Movie Reviews Archives - Page 25 of 36

Thursday

30

January 2020

Sundance Review: Omniboat

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Daniel Fernandez.

The difficulty of explaining what exactly Omniboat: A Fast Boat Fantasia is about makes perfect sense when you consider how many directors and screenwriters played a part in crafting the narrative. Fifteen filmmakers joined forces to make this strange commentary about Miami, which can sort of be described as a love letter to this city, albeit one filled with practically every emotion imaginable. The film’s desire to overload largely implodes over a bloated runtime.

The film functions mostly as an anthology, with two primary plotlines. Jim Cummings (Mel Rodriguez) is trying to attract investors for his phallic luxury apartment building. The end of the world proves to be a bit of an issue, but Cummings plows ahead, beaming with pride for his city.

The other major plotline follows the lives of a few sentient speedboats. Lay’N Pipe falls in love with a monster truck, leading to baby Lay’N Pipe 2. The film owns its absurdist premise, delivering a lot of laughs as the audience follows the courtship of tacky machines.

Omniboat tries to be everything, an exhausting narrative that’s really fun for about twenty minutes. The rest is borderline unwatchable. The novelty of the film’s unique approach to storytelling results in a few truly hilarious moments, but the high is unsustainable.

Fittingly, Omniboat as a narrative has two speeds, full throttle and completely asleep. The pacing is terrible, particularly in the second act. The energy can’t be sustained, leaving a feeling of sheer exhaustion in its wake.

The film wastes a pretty good ensemble, including comedic actors Adam Pally, Casey Wilson, and Adam Devine. The three are in the film so early that it’s easy to forget they were even there at all by the end, which itself possesses an exciting cameo.

The film is too long by at least forty minutes. Two hours is a ridiculous amount of time for a narrative thinner than a g-string bikini. Worst of all, the flow is so disjointed that you could simply just chop a huge chunk off and no one would notice. To say it meanders would almost be inaccurate because there’s no clear sense of direction established.

Omniboat is a singular kind of film, one without any obvious comparison. At times the energy is quite palpable, the obvious glee of the filmmakers radiating through the screen. Unfortunately it just doesn’t translate into anything an audience can enjoy.

Miami does come alive in the film, perhaps its crowning achievement. Locals may find something redeemable in the way the filmmakers frame the narrative, but even that is kind of a stretch. Omniboat plays like its courting the midnight movie circuit, but the middle is too sleep-inducing for any substantive cult following to develop.

Omniboat can’t buoy anything resembling a cohesive experience. There’s a sense of wonder in the idea that it even exists, but it’s a sad shipwreck of a film. To have started off so strong and sunk so quickly is a real shame. It’s hard to believe that so many talented people came together to deliver such an awful experience.

Wednesday

29

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Slamdance Review: 1986

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo credit: 1986. Photo courtesy of Lothar Herzog Film.

The tragedy of Chernobyl has been depicted many times in film. 1986 takes a bit of a different
approach, a modern day drama featuring characters with bigger problems than the aftermath
of the disaster. For them, what happened is just another fact of life, something of intrigue and
occasionally, opportunity.

Elena (Daria Mureeva) is a student living in Belarus, juggling a few unfortunate predicaments.
Her shady father is suddenly arrested, leaving her to carry out his illegal businesses that take
her through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone. To make matters worse, she’s in a complicated
relationship with her boyfriend Victor.

Director Lothar Herzog keeps most of the film’s focus on Elena. She is the film’s sole compelling
character, a young woman who has to put up with the disrespect of a male-dominated criminal
underground. She’s strong-willed and proud, intending to show her father’s associates that
she’s more than up to the task of carrying on his business.

Mureeva is a compelling lead, showcasing her range quite a bit through the film’s short
runtime. Elena is constantly thrown into vulnerable scenarios, full of conflicting emotions in the
realms of pride and passion. 1986 does a good job of keeping the audience guessing with how
Elena will react to each scenario.

Where the film is less effective is in presenting a complete story. Herzog throws the audience
right into the thick of things, a refreshing approach light on exposition. We don’t really need to
know the full backstory of her father to relate to Elena. The film runs into trouble with the
progression of its own story.

1986 is effective at presenting scenes in Elena’s life, but the film struggles to tie them together
as a complete narrative. The story feels rushed, hindered by a half-baked love story that
doesn’t do much for Elena as a character. It’s not a crime thriller or a romance narrative, but
the emphasis on those two strands comes at a cost to the development of Elena.

