What to Watch: "Secret Mall Apartment"

For a duff week in April, there are some interesting and worthwhile movies to watch in theaters and on demand. I’ve written about Alain Guiraudie’s “Misericordia” in this space previously, but my ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2 Washington Post review runs today and I’ll send it out to paid subscribers in a separate post, along with my WaPo reviews of “Drop” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐, tight little single-location genre thriller, no more, no less), “Sacramento” (⭐ ⭐ 1/2, genially generic buddy comedy/road movie until the last half hour, when it actually turns into something), and “One to One: John & Yoko” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ 1/2, a worthy documentary about a difficult period for both the ex-Beatle and his fans). But my favorite new release – and one of my favorite movies of the year to date – just came out of nowhere to open in New York, Boston and other markets, followed by a rollout to more cities in coming weeks. It is “Secret Mall Apartment” (⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐), and it’s a documentary about just what it says: A hidden living space in a Providence, R.I., shopping mall in which a group of young artists lived for four years from 2003 to 2007 without being detected. It’s a remarkable story and a funny and hopeful one – a celebration of the indomitable urge to humanize the inhuman and a blueprint for colonizing the “negative spaces” of a society intent on gentrifying its citizens out of a future.

Paid subscribers can read more about “Secret Mall Apartment” and my weekend streaming recommendations after the jump.