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Sundance 2019 – The Nightingale – Review

Jennifer Kent immediately established herself as a filmmaker to watch with The Babadook, her startling horror debut that delved into motherhood as much as it did haunted pop-up books. With her second film The Nightingale, Kent has once again pronounced herself as a slick voice in genre filmmaking, sharply deviating into the territories of revenge thriller and historical drama without compromise. An objectively bleak yet humanist depiction of 19th-century colonial Australia, The Nightingale is tailor-made to divide audiences. For those who fall into its grasp however, it proves quite the enthralling and emotional experience.

Aisling Franciosi will likely be the name on everyone’s lips after leaving this film, embodying the lead role of Clare with enough intensity and agony to incite tears and terror into any audience. Few performances demand so much of their actors, yet Franciosi is horribly convincing throughout, forcibly rollicking the narrative forward with powerful aggression. Injected into the British military commune established in Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land), Clare is little more than an acoustic appetizer for the soldiers, singing and dancing to ensure survival of herself, her husband and their infant. Kent makes no concessions in communicating the brutality of Van Diemen’s Land – still in all regards a penal colony – with the flippantly abusive attitudes of the soldiers strikingly doubling for the remorselessness of their surroundings. Sam Claflin’s Lieutenant Hawkins becomes the manifestation of militant self-righteousness, manipulating Clare for his own satisfaction and subsequently committing atrocities that spur on her hellish descent into the unforgiving Australian wilderness.

“The dynamic between Clare and Billy gradually transposes with revenge as the thematic focal point of the film, remarkably building a beautiful narrative of human kindness and companionship from the roots of a story of extreme violence” 

For the majority of The Nightingale, the narrative plays comfortably within revenge tropes, moving forward as a slow-paced chase film between Clare and Hawkins both vying for some form of vengeance. With the introduction of Baykali Ganambarr’s Billy, the film swiftly operates on another layer in addition to the cutthroat revenge film at its core. An Aborigine tracker, Billy is a fascinating character to watch given Ganambarr’s own lack of acting experience and familiarity with Aboriginal culture. The dynamic between Clare and Billy gradually transposes with revenge as the thematic focal point of the film, remarkably building a beautiful narrative of human kindness and companionship from the roots of a story of extreme violence. At times, The Nightingale reflects a somewhat gnarlier version of Nicolas Roeg’s 1971 film Walkabout, quietly developing ideas of cross-cultural connection solely through the base similarity of being human. The tonal distinctions between the first and final acts couldn’t be sharper all thanks to engaging chemistry between Franciosi and Ganambarr.

Aisling Franciosi in The Nightingale. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

What really won me over about The Nightingale however was its utterly enrapturing aesthetic, all shot on-location in Tasmania and projected in the Academy ratio. These choices create a raw, gritty texture that would be near-impossible to recreate on a studio lot with Claflin in a post-screening Q&A even admitting how severe the shoot conditions were. Yet this very palpable sense of space made the film all that more compelling on a personal level – as a viewer, you grow to understand the nightmarish journey and the dense, maze-like topology of the Tasmanian jungles. This style combined with its classical narrative leads to The Nightingale feeling akin to a parable, strangely enough much like Kent’s preceding film, both dark fairytales and fables in their own right. Whilst this film undoubtedly possesses greater levels of violence and nihilism, it builds to an unexpectedly beautiful conclusion that left me speechless.

As a follow-up to The Babadook, Kent’s second film is ambitious on every level, in scope and in thematic nuance. The effort to recreate a difficult historical moment results in scenes that will likely leave viewers in disgust, and the value of its final stance is certainly debatable. Yet for its stomach-churning and upsetting moments, The Nightingale was a personally rewarding experience, cathartic in every measure. There’s fewer films released this year that will be quite as bold and uncompromising. If that statement is important to you, then do everything you can to seek this one out.

Sundance 2019 – Late Night – Review

For decades, late-night talk shows have consistently ruptured the cosy containment of the television set, establishing themselves as vessels for both entertainment and discourse. The contemporary late-night personality surpasses traditional demands for a television host, instead sitting firmly within the cultural zeitgeist and even disrupting it. Nisha Ganatra’s Late Night toys with the idea of a media-saturated audience outpacing an archaic talk-show format embedded within sly criticism of the draconian networks overruling it. Yet for as many sharp stabs at the entertainment world the film offers, its rote structure ultimately clashes with underlying attempts to deliver more radical ideas.

Emma Thompson is perfectly cast as talk-show host Katherine Newbury, a bitter and steadfast figure whose passion for entertainment has been stunted by her unwillingness to connect to her audience. A presenter who never leaves her desk, Newbury is an immediately engaging character despite her inherent unlikeability, largely in part to Thompson’s wonderfully scathing delivery and charm. Whilst there are more than a few jabs at her English accent and middle-age, Mindy Kaling’s script wisely doesn’t highlight these features as stereotypes or weakness, but incorporates them into a larger theme of self-confidence. With fierce competition from distinct names as Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers, the challenge to harness a unique voice in late-night television is one that appears impossible to the veteran Newbury. Enter Molly Patel: a charming, if naive, chemical plant employee turned television writer also played by Kaling. In classical Hollywood fashion, Molly is the perfect foil for Katherine with her youthful optimism and fresh ideas. At first resistant to one another, the two predictably begin to collaborate and shake up the male-dominated, juvenile writer’s room for good.

