October is more than just pumpkin spices and scary movies. Over at Hulu, it’s also about femme fatales, circus geeks and … Reese Witherspoon?!?
We’re not complaining. Watch With Us has curated three underrated Hulu movies for you to watch this weekend, and there’s nary a ghost or goblin in sight.
Ms. Witherspoon’s two movies on this list, How Do You Know and Water for Elephants, should appeal to those who want a good love story, while Nightmare Alley should satisfy fans of classy thrillers with all-star casts.
‘Nightmare Alley’ (2021)
It’s a bit odd to label Nightmare Alley, Guillermo del Toro’s twisted remake of the 1947 film noir classic, “underrated” when it was nominated for multiple Oscars — including Best Picture. But the critically acclaimed movie was a box office flop upon its 2021 release, and few people outside of film circles even bother to bring it up nowadays.
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That’s a shame, as the movie is the rare remake that’s just as good as the original. Bradley Cooper stars as Stan Carlisle, a Depression-era con man who starts at the bottom, working in a traveling circus, and eventually graduates to ripping off rich people in swanky nightclubs. He meets his match in Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), a bougie psychologist who wants to expose his con. They unexpectedly fall in lust, but can Stan trust her enough for him to give up a life of crime and go straight?
Nightmare Alley has a lot of tricks up its sleeve, and you never know where it’s going until it gets there. That’s a big plus in an era when you can pretty much predict how most movies will end. Nightmare Alley’s climax is gripping and shattering; it’s only afterwards that you realize Stan’s fate was mapped out for him all along.
Nightmare Alley is streaming on Hulu.
‘How Do You Know’ (2010)
In the mid-to-late 2000s, Reese Witherspoon was one of the queens of rom-coms, but even she couldn’t sell How Do You Know, a very weird romance directed by Oscar winner James L. Brooks. Audiences stayed away in droves, but the movie doesn’t deserve its bomb status. It’s a sweet, flawed comedy about the people you want to fall in love, and the ones you end up falling for when you least expect it.
Witherspoon plays Lisa Jorgenson, a softball player who is dating baseball star Matt Reynolds (Owen Wilson). Matt is rich and charming, but also immature and unfaithful, which prompts Lisa to look elsewhere. One man she doesn’t like, at least not right away, is George Madison (Paul Rudd), an executive who might go to jail for a white-collar crime he didn’t commit. Even though their meet-cute results in them disliking each other, Lisa and George can’t escape one another and gradually begin a tentative romance. But will their disastrous personal and professional lives get in the way of what could be true love?
How Do You Know is streaming on Hulu.
‘Water for Elephants’ (2011)
Another neglected Reese Witherspoon film worth streaming is Water for Elephants, a perfectly fine adaptation of Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel. Reese stars as Marlena Rosenbluth, a circus performer stuck in an unhappy marriage to ringmaster August (Christoph Waltz). Her woes disappear with the arrival of Jacob Jankowski (Robert Pattinson), a veterinarian student who lost his family home as a result of the Great Depression. Looking for work and shelter, he joins August’s circus and soon falls in love with Marlena.
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Their romance infuriates August, who believes Marlena is his possession who belongs only to him. Marlena thinks she has nothing to lose if she leaves her dead marriage, but August reminds them both that she’s wrong – they could both lose their lives if they dare cross him. Can these two circus lovers find lasting love under the big top?
Water for Elephants is glossy and dramatic, which is appropriate for a love story set in a circus. The two leads are convincing as adulterous lovers, and even better is Waltz as the scorned husband whose rage is borderline cartoonish. It’s hard to like a movie with a talented cast that includes a couple of Oscar winners, Batman and Rosie (Tai), a good-natured elephant who acts like Marlena and Jake’s adopted child. Water for Elephants is a low-key charmer, and a kind of movie that just isn’t made anymore.
Water for Elephants is streaming on Hulu.
