Two of the films opening at Kendall Square this week, while very different, record ordeals of perseverance, braving the unknown and strength of bonds. The first, from prolific mumblecore maestro Joe Swanberg, “Digging for Fire,” explores a couple in transition, hoping to validate their young union as well as plan for the future. Tim (Jake Johnson) and Lee (Rosemarie DeWitt) housesit a small mansion in a secluded suburban valley outside L.A. They’ve recently transplanted from Minnesota with their young son (conveniently, for plot’s sake staying with rich grammy and grandpa played by Judith Light and Sam Elliot) and are looking to begin their second lives (he’s a teacher and she’s a yoga instructor, and for ideological reasons they long eschewed economic responsibility), but something’s not quite right between them as they flounder forward, and it doesn’t help the air of tenuousness that they’re supported by her parents.
Out of the earth rises a needed jolt when Tim discovers a gun and a bone poking out of a hillside. Is it human or animal? Without an active case, the police aren’t all that inclined to investigate, but Tim, ignited by his imagination and his need for a tax-filing procrastination, keeps digging. Lee doesn’t share Tim’s curiosity and, despite some killer house parties and much merriment, the two drift further apart, so Lee is doing her own thing while Tim hosts digging parties with his immature, boozed-up posse. Eventually, each principal ends up with a fetching member of the opposite sex. For her, it’s the charming Orlando Bloom, who should’ve been doing more films like this long ago; for him, it’s a nubile waif (Brie Larson) hanging out at one of the house gatherings.
In a bold turn, Meryl Streep plays the Ricki of the film’s title, a middle-aged woman with half dreads and jingle-jangle jewelry since long ago leaving her family in middle America to become a rock star in California. She didn’t, mind you; she plays as the lead of a house band in a local roadhouse dive playing covers of classics and newer stuff such as Lady Gaga and Pink to draw in the younger set. By day she works at Total Foods, where she is reminded constantly to smile for the customers who have shopping bills bigger than her weekly salary (yes, it’s a dig on Whole Foods) and she’s just filed for Chapter 11.
Abe gets himself into a love triangle faster than he can down a shot of bourbon or spout a lazy line about “mental masturbation.” On the faculty side he’s got Rita (Parker Posey, digging into the role nicely), semi-unhappily married and dreaming of wine and roses and dirty sex with a kindred miserable spirit. Rita’s counterbalanced by the fawnish Jill (Allen’s muse du jour, Emma Stone, so good in “Birdman” and proving that inclination correct here), a student with a jockish beau. Things go from mentor-student banter to inappropriate friendship even with clothes on. Abe, in all his louche self-loathing, has become the black hole of the campus. But then, near the nadir of his pontificating wretchedness, he finds an up.
And while that old dog might not want to learn a new trick, he might like to witness one, which is why “Southpaw” nearly disappoints – it’s about as clichéd a retread as you can ask for. The plot feels like something right out of a middle “Rocky,” with the champ on top before he loses it all in a single stroke and has to go toe-to-toe old-school in a dingy gym to get back to his regal perch. But because of the sharp partnering, “S’paw” dances around a lot more nimbly and entertainingly than its pat regime would otherwise indicate. It opens with a bouquet of roses for Billy Hope (Gyllenhaal) and his wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams). They grew up in Hell’s Kitchen, met at a home for wayward kids and now he’s the light heavyweight champion of the world and they live in a spacious New York manse. Not to give too much away, but there’s a serious tumble that happens early on, and the people who were around Billy and getting paid large scatter, pretty much leaving him for dead in the aftermath. It’s the perfect spot for the venerable Forest Whitaker waltz-in as the reluctant Titus “Tick” Wills, a boxing gym owner and former pro trainer who now works only with troubled youth. To get an “in” with Tick, Billy’s gotta get back to the basics – no, not bobbing and weaving or defense (he never had much, and his face looks like a tomato at the end of most of his battles), but cleaning the toilets and getting clean and sober. That’s the launching point for a shot at the guy who took his belt and fairy-tale life (Miguel Gomez, trying hard to channel Mr. T’s menace). 
Thorpe’s impetus (and the film) comes after a traumatic breakup and subsequent train ride to Fire Island where, taking in all the high, nasally sounds around him, he comes to the realization that he and all of his fellow gay passengers “sound like a bunch of braying ninnies.” The inherent fear: Who will want to be with me if I sound so ridiculous? It’s affirmed by a bunch of buff young lads lazing on a beach who tell Thorpe if they wanted something high-pitched and effeminate, they’d be straight. The point is further hammered home by clips of locker room porn in which gridiron beefcakes pound away at each other issuing directives with the deep-throated machismo of a hetero hump. 