“As the film plods towards its all too telegraphed denouement, character arcs and comedic setpieces begin to wane thin and increasingly tired”

These classical tropes however simultaneously prove to be the film’s downfall. As the film plods towards its all too telegraphed denouement, character arcs and comedic setpieces begin to wane thin and increasingly tired. For a film so centered around female authorship and independence, there’s a surprising amount of screentime wasted on meandering romantic subplots that only result in its well-intended message feeling awkwardly misguided. The characters are aggressively archetypal to the point of parody. Katherine and Molly’s relationship seems initially nonsensical, so sharply contrasting are their character traits. Yet, the narrative demands Katherine to abandon her stubbornness too often in order to make their friendship believable in the 100-minute runtime, deflating subsequent emotional scenes.

Mindy Kaling in Late Night by Nisha Ganatra. Image courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Emily Aragones.

The depiction of the writer’s room is amusing in its buffoonery but ultimately sacrifices character for satire, as several members of the room are reduced to scene-filling bodies, given very little in the way of dialogue or even names (as one running joke itself highlights). The writers who are given personalities on the other hand are comical in their triviality. Hugh Dancy’s arc with Molly is bizarrely regressive and feels worthless given how quickly it’s dropped. Reid Scott on the other hand is gifted with a character who is at the very least sympathetic, but similarly only gains significance too late in the film for his resolution to feel satisfying. John Lithgow even appears as Newbury’s husband, a former musical prodigy now struck by Parkinson’s disease. Thankfully, the dynamic between Thompson and Lithgow is empathetic and warm, delivering another familiar arc with some verve. All that being said, Lithgow’s function as a pawn to create conflict is too transparent, robbing him of his own individuality and intrigue. As tragic as his backstory is, the film rarely devotes attention to it bar a small handful of exchanges.

This theme infects Late Night constantly – its gleefully defiant ideas are too often punctured by the film’s own lack of character or identity. The sporadically hilarious humour and brilliant lead performances are wasted when the film has no confidence in committing to its rebellious attitude. Much like Newbury herself, Late Night isn’t a total washout but is trapped within its own conventions, refusing to present anything that feels genuinely forward-thinking.

 

Sundance 2019 – The Death of Dick Long – Review

Much like its provocatively frank title, there’s something beautifully minimalist about Daniel Scheinert’s black comedy The Death of Dick Long. Moving on from the fantastically eccentric Swiss Army Man (co-directed with Dan Kwan), Scheinert and screenwriter Billy Chew have crafted a similarly surprising albeit more grounded tale set in a textured interpretation of present-day Alabama. A nasty story painted with an unexpectedly humanist touch, The Death of Dick Long is absolutely an original cult gem waiting to be found.

The premise is as simple as one could hope for – Dick is dead and his band-mates Zeke and Earl don’t want a soul finding out how. Wasting no time in establishing its setup, Dick Long is instantly reminiscent of classic Coen Brothers material, not only in its heightened location but in its narrative laden with mix-ups and dirty crimes gone awry. To anyone well-versed in the pathetic perpetrators of Fargo, the awkward dialogue and kooky police officers will make these audiences feel particularly comfortable. Scheinert’s depiction of small-town Alabama is inflected with several gorgeous touches: burning campfires, rustic housing and its unorthodox residents. Cinematographer Ashley Connor creates a distinctive, grainy aesthetic evocative of grimy punk music videos that immediately proves eye-catching. No matter how wild the tonal shifts are, the film’s cosy homeliness constantly grounds the viewer in the notion that this remains a low-key human story at its heart.

“Abbott Jr. in particular deserves praise as he carries much of the emotional heavy lifting as the film nauseatingly moves to its conclusion”

Michael Abbott Jr. and Andre Hyland both give extraordinarily memorable performances as the film’s leads, carrying the burden of their guilt with hilarious foolishness. Zeke and Earl are certainly amalgamations of extreme Deep South quirks and initially appear to function as mere caricatures for the film to make a surface-level statement on their ignorance. Thankfully, the narrative progresses into darker territory and in a cleverly self-reflexive move, the film interrogates these perceptions and challenges the audience to sympathise with these shockingly immoral characters. Abbott Jr. in particular deserves praise as he carries much of the emotional heavy lifting as the film nauseatingly moves to its conclusion. Much of Dick Long’s achievement rests in its bravery to execute a horrific narrative upheaval deliberately straight-faced, and indeed, this is where even reviewing the film becomes a Herculean feat of self-restraint. Needless to say, its commitment to absurd drama in its final act will inevitably divide and disgust mainstream audiences, yet will almost certainly entrench it within cult viewers seeking the best of taboo tales.

“its self-confidence and near masterful execution is impressive and continuously mines comedy gold scene-by-scene”

Having said that, Chew’s script is otherwise frequently hilarious in how it plays with its pastiche of Alabama values and interpersonal relationships. Hyland’s bumbling Earl is a joyous on-screen presence, his body language and constant stutters alone radiating more personality than whole characters. Even when the viewer is in the dark on why they’re so desperate to bury Dick’s death, their futile plight is never anything short of wildly entertaining. As minimalist the film is in effectively founding its humour on one elaborate joke, its self-confidence and near masterful execution is impressive and continuously mines comedy gold scene-by-scene. The obvious police investigation sub-plot even feels refreshing thanks to wonderfully subdued performances by Sarah Baker and Janelle Cochrane. Whilst their scenes can initially feel too separated and derivative, Chew smartly ties together these distinct threads in amusing fashion.

