This week: Secrets, darkeness, intensity

DThe following new movies are opening this week in theaters and/or online.

THE RACER

A fictionalized tale set during the first three days of the 1998 Tour de France before the doping scandals erupted, “The Racer” follows a veteran support rider named Dominique Chabol (Louis Talpe).

A support rider or a “domestique” is charged with setting the pace and blocking wind in order to enable the team’s sprinter, Lupo “Tartare” Marino (Matteo Simoni), to win the stage. In 1998, the first three stages of the Tour took place in Ireland and the remainder were in France.

Chabol, who has no life outside of racing, believes that because of his age he will be dropped from the team and desperately tries to find a team to hire him for the next year. The Belgian actor gives a convincing performance as a superior athlete with a dark side.

The enthralling and edgy sports drama shows the eye-opening lengths to which some racers go in order to compete.

Also, filmmaker Kieron J. Walsh and cinematographer James Mather enable viewers to have a stunning “You are there” involvement in the race sequences.

The mostly English language feature also mixes in the various languages of the international bikers.

Scottish actor Iain Glenn plays the team “masseuse” and Tara Lee is a young doctor assigned to the race.

THE NEST

After living in the United States, Brit Rory (Jude Law) moves his family, wife Allison (Carrie Coon) and teenagers (Oona Roche and Charlie Shotwell), to a dilapidated 15th century mansion in Surrey, England.

Instead of focusing only on haunted house horrors, “The Nest” also concentrates on the family’s uncomfortable sense of displacement. Law and Coon have been lauded for their performances.

In a small town in America during the early 1960s, Maja (Noomie Rapace), an immigrant from Romania, captures a stranger (Joel Kinnaman) and imprisons him in her basement.

Maja believes that the man, who says that he is from Switzerland and is called Thomas, is actually the Nazi soldier who brutalized a group of women, including Maja, at the end of World Rated R

BLACKBIRD

(In theaters and on Amazon Prime)

Director Roger Michell’s remake of the Danish feature “Silent Heart,” the film stars Susan Sarandon as Lily, a terminally ill woman who calls her family together for one last time.

Sam Neill is Lily’s husband, and Kate Winslet and Mia Wasikowska portray her daughters.

In addition to its aura of sadness, the film also concentrates on longheld family secrets.

Rated R

THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME

(In Theaters and on Netflix)

Tom Holland plays Arvin Russell in a grim, extremely violent multigenerational Southern Gothic mystery.

Antonio Campos directed and cowrote the screenplay which is based on a novel by Donald Ray Pollock. The ensemble cast includ es Robert Pattinson as Rev. Preston Teagardin, Sebastian Sam as Sheriff Lee Bodecker, Mia Wasikowska as Helen Hatton, Haley Bennett as Charlotte Russell and Riley Keough as Sandy Henderson.

Rated R

Alice Reese is a member of the Dallas Fort Worth Film Critics Association. She reviews movies, arts and entertainment for the Herald Banner and for KETR.

Louis Talpe and Matteo Simoni

War II.

Courtesy Photo | Herald-Banner

Reel Revi ew

Alice Reese

Rated R 3 Stars

THE SECRETS WE KEEP

Rated R