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Star power can't save Devotion and The Son , the latest Pitch Perfect spinoff is amusing but slight

What's worth your time in movies and TV this weekend? EW's critics review the latest releases: Devotion, The Son, Lady Chatterley's Lover, and Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin.

Leah Greenblatt is the critic at large at Entertainment Weekly , covering movies, music, books, and theater. She is a member of the New York Film Critics Circle, and has been writing for EW since 2004.

Kristen Baldwin is the TV critic for EW

Senior Editor, Movies

In theaters now

Airplanes, danger zones, a certain brand of squinty square-jawed masculinity: Devotion sure looks like a low-flying Top Gun , and not only because it costars golden-boy Maverick alum Glen Powell . It even arrives with the hook of an inspiring real-life story — about the first Black aviator in U.S. Navy history — and two talented actors who seem to represent the hopes of young Hollywood. But the movie's propulsive trailer , alas, conceals the sputtering dramatic engine of an oddly dull and dutiful biopic, too restrained to serve the valiant efforts of its leads.

Lovecraft Country 's Jonathan Majors , recently inducted into the extended Avengers universe , is Jesse Brown, a Mississippi native who famously broke color lines to earn his wings as a Navy pilot. Cloaked in the careful reserve of a man used to deflecting cruelty and hate on a daily basis, he seems like an unlikely friend for Powell's gregarious All-American Tom Hudner to latch onto; he's also married with a young daughter, a settled-down outlier in the rowdy bachelor culture of their military unit. But Tom is the kind of guy who gets what he wants, and soon the pair have formed a tentative friendship, just in time to be deployed in an operation that isn't yet being called the Korean War.

There are a few appropriately harrowing flight-training sequences, and a glamorous furlough in Cannes that collides with an actual movie star (that's Ballers ' Serinda Swan as a vampish Liz Taylor); lessons are learned and bonds forged. The screenplay steers so consistently toward generalities, though, that it's hard to invest in any real stakes for the sketched-out characters on screen, and director J.D. Dillard ( Sleight , Sweetheart ) hits his story beats with dogged competence but not much flair: As Jesse's devoted wife Daisy, The Good Fight 's Christina Jackson seems to be waiting nearly two and half hours for a line not out of the Faithful Housewife handbook. Powell and Majors, both born with surfeits of natural charisma, strain mightily to imbue their scant dialogue with deeper meaning, but Devotion , earnest and determinedly earthbound to the end, never really captures the air up there. Grade: B– — Leah Greenblatt

Lady Chatterley's Lover

On Netflix now

If you've pitied actress Emma Corrin , forever playing the scorned or abandoned wife in period dramas (see: The Crown , My Policeman ), be assured that she more than gets hers in Lady Chatterley's Lover — a movie so happily, explicitly sexed, it may turn the Netflix logo a deeper shade of red.

D.H. Lawrence's vaunted novel, scandalous enough to be banned for several decades after it was first published in Italy in 1928, has been adapted many times on screen, most recently for the BBC in 2015 . French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre (who made 2019's lovely, meditative prison drama The Mustang ), approaches the material here with refreshing straightforwardness, bringing an air of feminist modernity to the production without tilting into full anachronism — a take closer to Joe Wright's 2005 Pride & Prejudice , you could say, than the recent, relentlessly winky Persuasion .

Here, Corrin's Constance Reid is a young aristocrat just bohemian enough to believe that her union with a lord of the manor (Matthew Duckett, perfectly priggish) can be a marriage of equals. But when he comes back paralyzed from the Great War, and apparently unconcerned about her finding any sort of physical satisfaction for the rest of her life, the Lady's eye begins to wander. That gaze doesn't have far to go on their remote British estate, and so it lands on the gamekeeper ( Godless star Jack O'Connell , so quietly magnetic it seems unfair). He may come from the lower classes, but he reads James Joyce in his spare time, and is, as you may have guessed, very good with his hands.