For as small in scale The Death of Dick Long proves to be, it’s undeniably impressive quite how memorable and caustic the final result is. No matter how familiar the first acts are, it quickly shatters all preconceptions that this is merely another addition in a genre saturated by indie filmmakers. Instead, The Death of Dick Long is bracingly original, a film so unapologetic that you can’t help but admire it.

Sundance 2019 – The Farewell – Review

Sundance 2019: The Farewell – Review

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Online Screen Editor Jacob Heayes finds Lulu Wang’s latest film a touching and elegant work.

Could lying ever be an act of love? This is the question that pulsates at the core of Lulu Wang’s stirring new dramedy The Farewell, a true story that presents itself as an ‘actual lie’, drawing from Wang’s real family dilemma. Tackling ideas ranging from grief to clashing cultural ideologies with striking nuance, The Farewell is both an undeniable crowd-pleaser (winning Sundance London’s Audience Award) and a beautifully complex mediation on inter-familial relations that is sure to leave any viewer stunned.

Billi’s (Awkwafina) grandmother has been diagnosed with terminal stage-four cancer. To her family’s dismay, ‘Nai Nai’ is unlikely to live much longer than a few months, and with a wedding on the horizon, the perfect opportunity for her extended family to say their farewells has presented itself. One slight complication quickly bubbles to the surface however – Nai Nai has no idea she is about to die or even aware of the cancer growing inside her body. Thus, Wang swiftly sets the stage for a family reunion that’s as comic as it is melancholic, with Billi struggling to understand an entrenched Chinese tradition of keeping one’s gravely fate under lock and key. Raised in New York, Billi’s arrival in China brings with it her own internal identity struggles, forced to re-acclimatise herself into a family and culture that’s long since been buried in memory. It’s a compelling rendition of the ‘fish out of water’ narrative, namely for how gracefully Wang navigates issues of diaspora and Western intervention within the framework of a contained domestic tale. The front of the wedding is nonetheless a clever excuse to comment on Eastern conflicts, with the Japanese bride Aiko often falling victim to mis-translation among the heated family quarrels. The culmination of these themes is genuinely insightful and original, with the film feeling decisive in its opinion on these clashes yet simultaneously respectful of all its eclectic cast of characters.

“Wang swiftly sets the stage for a family reunion that’s as comic as it is melancholic”

The cast of The Farewell. Image courtesy of Sundance Institute.

It would be absolutely remiss to review The Farewell without spotlighting Awkwafina’s poignant, joyously surprising lead performance. Music artists transitioning into acting is nothing new, yet her dramatic turn here is moving and honest, made arguably even more effective by her comparatively lighter turns in Ocean’s 8 and Crazy Rich Asians. Awkwafina’s own position as a Chinese-American working in the entertainment industry if anything enriches the film’s diasporic commentary, building to a performance that is a shoe-in for independent awards and fingers crossed, even greater awards recognition. Despite the obvious challenge of fictionalising Wang’s family, the casting overall is fantastic and succeeds in how modest and effortless each individual performance feels on the screen. In fact, The Farewell on the whole is a film of modesty, captured in its gorgeous cinematography and depiction of Chinese and American landscapes. Rather than resorting to tourist-board filmmaking and centralising its locations around landmarks, The Farewell‘s director of photography Anna Franquesa Solano focuses her eye on bustling markets and rural communities. Each location expresses some form of significance to the family, enforcing the notion of personal attachment to a single point of geography, whether it’s a familiar roundabout or a childhood home. Filmed on-location, Solano’s cinematography is nothing short of immersive, wrapping audiences up into its warm environments.

With The Farewell, Lulu Wang and her team have created a film that is both moving and merry, a work of personal love that feels hand-crafted in its elegance and passion. Whilst film is no stranger to family narratives, The Farewell achieves originality and manages to resonate in its masterful blending of contemporary and atavistic qualities. Through tackling universal experiences with such grace, this is a film that deserves audiences feverishly rushing to their seats to soak in its beauty and treasure its heart.

The Oscars and Foreign Film

The 91st Academy Awards are happening in just under a month’s time and all eyes are on whether Black Panther will become the first superhero film to win Best Picture, or whether Glenn Close will finally win the award for Best Actress after 7 previous nominations. As a result, the Best Foreign Language Film category tends to be overlooked, even though these nominees represent some of the best acting and filmmaking talent in world cinema this year. Roma, a film by Alfonso Cuaron which follows the life of a housekeeper of a middle-class family living in the politician turmoil of 1970’s Mexico City, has scored 10 nominations at this year’s Oscars. Its multiple nominations, including for Best Foreign Language film, Best Picture, Best Actress for Yalitza Aparicio and Best Supporting Actress for Marina de Tavira is a massive breakthrough, as Roma would be the first foreign language film to win Best Picture at the Oscars in their 90-year history.

In fact, only 10 foreign language films have ever been nominated for Best Picture. This stems from the fact that the Academy Award’s approach towards foreign language films over the years has tended to be very Ameri-centric. It is also very rare that a film in the best foreign language category also gets nominated in the principal acting categories, with exceptions including Emmanuelle Riva’s Best Actress Nomination for Amour, as the Oscars generally reward stars with nominations in the main acting categories who have starred in more commercially successful films.