The film’s relationship to Chernobyl is also kind of puzzling. Herzog doesn’t use the tragedy as a
plot device, but Elena’s connection to the disaster-zone doesn’t feel entirely earned either. It’s
as if 1986 had nowhere else to turn but the serenity of a quiet forest, albeit one brimming with
radiation.

1986 is a complicated film to digest, one that stumbles a bit too much down the stretch. At only
seventy-six minutes, much of this can be blamed on the runtime. Herzog’s film has a lot going
for it, but it’s easier to admire its individual pieces than to love its collective whole.

Wednesday

29

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: The Nest

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Photo credit: The Nest. Photo courtesy of the Sundance Institute.

The tale of the capitalist Icarus, who pursued a wealthy status to the heart of the bankruptcy sun, has been told many times before. These men are often insufferable, but the audience is generally given some semblance of a reason to care. The Nest isn’t a big fan of excuses for its detestable leading man, himself full of nonsense. Unfortunately, the film has little interesting to say about him.

Rory (Jude Law) is a British brazen commodities broker perpetually in search of the next big deal. Smaller tasks, like actually doing his job, are of no concern. Rory doesn’t care about getting on base. He only wants to hit home runs.

This dynamic is exhausting for his wife Allison (Carrie Coon), a horse-loving American who’s reluctant to move their family across the pond to a place with bridges that Rory hasn’t burned yet. Times are tough, but it’s not because the economy isn’t good. The Reaganomics of the 80s worked wonders for the elites, but Rory has a habit of spending well beyond his means. He buys a big, rundown country estate for their family of four to live in, failing to understand the pitfalls of endless extravagance.

Writer and director Sean Durkin frames The Nest as an intimate family drama. There are sprinkles of finance jargon here and there in Rory’s office scenes, but the real action takes place at the mansion, where Allison struggles to keep things together as their bank accounts widdle down to nothing.

Jude Law is one of the most charming actors on the planet. To some extent, Rory is meant to be played as an over-the-hill salesman with a once-dynamic sense of charisma. Problem is, Rory is absolutely insufferable. The stink of his nonsense wafts through the screen to the audience, an obvious grifter. The characters understand this, but the film doesn’t really want to do anything interesting with its lead.

Coon is the film’s entire emotional core. Allison is the most aware of Rory’s negative traits, doing her best to reign him in. While Rory doesn’t change all that much, we see Allison slowly deteriorate, experiencing the inevitable that she saw coming a mile away and yet was powerless to stop. The Nest works best when it grapples with the idea of how much control one partner has when completely shut out from the other.

The film has a couple subplots that don’t really go anywhere. There’s a weird, gross fascination with horses that doesn’t really add anything to the narrative. The children’s plotlines are also half-baked, coming across as filler. As Samantha, Oona Roche shines in a subplot full of teen angst, but the film is never really all that interested in her as a character. Its attention seems more directed at her radio, constantly belting out 80s New Wave.

The script is okay. The dialogue is pretty good, but Durkin has no sense of pacing. The film meanders for about 100 minutes before deciding it needed to arrive at something resembling a conclusion. It just doesn’t work very well.

The Nest is a pretty watchable family drama. It’s a major letdown considering the talent involved. Rory may have thought he was able to charm his way out of any scenario, but the film has an unfortunate way of mirroring his failures. There’s no charm here, only a self-important narrative that doesn’t feel the need to grow.

Wednesday

29

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Spaceship Earth

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

A still from Spaceship Earth by Matt Wolf, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The relative value of the individual versus the collective is a well-explored school of philosophy. Hegel and Marx built their careers emphasizing the potential unleashed when the proletariat synchronizes with the nation-state. John Allen understood the power of organized labor, harnessing a group of hippies in a series of jaw-dropping creations.

Spaceship Earth documents the transformation of Allen’s commune from its humble origins farming, all the way to biosphere engineers on their self-appointed task to save humanity. What the group lacks in academic credibility, it makes up for in interpretative theatre.

About half of the film focuses on the group’s most impressive project. Biosphere 2 was a unique product of the 90s, with space-age optimism rampant in the air. By locking up eight people in an enclosed biosphere for two years, an environment meant to emulate the various regions of the Earth, Allen and his buddies aimed to provide a road map for humanity after Earth.