Corrin and O'Connell spend most of the next hour-plus flirting and cavorting and doing things al fresco that would not be out of place at a Roman orgy. Sniffy husband and a generally disapproving society aside, there isn't actually much dramatic conflict in Chatterley , though that feels like a relief, frankly, in a sea of stories that rarely allow for female desire without some mortal moral punishment (if only Anna Karenina or Madame Bovary had been so lucky). What's left, then, is just an unabashedly heady romance, rich in pretty costumes — when they're wearing them — and lush, lusty atmosphere. Grade: B+ — Leah Greenblatt

In limited theatrical release November 25

Director Florian Zeller pulled off several miracles with 2020's The Father , an elegant drama about dementia that was never mawkish, and a reminder (for anyone who needed it) that Anthony Hopkins was always more than fava beans and a nice Chianti. If Zeller doesn't match the same poise with his follow-up, The Son , a ruinous family tragedy that borders on audience brutality, he still demonstrates admirable commitment to life's tougher stories — this filmmaker will never be accused of dumbing anything down.

Still, down is where Zeller means to take us, to a long-foreshadowed hellish place of pain that every parent fears, even high-powered Manhattan lawyers like Peter Miller ( Hugh Jackman ), cusping on career advancement and happily remarried. Peter's reboot with Beth ( Vanessa Kirby , tops in a tricky role) — they even have an infant — is interrupted one night by his ex-wife, Kate ( Laura Dern ), concerned about their teenage son's moods and school absences. An intervention is required, and while it's not what Beth signed up for, the surly, fragile Nicholas (Zen McGrath) moves in.

The Son struggles hard not to be a bad-dad drama; at almost every juncture, it shows divorced parents trying to make the right calls, even as Nicholas bobs in the choppy wake of a recent-enough split. But it doesn't take long to sense that Zeller is making something darkly cynical and a bit sadistic. You see it in Jackman' increasingly furrowed brow and distracted eyes (the sledgehammer performance becomes a full-on descent). There's obviousness in the film's sun-dappled flashbacks to happier days, and one outrageous mid-argument reveal that would make Chekhov blush.

Give Zeller credit, though, for not flinching in the ways that count: Depression doesn't have an easy solve, nor, in many cases, a discernible cause. Sometimes, a father is the least-qualified person to deal with it. ( The Son 's Hopkins shows up for an electrifying cameo that reveals, with a minimum of dialogue, how optional the guilt can be.) Unlike The Father, which expanded Zeller's stage source material with maze-like complexity, The Son pins us in for an endgame that you wish had more of a takeaway than a gut punch. Grade: B– — Joshua Rothkopf

Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin

Streaming now on Peacock

It feels almost irresponsible, in this age of IP abuse, to praise the fourth extension of a franchise that has delivered diminishing creative returns with each successive installment. But here we are. Peacock's Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin is a slight but unexpectedly amusing spin-off of the film franchise. The show won't win any trophies for originality, but it keeps a pleasant beat thanks to an appealing ensemble and a fat heart.

Though it's been seven years since we last saw Bumper Allen ( Adam Devine ), he's still right where we left him in Pitch Perfect 2 : Working security at Barden University, performing with the a cappella quintet The Tonehangers, and dreaming of superstardom. When his TikTok mashup of "99 Luftballons" and "Take On Me" goes viral in Germany, Bumper accepts an invitation from former a cappella champ-turned-manager Pieter Krämer (Flula Borg) to launch his career in Berlin. Only after relocating to the land of beer and Bratwurst does Bumper learn that Pieter has his own industry challenges to overcome.

Rather than build a series around the cocky and insufferable antagonist of the Pitch Perfect movies, showrunner Megan Amram ( The Good Place ) gives us a Bumper who's softened by maturity and the humility of persistent failure. But Berlin follows the formula that (mostly) worked for the films. There's the big competition: Pieter and influential DJ Das Boot (Lera Abova) aim to help Bumper land a coveted "newcomer" spot in the German Unity Day concert. The cartoonish rival: Pieter's flamboyant and manipulative ex-girlfriend/bandmate, Gisela ( Jameela Jamil ). The love interest: Pieter's assistant Heidi ( Modern Family 's Sarah Hyland ), a kindhearted American and secret songwriter. And the showy songbursts: A Guns N' Roses duet in a dumpster; "Barbie Girl" at an avant-garde art show.