I believe that the value in the Best Foreign language film category lies in the fact that without this award, most foreign language films would be overlooked by the Academy simply for being in a non-English language. This would be a massive shame; to put it simply, the majority of films nominated in the Best Foreign language film category at the Oscars tend to be better films. And by better, I mean being more original and less commercialised, even with a much lower budget. This year’s nominated films focus on subject matters such as a 12-year-old boy in Beirut, who is deeply resentful about the poverty he lives in and sues his parents for the fact that he has been born (Capernaum) and a family that relies on shoplifting to survive their life of poverty (Shoplifters).

Unlike the films nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars, foreign language films also tend not to star any big names, which underlines the fact that the domestic box office success these films may have is down to the quality of the film alone, rather than due to the ‘star quality’ of the principal actors. This quality so often propels average films to receive Best Picture Nominations (see Bridge of Spies or American Sniper). Capernaum’s director Nadine Labaki even made the ingenious decision to cast only non-professionals, who played characters whose lives are closely related to their own. This gave the audience an at times emotionally intense but always authentic look at how extremely impoverished conditions affect the childlike innocence of the young protagonist.

“foreign language films focus on less widely told stories”

The Best Foreign Language film category also gives a platform for talented up and coming directors to attract the attention of Hollywood studios. For example, many directors that that have directed a film nominated in the Best Foreign Language film category have gone on to be nominated or won the Award for Best Director at the Oscars. This list includes Ang Lee, whose win for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon in 2000 propelled him to be chosen to direct several successful films, including Brokeback Mountain and Life of Pi, for which he both won Best Director at the Oscars.

Furthermore, the films nominated for Best Picture, this year and in the past, have often either been biopics of famous people, men’s stories of triumph/deterioration or both (see Bohemian Rhapsody, Gladiator or The King’s Speech). On the other hand, foreign language films focus on less widely told stories, with themes including the importance of family and women’s narratives featuring more significantly in the last couple of years. In Roma, the protagonists are all resilient young women and in Wadjda, an utterly moving directional debut by Saudi Arabia’s first female director Haifaa al-Mansour, the main protagonist is a 10-year-old girl who dreams of owning a bike and fights against society’s standards that girls shouldn’t be riding bikes.

A still from the 2012 Saudi Arabian film Wadjda

However, there are some problems with the Best Foreign Language Film category. When awarding nominations in this category, central European language films tend to receive far more nominations from the Academy: Italy, France and Spain are the Top 3 of all time winners in this category, with 30 wins in total. This means that films made in Asia, Africa or Oceania tend to be overlooked by the Academy in favour of European films. For example, Israel has received the largest number of nominations (10) without ever winning. Asian countries such as China and India have prolific and successful film industries but are seldom nominated in the Best Foreign Language category, scoring only 2 and 3 nominations respectively. Shoplifters directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, which won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival is Japan’s first nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film since Departures won in 2008. Meanwhile, only three African countries (Algeria, South Africa and Ivory Coast) have ever won an award for Best Foreign Language film, with only South Africa’s entry, Tsotsi, being in an African language.

The rules regarding which film can be submitted for the Best Foreign Language film category is also a problem. At the Oscars, the film not only has to be in a foreign language but also has to have no ties to any American production companies. So, for example whilst the hugely successful The Passion of the Christ was entirely in Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew, it could not be nominated for Best Foreign Language Film, as it was created by Icon Productions, an American company. This differs from the Golden Globes’ rules for eligibility for Best Foreign Language Film, which only requires the film to be in a non-English language.

“they have almost no chance of winning against Hollywood heavyweights”

One way in which the Best Foreign Language film category could be improved is by creating separate acting categories for the actors and actresses starring in non-English language films. Whilst some have been nominated at the Oscars in the main acting categories in the past, including Best Actress Nominations for Catalina Sandino Moreno for Maria Full of Grace in 2004 and Isabelle Huppert for Elle in 2016, it is rare and they have almost no chance of winning against Hollywood heavyweights such as Meryl Streep and Kate Winslet. This is all the more the case if their film is not even nominated for Best Foreign Language film.

However, there is also an argument to scrap the Best Foreign Language film category completely and instead replace it with a category titled ‘Best Film under a certain budget’. This would still allow most foreign language films to be nominated, as winners in the past have had fairly low budgets including 2015 Best Foreign Language film winner Son of Saul, which only had a budget of 1.5 million Euros; conversely, this category would not rule out any excellent independent films with a low budget that are in the English language. British films released in the last couple of years which deserved to have global recognition include Francis Lee’s feature directorial debut God’s Own Country which won the world cinema directing award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and Ken Loach’s I, Daniel Blake which won the Palme d’Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. With a category like this, independent films may receive much more international recognition; this could pave the way for the actors and actresses in these films to also be nominated in the main acting categories.

All in all, the foreign language film category as a whole is still incredibly valuable, not just for the talented actors and directors who may finally be noticed by studios and producers, but also for fans of foreign language films like me. It gives us a guide to which films are the ones to watch, which may otherwise have slipped completely under the radar.

Sundance 2018 – Eighth Grade – Review

Certain associations are damaged with overuse. School, awkward teens, the nuances of young social lives – perhaps it’s all been done before. But then comes Eighth Grade, breezily making those tired tropes new again. The hook is in the bracing modernity of the piece; the young teenage world it portrays happens right now, allowing genuine novelty. It’s more than that, though. There’s an experimentation and elegance that feels of a kind with the new-ness, able to translate experiences of social media and a child’s ever-changing development into something fresh. While it might wind up more of a zeitgeist mood-piece than anything else, it’s still rich and successful in that attempt.