Spaceship Earth demonstrates the power of a group of hippies working collectively with the help of a wealthy billionaire friend. A preposterous yet very entertaining story. Allen’s boat-building, world traveling antics are very amusing, but less impressive once the film exposes Ed Bass as the bank behind the curtains.

The film doesn’t really go out of its way to attack the credibility of Biosphere 2, but some key trends emerge that expose the project as a farce. Constantly billed as a “research” experiment, none of the members of John Allen’s merry band have anything to say about revelatory findings from the project. Their lack of controls for Biosphere 2 ruined any value for academic purposes, but the group doesn’t really contest this.

Biosphere 2 was the professional wrestling version of science, a tantalizing farce for the media to gobble up. The self-described biospherians seems to look back fondly on their time locked up in a CO2-riddled terrarium. The documentary itself is a blast, including cameo footage from Rue McClanahan and a young Steve Bankom.

As a film, it doesn’t really try to dig all that deep into the biosphere’s artificial terrain. Allen himself explains this quite well. Life is theatre. The documentary concerns itself with the theatrics of the group’s schemes. Maybe there doesn’t need to be anything else.

The only area of struggle for director Matt Wolf lies in the narrative within the biosphere. Spaceship Earth takes a broader approach to the history of Allen’s group, squeezing all of that plus Biosphere 2 in a two-hour runtime. This dynamic forces two different climaxes for the narrative, one for the biosphere and another for the documentary itself. Wolf bites off a little more than he can chew in the third act, causing a bit of indigestion with his abrupt landing.

Spaceship Earth is absolutely fascinating. There’s little to learn from the antics of a wealthy commune, but they’re so much fun to watch. What’s missing in substance is certainly made up by theatre. For Allen, life is too short to worry about things like facts or research. Perhaps there are worse legacies to leave.

Wednesday

29

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: High Tide

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Gloria Carr appears in High Tide by Verónica Chen, an official selection of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Fernando Lockett

Personal space is a vital component to a happy life. Having work done on one’s home naturally leads to an Encroachment on that sense of privacy. High Tide is a film that explores the struggles of agency when people feel they can take advantage of you.

Laura (Gloria Carrá) is having an outdoor BBQ built at her home, a beautiful secluded modern house that’s also close to the beach. She sleeps with the lead contractor Weisman (Jorge Sesán), a man she feels some attraction toward despite the sense of superiority she admits in their power balance. Weisman isn’t much of a catch, but Laura likes to be in charge of her own decisions.

The situation is exacerbated once Weisman disappears, leaving his employees to finish the job. His subordinates have little respect for Laura, using her home at will and making a mess of the grounds. Her efforts to control the dynamic fall on deaf, drunken ears.

High Tide is an intimate kind of film. Director Verónica Chen shows off her skills as a filmmaker by the way she constantly reinvents Laura’s relationship to her surroundings, namely the house where the vast majority of the narrative takes place. Very little changes in the setting, but Chen makes sure it never feels stale.

Carrá has a way of communicating Laura’s angst with subtle gestures. She doesn’t have a ton of dialogue, instead conveying the plot progression largely through emotion. She’s incredibly relatable as a lead, capturing the essence of one’s loss of privacy. Anyone who has ever had their space invaded can naturally identify with the dilemma Laura faces for most of the film.

As a setting, Laura’s house proves a strong place to situate the narrative, but the film struggles a bit in the few scenes set elsewhere. So much of the story is tied up with Laura’s sense of authority that less-focused efforts to develop her as a character fall a bit flat. You get the sense that the film did need to stretch its legs a bit from a single location, but it doesn’t really know what to do with that time.

The film also sputters a little bit down the stretch, leaving an ending that’s quite thought-provoking, but a little out of left field. Chen is great at crafting scenes that a general audience would find relatable, building a foundation that keeps you thinking long after the credits roll. Laura isn’t an easy character to dissect, which makes her all the more compelling as a protagonist.

At times, High Tide is a frustrating film, but it’s a finely crafted narrative well-worth a watch. Laura is an inspiring character in a weird sort of way. Women are often pushed around by men without a care in the world. Chen’s triumph is through her ability to unpack everyday sexism and the lasting ramifications that occur when our personal space gets violated.