The half-hour episodes are breezy and light, perfect for background viewing — though you might miss some of the sharp and silly wordplay. (A Dutch a cappella group called "Holland Oats"? You bet I laughed.) Devine tempers Bumper's overconfidence with newfound shades of earnestness and self-awareness. Borg, reprising his role from Pitch Perfect 2 , delivers every line with a chipper frankness that is both authentically German and consistently funny. The story hits all the notes you'd expect — friendships are tested, lessons are learned — but the familiarity is by design. Even when you've heard a song a million times, it's sometimes still fun to hum along. Grade: B — Kristen Baldwin

‘Devotion’ Review: JD Dillard Brings ‘Top Gun’ Mojo to Historic Account of a Barrier-Breaking Black Pilot

Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell play real-life Korean War heroes Jesse Brown and Tom Hudner, whose friendship reflects the U.S. Navy's early attempts at integration.

By Peter Debruge

Peter Debruge

Chief Film Critic

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Muhammad Ali famously refused to fight for his country, justifying himself with the oft-quoted quip, “No Viet Cong ever called me n—–.” That’s one-half of American history, and an essential one. “ Devotion ” tells the other, presenting the story of a Black pilot so determined to defend — and die for, if need be — the United States that he was willing to endure institutional bigotry to become the Jackie Robinson of the skies: Jesse Brown, the first aviator of color to complete the Navy’s basic training program.

In that inclusive-minded blockbuster, it’s seemingly no big deal that many of the young pilots assembled for the movie’s trick-flying mission are women and people of color — the implication being that the battle for equal treatment in the U.S. armed services has long since been fought and won. In “Devotion,” that struggle is still actively underway. Brown keeps a book in which he’s written every insult and epithet that’s ever been thrown at him. Most days, as a brutal sort of motivational exercise, he stares at himself in the mirror and screams them back at the face he sees there — directly into the camera at one point. This is his armor, the way he toughens himself up for whatever fresh disrespect the other pilots might hurl at him.

Plenty of Black men had served in the U.S. military before Brown, though national policy kept them separated from white soldiers, and Jim Crow rules still applied. “Ever think you’d be in a squadron with a colored aviator?” asks one of the other pilots (apart from Joe Jonas, the vaguely defined white supporting characters all sort of blur together). Hudner doesn’t share their disgust with the new situation. Mostly, he’s just itching for action. Hudner enlisted when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but the war ended a week before he graduated, which means he missed the “Big Show” (pilot-speak for the air fights of WWII). Although much of “Devotion” is presented through Hudner’s eyes, Dillard breaks from that perspective occasionally to share Brown’s experience, and every time he does, the movie becomes more interesting: the scene where Brown encounters Elizabeth Taylor on the beach at Cannes, for example, or an important interaction with a lower-ranking Black sailor, who presents him with a symbol of the men’s admiration.

Integration was a difficult process across American society, as those indoctrinated by notions of their own superiority tried to hold on to their power as long as possible. Revisiting these dynamics on-screen is invariably ugly and potentially triggering for many, which is one reason why storytellers prefer to focus on progressive cases such as Hudner, who demonstrates no overt racism when he meets Brown at Rhode Island’s Quonset Point base.

Though they’re both gifted pilots, Brown has trouble adjusting to the fighter plane the Navy introduced in 1950, the Vought F4U Corsair, whose bulky engine blocked visibility. That late-in-the-game change adds a level of suspense to the film’s airborne sequences — a few of which, like the early lighthouse run, exist simply to give audiences a taste of that same exhilaration these men experienced in the cockpit. While flying is a thrill, landing aboard an aircraft carrier can be downright nerve-racking. Not everyone survives this test.