Kayla (Elsie Fisher) is a shy, painfully-awkward girl about to leave middle-school and enter high-school. Through the course of the film, she suffers the tribulations of that anxious demeanour; the vacuous hole of Twitter, Instagram, YouTube et al is her means of escape from the social pressures cruelly and inevitably inseparable from these things. Excercising this point, her presence is dominated by a constant claustrophobia. It’s always commendable to see a thoughtful command of a film’s formal elements; shots of Kayla remain tight to her, while shots elsewhere quite distinctly look outwards, sheepishly scanning the tableaus that surround her.

Where the obsessions of post-millenials might seem ripe targets for mockery, this would be too easy

Much the same, it has an apt stylistic exuberance throughout that feels specific to its time: the introduction of her crush is accompanied (each time) with an obnoxious thumping bass, one important phone-call of Kayla’s is framed by a constant bounce as she paces back-and-forth, and a gift-opening ceremony is laid out like a perverse riff on The Last Supper. It toys with its form, finding life in the littlest details. What’s more, there’s always something to be said for a perfect usage of “Orinoco Flow”. The humour is sharp, playing on awkwardness, but empathy and identification is quite clearly with the brushed-past subject.

It’s the two-sidedness of the film that makes it. Where the obsessions of post-millenials might seem ripe targets for mockery, this would be too easy. Instead, Grade takes the apparently-ridiculous and, while not keeping an entirely straight face, tries to understand what it means to those kids. Kayla produces somewhat-mawkish self-help videos on YouTube that seem to help her more than anyone else. They’re placed interstitially throughout the film, underscoring – amidst all the ums and please-like-and-subscribes – genuine attempts at youthful expression. The clumsiness with which she fiddles with all this media is belied by a simple human yearning for acceptance.

Bo Burnham and Elsie Fisher on set.
Photo by Linda Kallerus, courtesy of A24

Fisher’s central performance is so much a part of this. Her constant, bemused awkwardness is both cringe-inducing and charming, while her presentation betrays genuine willing behind the anxiety. She holds herself with a constant close-guardedness, always tucking arms to chest and often speaking with an uncertain gibber. It’s a constant personal movement that reflects a broader fluidity. The movie doesn’t stick only to one mode, petering out in a charmed haze, but instead reflects the reality of that performance. When the situation demands, it grows sober; if the most innocuous situation is obviously funny, it gains levity. Most importantly, the tone is one of empathetic realism, constructing something that knows itself, despite the natural confusion in its nature.

Which isn’t, unfortunately, to say that it entirely transcends the limitations of the mood-piece. To criticise it for an ultimate lack of ambition seems unfair, but at least part of that sentiment is true. The conclusion crystallizes the entirety of the film as about transition, all open questions and limited answers. It’s not so much a film about actual growth and change, as much as the ever-deferral of them into futurity. The final statement isn’t about the advance of time per se, but instead seems concerned with only the fripperies of the present.

It approaches its subjects with a gentle understanding, while likewise appreciating a considered reality to their now-everyday struggles

Similarly, the denouement itself can’t help but feel sudden and falsely-conclusive; where any assertiveness of Kayla’s previously felt as if she was only glancing around a genuine emotional realisation, she abruptly develops a confidence in a way that should have felt more spaced-out. Still, these are only minor points against a movie that does seem to know well just what it is. That it’s a flighty thing with few real answers is part of the point; Kayla’s journey is one of continued growth and transition, after all. The film doesn’t need to be more than an acutely-observed reflection of this process.

To that end, the film is a success. It’s a delightful observation of a particular time, managing to pay attention to and show genuine interest in cultural peculiarities that might otherwise be dismissed. Taking over-used aesthetic conventions serves it well, making them new with an uncommon zeal. It approaches its subjects with a gentle understanding, while likewise appreciating a considered reality to their now-everyday struggles; Kayla’s teenage angst actually comes from somewhere. As a simple account of a moment, rather than something that might entirely diagnose it, it is powerful. Eighth Grade looks closely at quite what the post-millenial is; rather than judging and condemning, it is instead content only to listen.

Header image by Linda Kallerus, courtesy of A24

Sundance 2018 – First Reformed – Review

How do I even start to review First Reformed? A dense thing, so much of it incurs the sort of sheer fascination that had me clenching the armrests of my seat with casual abandon. That’s a pretentious sentiment, certainly. A film about faith, trauma, and absence might not seem outright transformative. But there comes a moment in viewing a genuinely excellent film where, as a reviewer, you find yourself struggling to meaningfully engage, for want of something, anything, to criticise. Consider this a retort to that mentality. The boldness of this film works because of that positive, tangible engagement with the viewer. With reviews, the form itself implies a sort of qualitative survey; let this be more of an appreciation, then. I loved this film in all its challenging, theologically-discontented nature, and only want to understand quite how it does what it does. Perhaps things can never be perfect – criticism has taught me as much – but I’d be lying if I said issues I might take really destabilise the broader whole.