Wednesday

29

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Feels Good Man

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Matt Furie appears in Feels Good Man by Arthur Jones, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Kurt Keppeler and Christian Bruno.

The tragedy of Pepe the Frog is one of the saddest stories to come out of meme culture. Cartoonist Matt Furie created the laid-back amphibian as part of his Boy’s Club comic back in 2005. The character’s signature phrase, “feels good man” caught on in the early days of social media, with many quoting Pepe on the Myspace or Tumblr pages.

On the road to Internet stardom, Pepe found himself particularly popular on the imageboard site 4chan. The anonymous nature of 4chan has made the site popular among the alt-right, neo-nazis, and other group who would otherwise be reticent to share their identities. Pepe gradually become their standard bearer, a symbol of hate stripped from his fun-loving creator. The documentary Feels Good Man captures the strange tale of Pepe’s crazy life.

Internet culture is hard to understand and even more difficult to explain. Director Arthur Jones meticulously breaks down how 4chan works and how Pepe found himself riding the first wave of memes. He’s a cute, sad figure with a weird universal appeal. He’s like a cartoon Rorschach test, able to be whatever the individual needs him to be. Sadly, that made poor Pepe an easy target to be co-opted.

Matt Furie is a very likable person. He’s soft-spoken and laid back, the kind of college stoner who never totally grew up. The film includes a number of scenes in Furie’s home with his partner and daughter, painting a stark contrast between Pepe’s gentle creator and the hateful groups that have hijacked his image.

The film includes a fair number of superb animated sequences that transition the film between its subjects. Furie appears sporadically throughout the narrative, reflecting the bizarre cultural divorce between the creator and his work. Jones depicts Furie’s legal battles with far-right figures. After a while you just want to give him a hug, a man full of obvious despair.

Jones interviews a few 4chan users to explain how the site managed to turn Pepe into a hate symbol. The scenes are often hard to watch, but it’s an important lens to shine on a toxic subculture. Thankfully, Jones does so responsibly.

Feels Good Man also takes a look at the statistical impact of memes across the world. Studies place Pepe among the most recognizable of memes in the world, a commodity so valuable that “rare Pepes” sell for thousands of dollars at auctions. It needs to be seen to be believed. Jones captures the phenomenon quite well.

There’s a strange line drawn between Pepe and the election of Donald Trump, the frog used as a rallying cry for incels. Feels Good Man uses a lot of levity in its approach to this dark, twisted reality we’re supposedly living in. Pepe became an Internet martyr, but the film goes out of its way to assure its audience that there’s hope for a better tomorrow.

Feels Good Man is a touching documentary about a tragic American icon and his grieving creator. Pepe deserved better from this world, but in Jones, he finds a valuable orator. The film is a shining example of how to cover the Internet age in all its peculiarities.

Tuesday

28

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Uncle Frank

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Paul Bettany, Sophia Lillis, and Peter Macdissi appear in Uncle Frank by Alan Ball, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Brownie Harris.

Gay movies are often pretty sad. Gay history is often pretty depressing stuff, full of people who were persecuted for the crime of loving another individual. American culture has largely moved past the darkest era, though LGBTQ equality is far from complete, leaving a complicated legacy for filmmakers to approach.

As a period piece set in the 70s, Uncle Frank is a film that takes place long before gay people had anything resembling human rights. To make matters worse for its title character, growing up in rural South Carolina set the clock back even further. Even to this day, LGBTQ people are forced to consider whether coming out will destroy any chance at prosperity.

The film splits its time between dual protagonists. Frank (Paul Bettany) is a professor at NYU, living a happy, fairly normal life with his boyfriend Wally (Peter Macdissi). Much of the narrative is told through the perspective of Frank’s niece Beth (Sophia Lillis), a freshman at the university who Frank rescued from a small-town fate she was hardly destined for. To Beth, Frank is just about the only relative who understands her.

Writer and director Alan Ball has been immersed in gay storytelling for decades, possessing a keen ability to break subtle new ground in the genre. Six Feet Under portrayed its gay characters with dignity and grace long before most TV shows felt comfortable in their terrain. With Uncle Frank, Ball plays quite a bit of revisionist history, but the approach works pretty well.