After bonding in the skies, Brown invites Hudner over and introduces the white man to his wife (Christina Jackson) and child — “to see what a man’s fighting for,” as Hudner puts it. Despite this gesture, it takes nearly the entire film for Brown to accept his partner. Why? Hudner may have been ahead of his peers, but so much of his support comes easy — that is, at no personal risk. Brown makes that clear after he’s cited for disobeying a direct order in the film’s most electrifying sequence, a daredevil dogfight immediately followed by the bombing of a Korean bridge.

Reviewed at Toronto Film Festival (Special Presentations), Sept. 14, 2022. MPA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 139 MIN.

Production: A Sony release of a Columbia Pictures, Black Label Media presentation of a Black Label Media production. Producers: Molly Smith, Rachel Smith, Thad Luckinbill, Trent Luckinbill. Executive producers: JD Dillard, Glen Powell.
Crew: Director: JD Dillard. Screenplay: Jake Crane, Jonathan A.H. Stewart, based on the book by Adam Makos. Camera: Erik Messerschmidt. Editor: Billy Fox. Music: Chanda Dancy.
With: Jonathan Majors, Glen Powell, Christina Jackson, Thomas Sadoski, Joe Jonas. (English, French, Korean dialogue)

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‘We’re living the Korean war all over again. We’re in the preamble to it’ … Jesse Brown, seated in the cockpit of an F4U-4 Corsair Fighter plane

Devotion: the true story behind a film about the navy’s first Black aviator

The action drama tells the story of Jesse Brown, a groundbreaking fighter pilot who chose to fight in the Korean war

J esse Brown was the original top gun – a navy fighter pilot whose heroism in the Korean war earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, the loftiest award the US military pins on high fliers. That he was also the first Black pilot to pass navy flight training puts him in rarified air.

Brown, 24, never made it home. While supporting UN ground forces engaged in the Battle of the Chosin Reservoir in December 1950, Brown suffered artillery damage to his F4U Corsair aircraft and crash-landed in a remote mountain valley. When his wingman, Tom Hudner, saw Brown struggling to come unpinned from his cockpit afterward, he defied orders and intentionally crash-landed his plane nearby to help Brown. But in the end Hudner, after calming a fire on Brown’s plane and hacking away at his cockpit with an ax for 45 minutes in the subzero weather, couldn’t free Brown from his aircraft, was ordered into a rescue helicopter before night fell (and visibility with it). Brown lost consciousness shortly thereafter; two days later, a squadron returned to pepper the crash site with napalm to keep Brown’s body and aircraft from falling into enemy hands. Hudner was left physically and emotionally bruised.

For his valor Hudner received the Medal of Honor, the US military’s most exalted decoration, from President Truman on the White House lawn in April 1951 – with Brown’s widow, Daisy, just behind them. “Had I been on the ground, I think I would’ve had enough faith in my shipmates for somebody to do something,” Hudner said before his death in 2017. “I felt, yes, there was a chance that I wouldn’t. But to save Jesse’s life was worth it.”

The story of that doomed deployment and the unlikely friendship it sparked is at the center of Devotion – a new theatrical release starring Jonathan Majors and Glen Powell. The film is based on a 2015 biography by Adam Makos, who eventually became close friends with Hudner. “He really had intentions of going back that night even, or the next day,” Makos says. “He wasn’t ready to face the reality that Jesse was really gone.”

Even though it’s full of grand action sequences and wrestles with heavy ideas like duty and race at a time in American history when the parameters for both couldn’t have been more distinct, Devotion wasn’t necessarily a lock to make it to the big screen. For as much as Hollywood loves a meaty combat flick, it treats the Korean war like a middle child relative to the second world war and Vietnam. Which is to say it’s often referenced, but largely ignored. “The last great Korean war movie, by my count, was Pork Chop Hill starring Gregory Peck – and that was in 1959,” Makos notes.