Paul Schrader, writer-director of First Reformed

The actual plot is straightforward enough. The protestant Reverend Toller (Ethan Hawke) manages a small church in upstate New York, struggling with both unresolved personal trauma and the encroaching absurdities of the modern day. As the days roll on towards the church’s eventual reconsecration, a tragedy strikes, and his already-fragile psyche is forced into a spiral. Consequently, he starts to genuinely question the worth of holding a faith that seems painfully inactive and unresponsive in the modern world. It’s a simple set-up, comparable to Taxi Driver, the 1976 film also written by the writer-director, Paul Schrader; both films grapple with their central masculine woes, each a perversion of the individualist self-actualisation narrative. But stronger reference points lie even further back. Clear debts are owed to the stark, theologically-absent Diary of a Country Priest (1951), and – further still – the writings of John Calvin, a key figure in the Protestantism so much at this film’s centre.

Diary, itself a treatise on faith in a secular world, here reflects this film in each one’s apparent nihilism: woe betides the priest who might question or resolve man’s immutable relationship with God. However, the similarities run deeper. The two share certain structural and formal characteristics: the protagonists are unhealthily ascetic; the aspect ratio is a boxy 4:3, implying some hidden absence at the edge of the frame; and the very work of the priest – to reconcile and preach – is beset by chastisement and doubt. This film, however, embodies a specifically-protestant take on the apparent subgenre of the beleaguered ecclesiastic. John Calvin’s reformation of the church is even keyed in upon in the title. Humans, to Calvin, were inherently stained creatures, redeemable only in the eyes of – and their faith in – an unknowable God. The vitality of the Christian religion is not in acts but faith, rigid obedience all that will ever matter. Accordingly, we might save the world or drive it to ruin; His opinion would not change.

All the stern formal command creates a sort of trance, any human movement at all plagued by passivity

It’s a bleak outlook, certainly, and it’s one that the film is keen to interrogate. There’s an inherent sparsity to the design; Toller’s black and white robes are matched by the Spartan aesthetics of his titular church, while the film itself employs a subtle monochrome. Rare bits of vibrancy, like the red of blood in the snow, punctuate this mundanity with jarring urgency. It bespeaks something almost perversely focussed on simplicity, over and above what complications may be so keenly ignored. Likewise, the camera has something of a passive glare; the aforementioned boxiness works hand-in-hand with a view that rarely moves, and seems reluctant to centre humans in the frame. A pivotal close-up of the good Reverend has his eyes nearly meet the line of the gaze. But the end result is false, the movement a half-squint that can’t quite align – despite its owner’s self-assurance.

Ethan Hawke, star of First Reformed.
Image by Jo Davidson / Silverhub for Sundance London

This faint, inevitable disorder in the face of icy, unimpressed authority is enthralling. All the stern formal command creates a sort of trance, any human movement at all plagued by passivity. Much the same, the structure is often side-tracked into both heady theological discussion and quiet contemplation; the mere act of two characters stopping in for a chat has rarely represented such hard-fought delight. Talk itself is part of this petty human disorder. During one such moment, Toller notes that he is pleased only by the ferocity, rather than resolution, of the argument. If the protestant ethos reflects a lack of real human agency in face of a judgemental God, then Reformed addresses the necessary fallout of that absence. The plot lacks a centre, whether in the moral or individual, Toller forever struggling to really fulfil the increasingly martyring roles he sets himself. His ascetic lifestyle consists of an unfurnished home, a private and self-flagellating diary, and the perennial hair shirt of alcohol. He’s a deeply traumatised absence in a story that needs presence. Asceticism only strips away and away, miring itself in hardship and disgust.

To this end, the central performance must be strong enough to maintain this alternately pathetic and forthright centre of antigravity. Of course, it succeeds. In a career of often-exceptional performances, Hawke manages what may be his most complex. This is a film about the circumstances of his spiral, his (quite-literal) tribulations underlining a gradual and frighteningly tangible mental break. Toller is a man in a perpetual stranglehold, torn between the worth of Calvinist teaching, and actually putting it to use. The dog collar he adamantly wears in public becomes a morbid emblem of repression; his faintly overweight body seems to bulge over it, every teaching delivered with uncertainty and something bordering on a whisper.

Supporting cast members are uniformly strong, yet exist to hover around these primary concerns. Amanda Seyfried plays the mother-to-be whose request for Toller’s aid begins the movie; subverting an easy role as the faithful to Toller’s doubting, she trusts his churchly advice only by his own assertion rather than the scripture itself. Her husband (Phillip Ettinger) is far more conflicted, possessing a pessimistic conviction that cannot be resolved by teaching; likewise, Cedric Kyles’s megachurch pastor represents the sordid unreliability of scriptural morality. Each character is their own model of uncertainty, spokes on a wheel defined by an unknowledgeable centre. The characterisation ruthlessly questions all assertions of moral righteousness, struggling between the twin poles of speaking truth to power while obeying a faith founded on the totalitarian. As a result, one might wonder whether the only answer is to forsake any definite moral pretence entirely.

THE absence hinted at is excruciatingly uncertain, ever caught in the camera’s still, claustrophobic frame

If that sounds like a fragile half-answer, it’s because First Reformed is so drastically uninterested in actually providing resolution to what it proposes. Humans are forever caught in a web of unknowable theology. An early conversation between Toller and a parishioner has him justify his faith by means of cognitive dissonance; the grounding of faith is so strong that decisions taken in its name need no rational logic. But the evil Toller gradually begins to see in the world is very real, and very quantifiable. Reformed also asks what this dissonance might mean when one half of the equation ceases to be. There might be a God, there might not; He wouldn’t care for our prevarication. So rather than assuming predestination and human inability to change, what happens if those professing a theological lack are right? More than this, what if we are already too wrapped up in cognitive dissonance to change? Though not quite outright nihilism – the questions it asks are earnest, at least striving for meaning beyond nothingness – it feels somehow adjacent to it. Truth is an excruciatingly uncertain thing, ever-absent within the camera’s still, claustrophobic frame.

