Chang and Kodi Smit-McPhee.

In Search of a Duck,And a Way ThroughThat Awkward Age

STEPHENHOLDEN

FILMREVIEW

dley’s eyelashes changesthroughout “Divergent” mayhave been amusingly distractingfor a while (maybe they’re moodlashes, a friend quipped), butsuch shoddiness also under-scores the contempt that moviecompanies have for the mediumand the audience.

Veronica Roth, who wrote thebook “Divergent” and its two hot-selling follow-ups, tends to avoidmentioning “The HungerGames,” but the similarities be-tween these young-adult jugger-nauts are conspicuous in the ex-treme. “The Hunger Games” is adystopian tale set in a postwarNorth America divided into 13districts; “Divergent” is a dysto-pian tale set in postwar Chicagodivided into five factions. Each

face. (He’s had practice: Untilnow, he was best known forcroaking in Lady Mary’s bed in“Downton Abbey.”) The charac-ters trade many moony looks aswell as spit, but their cute, farci-cally overdetermined match — hethrusts with penetrating stares,while she parries by retreatingand looking at her feet or a wall— grows wearisome when it be-comes clear that there’s not muchelse going on. Lots of things hap-pen, of course, as per the dystopi-an rule book, but for all the jump-ing and scaling of heights, themovie remains grounded.

The story, adapted by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor,opens with Tris living with herfamily in Abnegation, a factionwhose inhabitants have em-braced selflessness to the point ofpride and who wear drab, flowingclothes that suggest that EileenFisher managed to survive Ar-

mageddon. Tris, however, yearnsto run wild with Dauntless, a fac-tion that puts a premium on cour-age, fearlessness, piercings, tat-toos and hair gel. Each faction —the others are Amity, Candor andErudite — lives according to re-stricted values in order to keepthe peace and considers an outli-er like Tris, called Divergent, as athreat. It doesn’t make any sense,but Ms. Roth’s prose style is goodenough and Tris appealingenough that, at least in the book,it’s easy to breeze past the plotholes.

It’s harder to ignore thoseflaws in the movie, partly be-cause the director, Neil Burger(“Limitless”), gives you little tohang onto — beauty, thrills, a vis-ual style. The script, or what’s leftof it, doesn’t help, because some-one (it’s impossible to know whomerits most of the blame in a bigenterprise like this) has made the

familiar blunder of thinking thatthe most important thing inadapting a book to the screen isthe stuff that happens rather thanto whom it happens. That theDauntless inhabitants like tojump on and off moving trains orclamber up buildings like mon-keys isn’t interesting or novel.What matters is how thrillinglyfree and alive Tris feels when shehurtles across an abyss or zip-lines over the ruined city. “Feardoesn’t shut you down,” Fourtells Tris, “it wakes you up.”

You have to take his word for it.It’s hard not to root for Ms. Woo-dley, who has been coming onstrong in recent indie titles like“The Descendants” and “TheSpectacular Now,” but she seemspalpably uncomfortable here.There’s a tentative, awkwardquality to her physical perform-ance that at times registers as alack of confidence and that, as thestory progresses, is badly at oddswith her character’s intensifyingferocity. That hardly seems likeMs. Woodley’s fault, given thatshe’s ill-served by the productionon so many levels, from the fightchoreography to the dialogue andthose eyelashes. But it’s finallygalling because women will neverbreak out of the representationalghetto they’ve been relegated toif you watch a movie like this oneand think that the heroine, meta-phorically and otherwise, throwslike a girl.

“Divergent” is rated PG-13(Parents strongly cautioned). Theold dystopian woes and violence.

This Dystopia Holds Some Smooches for Its Teenage Warriors

JAAP BUITENDIJK/SUMMIT ENTERTAINMENT

Shailene Woodley as Tris Prior, an outlier in “Divergent.”

DivergentOpens on Friday. Directed by Neil Burger; written by EvanDaugherty and Vanessa Taylor, based onthe book by Veronica Roth; director ofphotography, Alwin Küchler; edited byRichard Francis-Bruce and Nancy Rich-ardson; music by Junkie XL; productiondesign by Andy Nicholson; costumes byCarlo Poggioli; produced by DouglasWick, Lucy Fisher and Pouya Shahba-zian; released by Summit Entertainment.Running time: 2 hours 23 minutes.

WITH: Shailene Woodley (Tris), TheoJames (Four), Ashley Judd (Natalie), JaiCourtney (Eric), Ray Stevenson (Mar-cus), Zoë Kravitz (Christina), Miles Teller(Peter), Tony Goldwyn (Andrew), AnselElgort (Caleb), Maggie Q (Tori), MekhiPhifer (Max) and Kate Winslet (Jeanine).

From Weekend Page 1series pivots on a gutsy teenageheroine who fights to the deathlike a classic male hero. Eachyear, the young characters in thebooks undergo a weird ritual: In“The Hunger Games,” wee onesare sent into mortal combat; theinitiation ritual in “Divergent,”much like the book itself, is rath-er more anticlimactic, becauseteenagers just choose which fac-tion to grow old in.

There is a crucial difference:While Katniss Everdeen doesn’tmake much room for romance in“The Hunger Games” (she has arevolution to lead), Tris Priorspends a whole lot of time won-dering why her instructor paysattention to her. He’s a guy, as ifyou didn’t know, because while“Divergent” celebrates individ-uality and breaking out of the lit-tle boxes that its authoritarianleaders (i.e., adults) insist onputting teenagers in, the storysticks to the familiar genderedtemplate. Girl warrior meets boywarrior and, in between punches,kicks and bullets, they holdhands. One of the few real sur-prises in the “Divergent” novel isthat it’s nearly as chaste as the“Twilight” series, although Ms.Woodley and her romantic foil,Four (Theo James), do open wideduring several kisses.

They make a fine duo. They’reeasy on the eyes, for one, and Ms.Woodley has a gift for conveyinga sense of genuine, deep-tissuesincerity, while Mr. James, whoseslashing cheekbones look as ifthey could do some serious dam-age, is good at keeping a straight

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