It’s called The Forgotten War even though it was the first UN war and so many American icons took part – from baseball hit king Ted Williams to Neil Armstrong to Marilyn Monroe. “The Korean war just faded, I think, because back then America didn’t want another war,” Makos says. “It was a cold, mysterious and faraway place. We were tired. It was time to move on.” When John Wayne tried to produce a movie about the Battle of Outpost Vegas, a late-stage counter-attack in which nearly every participating marine was captured or killed, the US Marine Corps – skeptical of the defeatist slant, with the working title: Giveaway Hill – nixed the project, fearing it might give a PR win to the communists. It took Powell expressing an interest in playing Hudner and producing the film as well for Devotion to really take flight. He too became close with Hudner; he and Rachel Smith, Brown’s granddaughter, were present for the navy pilot’s burial at Arlington National Cemetery.

The first frames of Devotion unfold less like Sands of Iwo Jima than Top Gun as navy warbirds take flight over the Atlantic, the present-day South Carolina-Georgia coast standing in for 1950s Rhode Island. Where Top Gun makes aircraft carrier landings look routine, Devotion tarries in the too-real tension when it’s not underscoring the balletic majesty of formation flight.

Even Majors (as Brown) wrestling with the blindspots on his Corsair fighter plane called to mind the recent air show in Dallas where six people died after a P-63 Kingcobra prop fighter collided with a B-17 bomber in midair. “The P-63 pilot might’ve lost that B-17 in his view for half a minute, and that was enough,” says Makos, who was friendly with some of the Texas Raiders who operated the B-17 and had been in discussions with them about using the plane for another film adaptation. “When I see planes flying in tight formation in the movie, I just take it for granted. Even flying through the open air without an enemy in sight requires incredible trust to let another man be on your wing 10 feet away with the ability to, in one wrong move, cut your plane in half and drop you out of the sky. That’s why the trust between these pilots is such a powerful statement.”

Makos, 41, has always been a military buff. Growing up in eastern Pennsylvania, he was captive audience for two grandfathers who served – one in the marines, the other in the army air forces on a B-17 in the Pacific that touched down in Japan after the bomb dropped. He started publishing articles on military history at 15. Just before his high school French club planned a trip to Paris, Makos bailed at the last minute to go to Disney World with his family instead. That plane to Paris, TWA flight 800, wound up crashing off Long Island in the third deadliest aviation accident in US history.

Survivor’s guilt has made him an even more sympathetic ear. “Having that near-miss with death at the end of my freshman year of high school really revealed to me the depth of the sacrifice that military members are willing to make,” he says. “Jesse Brown never had to go to the Korean war. He was already the first Black navy carrier pilot. He could’ve been the first Black airline pilot. But instead, he went. My own experience showed just how precious life is and how heavy that choice must’ve been for Jesse.”

Jesse L Brown commissioned aboard the USS Leyte in 1949.

Even as Hudner neared the end of his own life, he still thought he could bring Brown back home. In 2013, when Hudner was 88, Makos organized a trip to North Korea – Hudner’s only time back since the war. They spent 10 days with the North Korean military and even plotted a mission to return to the Chosin Reservoir to search for Brown’s remains. “We didn’t know if we would find the wreckage of an airplane,” says Makos. “We didn’t know if we’d find a gravesite. We didn’t know if we’d find villagers living nearby. But somebody had to go there and just start asking those questions.”

But then just as they were about to set off, the search mission was scuttled by monsoon rains that hung up the North Korean military’s advance team. But it wasn’t all for naught. “Thank you for coming so far after so long to keep a promise to a friend,” Kim Jong-un said in a proclamation to Hudner. “I pledge that the military of the Korean People’s army will pick up the search from here and try to find your friend.”

After Devotion, the Korean war can no longer be called forgotten. If anything, the past is prologue. “It’s actually the most relevant war to our modern times,” Makos says. “You’ve got North Korea saber-rattling all the time with the South. You’ve got Russia trying to rebuild their cold war empire. You’ve got China threatening Taiwan on a weekly basis. We’re living the Korean war all over again. We’re in the preamble to it.”

Devotion is out in US cinemas now and in the UK in 2023 with an Australia release date to be confirmed