Ethan Hawke and Amanda Seyfried. Image courtesy of Sundance Institute

One scene might trouble this solid sense of purpose and stylistic assurance. Admittedly, I’m still turning it over in my head. To spoil it would be both hard and unfair, so an outline will suffice. In a moment of particular intimacy, certain characters are embraced by a moment of transcendent magical realism, placed into a waking dream of clear thematic import. The issue with the scene is simply how out-of-step it is with the rest of the film. The tone shifts in quite a jarring manner, providing visuals almost entirely alien to the rest of the piece. Again, I don’t quite know if it works or not; tonal shifts aren’t necessarily bad, and the sheer strangeness of the thing took me aback. But it extended just beyond the comfortable, to the almost-absurd. Naturally, that outright surrealism may be the point. Such a moment has precedent, of course; Vertigo (1958) famously employed a fascinating and bizarre animated sequence. What’s more, it only compounded the film’s enigma into my mind. That intrigue is itself laudable.

So the film is, despite the aforementioned challenge, still quite exceptional. I’m weary of terms like “masterpiece”, compounding – as they do – the role of the authorial “master”. First Reformed is, however, a masterful film, perhaps deserving of the connotations of the role. It’s an open book, dedicated not to answering questions and providing clear morals but instead the very act of questioning; the absences and silences it gestures towards are sometimes harsh, but always enlightening. Conclusion is not in its interests, while second-guessing and ethical doubt are. In the process of making such a point, however, it quietly becomes one of the best films of the year. Rich in thought, loaded with cinematic texture, and host to an incredible central performance, First Reformed easily asserts itself in all its perverse, doubtful glory.

Sundance 2018 – The Miseducation of Cameron Post – Review

Sometimes you just need a film that’s perfectly pleasant. That’s not to say it can’t be bold in that demeanour, possess genuine stakes, or have something to say, but that within these, it still manages to come through with a sense of warm pride. Based on the book of the same name by Emily Damoir, The Miseducation of Cameron Post manages a coy subversion of the typical tropes of teenage angst; the lives of its queer teenagers are not taken for flippancy. More than this, the threat here is something more threatening. Cameron Post (Chloe Grace-Moretz) is a lesbian teenager who, sometime in the 1990s, is sent away to a Christian conversion camp. The tale takes so much from Cameron’s very real struggle, and yet remains well-handled and empathetic; a playful style is balanced against the inherent drama of emotional abuse. While it might trip into the occasional genre pothole, it’s at its best when understanding and toying with that convention in new ways.

The narration itself plays loose with the form. Cameron is caught having sex with another girl, much to the horror of her friends and family – but the film knows the expected fallout, and thus partially elides it, essentially missing much of the confrontation. The discovery is about only her shame and under-confidence, rather than the petty outrage elsewhere. Grace-Moretz makes sure that the audience is under no illusion as to what Cameron feels, but simply that she lacks the ability to express it. It’s a central performance that speaks to basic decency; she’s the sane one who is nonetheless beleaguered by the baffling decisions of others. Consequently, the film takes for granted that her guardians are overreacting, and that the Christian pseudo-therapy is laughable and ridiculous.

The lack of obvious manipulation helps it along, then, as a general hangout vibe evokes a directionless youth

It’s that openness that makes it refreshing. The film isn’t really about the discovery of one’s sexuality per se, but instead about growing into a person that might be confident in it, in spite of pressures elsewhere. There’s a malaise of introversion that dominates Cameron: shots of her head lack lead room in front of her, boxing her in, while the score is predominantly the sound of nature and the grating Christian rock piped out to the pupils. The story is so much about how comedy is edged with that sharp reality. As consequence, the absurdity of the situation deserves both scorn and spirited mockery.

Chloë Grace Moretz, star of Miseducation

Likewise, the aesthetics of the piece manage their charm without becoming overbearing. Music is primarily diegetic, and never tacky or instructional; much the same, the 90s are played refreshingly low-key, simply a facet of a faded time and place rather than a grating presence. The lack of obvious manipulation helps it along, then, as a general hangout vibe evokes a directionless youth. As a result, Cameron’s introversion lessens with this communion and laxness, while she also learns the individual peculiarities of her other fellows. Returning to the coy subversion, the wide supporting cast of varied types might seem cliché in a coming-of-age tale. The film’s sincerity mobilises this, though; Cameron can’t feel so alone in herself while surrounding herself with young queerness. The crowd is here used to express personal individuality, as the perversity of a repressive system is turned against it.

However, the generally-agreeable nature of the piece has its own pitfalls; namely, an occasional flatness and aimlessness to the film. The second half lacks the energy of the first, falling into a routine of hardship and occasional moments of joy. It’s not that these moments are poorly-told, but only that they lack the zest of purpose and gentle outrage in the first half. The point has, by this point, been made. Sasha Lane and Forest Goodluck both breathe dry wit and personality into Cameron’s friends, and yet – beyond some brief introduction – lack much development themselves. This is Cameron’s story, and those she surrounds herself with only exist to elucidate that. It’s just a shame the movie decides to spread itself out so wide, when more focus is needed to make such a thing work.