Gay people deserve happy stories. Uncle Frank isn’t a narrative concerned with misery, though there’s plenty of it to go around. Bettany plays Frank with a chip on his shoulder, a kind man hardened by the cruel world around him. Macdissi is a force of nature as Wally, an utterly ridiculous character for the 1970s. Wally comes from Saudia Arabia, though he possesses a progressive sense of goodwill straight out of the 2010s. Wally’s charm is infectious, well worth the required suspension of disbelief.

The film occasionally stumbles through its narrative, a second act that circles the runway a bit too long while waiting for its ending. The source of Frank’s demons is a bit predictable. Ball is also often unsure what to do with Beth for large chunks of the second half.

Margo Martindale basically saves the film with a touching performance as Frank’s mother. Uncle Frank functions mostly as a period piece that ignores the history it doesn’t want to touch, a heartwarming narrative for gay people who want to move on from the past. The film succeeds most when it reminds its audience of the ways that people can surprise you even when you think you’ve got them figured out.

By no means a perfect journey, Uncle Frank is a powerful tear-jerker. LGBTQ people are too often forced to live our lives in fear of losing a basic sense of acceptance. Ball’s film unabashedly celebrates the joys of being out. It’s a little far-fetched, but a narrative fitting for a group of people who don’t get to see the pleasure of being gay reflected on screen very much.

Tuesday

28

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Kajillionaire

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Evan Rachel Wood, Richard Jenkins and Debra Winger appear in Kajillionaire by Miranda July, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Matt Kennedy.

Plenty of films feature villains whose entire villainy is based on the lack of love they received from their parents. If love is all, what are we without it? Kajillionaire doesn’t seek to vilify its characters while exploring what happens when families operate without an ounce of affection.

Theresa (Debra Winger) and Robert (Richard Jenkins) are two con artists who grift their way through life with their twenty-six-year-old daughter Old Dolio (Evan Rachel Wood). They live in squalor in a dilapidated office space adjacent to a chemical plant. Every afternoon the plant drips mountains of foam into their living space, requiring the three to schedule their day of schemes around cleaning up the mess. It’s a sad life to say the least.

An airplane encounter with a young woman named Melanie (Gina Rodriguez) changes their group dynamic quite a bit. Theresa and Robert bond with the eager thrillseeker, much to Old Dolio’s dismay. The affection they give Melanie stands in stark contrast to the transactional nature of their relationship.

Part of the beauty of Kajillionaire lies in the shamelessness of its leads. They’re not completely soulless, but the kind of awful people who manage to lie, rob, and steal on a daily basis without ever feeling remorse for their actions. The grift is their whole life, always in search of a con that’ll keep their landlord off their back for a few more weeks.

Writer and director Miranda July slowly unpacks the broader themes about love and affection. The narrative moves at a casual pace, not in any rush to get to its destination. July never lets the heavy stuff get in the way of the fun.

The acting is superb. Winger, Jenkins, and Wood are a very believable, highly dysfunctional family. Rodriguez’s Melanie is a little more preposterous, but she gives the character enough depth that she doesn’t end up feeling like a plot device. None of the characters are particularly likable. You root for them to the extent that one wants a class-clown to get away with pulling a prank on the teacher.

Kajillionaire is largely a film about human nature. Can people ever change? That kind of metaphysical question doesn’t lend itself to an easy answer, but July doesn’t try to force contrived findings upon the audience. It’s more a character study piece, perhaps one that didn’t publish its findings just yet.

The plot of the film has a pretty narrow scope, oddly reflective of the characters’ own lives. They don’t have goals or ambitions behind living to the next day. Growth for Old Dolio carries a steep learning curve, a simple hug opening up far too many doors.

Kajillionaire is a peculiar journey full of laughter that isn’t always quite sure if it’s heading in the right direction. It’s an uncomfortably sweet narrative. With a great script and excellent lead performances, the film is one that will certainly keep you thinking after the credits roll.

Monday

27

January 2020

1

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Wendy

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

A still from Wendy by Benh Zeitlin, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

The story of J. M. Barrie’s Peter Pan is a timeless narrative, a tempting tale for ambitious directors to try to tackle. Benh Zeitlin made a big first impression with his delightful Beasts of the Southern Wild, an ambitious indie that packed an emotional punch. With Wendy, Zeitlin aims for the stars, often forgetting what direction to fly in.

Wendy (Devin France) is an imaginative young girl who enjoys playing by the train tracks next to her mother’s diner with her two older brothers (Gage Naquin and Gavin Naquin). One night, the three find themselves whisked away to Neverland by a very young Peter (Ahmad Cage). This Neverland is a peculiar place, more like purgatory than paradise.