The second half lacks the energy of the first, falling into a routine of hardship and occasional moments of joy

Similarly, the piece can’t entirely escape the mire of youth-film typicality. That Cameron’s parents had died prior to the film is practically double-underlined in dialogue, highlighting an occasional bluntness to the script. As part of this, the themes of self-expression and being, while not conceptually identical, are trotted out in a similar manner to any given coming-of-age film. Repression and self-deception are bad, and expression and confidence are good. These are noble ideas, of course; just ones possessing that lack of complexity – or at least a lack of subtlety – naturally associated with the genre.

Still, Miseducation is only somewhat diminished in that. That it takes convention and resists a dull adherence to the form is itself commendable. And the thing’s just fun. It’s exciting to see an arcane order get what’s coming – that the film handles this with a sly knowing as to its own righteousness is part of the pleasure. While it can trip into a lax haze, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; the gentleness of it helps it along, after all. So it’s nice to see a movie take such a subject matter and spin it into something that allows the subjected queer teenagers of actual history a space for pleasure, while acknowledging their plight. In a sense, that balance – of sincerity against youthful revolt – underlines so much of what makes it work.

Header image courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Sundance 2018 – Leave No Trace – Review

For a film to tackle the numbing effects of post-crisis dissociation with its entire formal being should be laudable. Leave No Trace, however, falls somewhat flat amidst this ambition – funnily enough, mostly due to the success of the attempt. By no means a poor film, it’s instead one that never quite takes off; exceptional performances and dense thematic complexity are belied by the sense of shambling, dissociated melancholy that ultimately fails it. While the core is genuinely rich, the way it’s unspooled lacks the same power.

But what force it has comes from the exceptional relationship at the centre. Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie play Will and Tom, a father-daughter duo living and surviving out in the Oregon wilderness. He trains her in stealth and survival, teaching her to fend off the elements, and, more importantly, leave no trace of their presence. Soon enough, however, modernity comes calling to spoil their Walden-esque existence. Initial scenes outline this relationship, the younger’s irritation with frugality tempered by a deep paternal trust. It’s a trust barely contextualized in actual language. Foster, in an unusually subtle performance, conveys his trauma, paranoia, and grief mostly through squints and sighs, his rough beard and perennial shemagh scarf denoting a permanent veteran. McKenzie – in a stunning, wide-ranging performance – seems a wide-eyed, naive opposite; however, behind this comes a knowing glint, the actor countering any presumed openness with an equitable weariness.

It’s an affectation of confusion and disorder against any attempt at self-reconciliation

Where the two might seem linked in mutual mistrust of the modern world, however, the film doesn’t fall into such an easy nature vs. civilisation narrative. The philosophical differences in this relationship are subtle, playing steadily out through the course. The twin figures of isolation and conformism need not remain so separate; to that end, the creeping modernity that Will so fears is less a symptom of the world, than his own inability to make a place within it. Perversely, much of the woodland here is not full of natural, vibrant splendour, but is instead wetted, made grey by the fog, rain, and mud. Conversely, the manmade is not entirely comprised of slick IKEA forms, but the decaying modernity of Americana. It’s an affectation of confusion and disorder against any attempt at normalcy; the traumatised characters simply lack grounding in even subjective reality.

Tom (Thomasin McKenzie) and Will (Ben Foster). Photo by Scott Green, courtesy of Sundance Institute

It’s a shame, then, that the result of this considered malaise is so dry. The film just continues, never quite finding a momentum, as each event sluggishly progresses to the next. The cinematography certainly makes an impression, but really only contributes to the problem – so much is drenched in browns, blues, and greys. The changes are all so subtle as to barely register. That theme of the unspoken means a film that plays out half-mute, occasional moments of levity surrounded by simple nothingness. It reflects a kind of dissociative non-presence, certainly, but at the cost of any discernible energy. When, in multiple scenes, Will and Tom trudge freezing through the woods, the sense is of only half-discontent. Likewise, the general quiet of the plot lacks tangible stakes and threat; while not inherently bad, it here makes for something that just can’t catch light.

When that centre is itself so understated, the power of these small incursions are lost over the space of the film

Supporting characters drift in and out, circling around the protagonists only to inform their connection. A councillor or pastor might challenge the father-daughter dynamic, only for their words to be shunted off to some mute resolution between the two. When that centre is itself so understated, the power of these small incursions are lost over the space of the film. Likewise, events come across with only so much meaning. An early part underscores this maddeningly gradual nature. Tom is separated from Will in the social care system. Two girls, beholden to fripperies of modern life, assure her that her dad will never return. They are reunited in the next scene. Naturally, the doubt of both his potential abandonment and her growing apart takes root, but only in the long-run of a two-hour movie. The immediate impression just seems like stasis. While this might make for technically interesting thematic exploration, the moment-to-moment experience comes off as unbearably static.

The film is undeniably well-constructed, with lived-in performances and a firm grasp of tone that help centre a theme of continual disorder and unsettlement. That commitment can’t always make for an engaging experience, however. If the construction is sound, then it fails in its purpose; the ambition is so pointedly meek and confused that it simply shoots itself in the foot at the first opportunity. Leave No Trace allows itself generous room for interpretation and exploration. It’s a shame that it then seems to lack any real presence or cohered being to engage with in the first place.

Header image by Scott Green. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.