Zeitlin is quite skilled at turning each scene into an individual artistic moment. Wendy is an absolutely beautiful film. Largely filmed in the Caribbean, the cinematography provides visual overload time and time again.

The film doesn’t really use a conventional narrative. It’s a meditative work, mostly concerned with the soul-sucking nature of aging. The characters behave in fantastical fashions, but the film is a quieter take on Pan.

The young cast is quite talented, working with a script that often sounds like it was written by a college freshman obsessed with their first philosophy class. The script is a one-trick pony, uninterested in anything resembling normal human interaction. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if the plot knew how to do anything other than meander along at a glacier-slow pace.

For a while, the film is pretty fun. Zeitlin throws the kids into some pretty outlandish scenarios. It feels good to be in Neverland, until the place starts looking like a post-apocalyptic dump in a clunky transition.

The first half works far better than the second. Wendy is a beautiful yet completely empty experience. Pleasing to the eyes with nothing for the soul. It’s a sad shame of a movie, one with so much obvious potential that can’t find a way to connect to the audience.

Zeitlin doesn’t really have an answer for what to do with Peter, wasting the character by putting him in a position that struggles to justify his presence at all. It may be titled Wendy, but Peter often feels weirdly irrelevant. Cage brings a lot of intrigue to the role, but the film rarely channels his energy.

Wendy is also way too long for its own good. With a runtime of close to two hours, the film runs out of steam long before its end. Zeitlin clearly has some points to make about the nature of aging, framing young and old in a weird black-and-white manner. He struggles to convey them in a way that would translate to an audience already bored by his antics.

There are other smaller issues with the pacing and the uncomfortable ways Zeitlin tries to move the plot forward. Some of it is just plain gross. The cinematography and the narrative exist on two separate planes, banging into each other like waves on the beaches of Neverland.

Wendy has so much potential as a film. It’s so beautiful and well acted, made by a director with a keen sense for detail. Almost all the pieces line up, but there’s a gaping hole in the middle that brings the whole thing crashing down. Most disappointing.

Monday

27

January 2020

0

COMMENTS

Sundance Review: Herself

Written by Ian Thomas Malone, Posted in Blog, Movie Reviews, Pop Culture

Clare Dunne and Molly McCann appear in Herself by Phyllida Lloyd, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Herself is a film constantly wrestling with the concept of hope. No one wants to be defined by the single worst event in their lives, but reality has a way of forcing that dreadful nightmare down one’s throat. Money, children, and housing all complicate the idea of starting over, the stink of the past clinging like a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe.

The film follows an Irish mother Sandra (Clare Dunne) in the wake of a horrific beating from her husband Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson), who breaks her hand and gives her a black eye for trying to escape his clutches with their two young daughters. Sandra and the girls are placed in government housing, but Gary retains visitation rights. Even from afar, the monster retains a degree of power over Sandra’s life.

Seeking a more stable living arrangement, Sandra seeks to build a small home. While the government cares little for Sandra’s efforts to move off their assistance, her employer Peggy (Harriet Walter) steps in to graciously offer unused land in her backyard. Lost in the world of construction, she enlists the help of Aidi (Conleth Hill), a cranky old contractor, to help build her dream home.

The cast is pretty top-to-bottom solid, providing many feel good moments throughout the film. Molly McCann and Ruby Rose O’Hara shine as Sandra’s very young daughters, working with mature material. There are a bunch of minor characters who don’t receive much development, but the ensemble works well in the group moments.

Dunne carries the bulk of the narrative’s emotional weight. As the title suggests, Herself is a film about a woman striving for independence in a world that’s been anything but kind. Sandra is well-written, strong-willed but not stubborn. She asks for help when she needs it.

The film is a damning indictment of Ireland’s judicial system, one that allows Gary too much agency for an abusive creep. Anderson does a great job with Gary, giving a hate-inducing performance that gets under your skin.

Director Phyllida Lloyd manages the story well, frequently playing with the emotional tempo. Herself is a safe story that hits all the right notes. It rules over the strings with heavy hands, enjoyable yet predictable.

For this kind of material, that’s not really a bad thing. Sandra is a strong, inspiring character. Herself isn’t the most memorable film in the world, but one that works far more often than it doesn’t.