Tag Archives: independent film

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Strangers on a Plane

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The Last Right

by Hope Madden

A few months back, Jamie Dornan and Emily Blunt stupefied us all (well, the dozen or so of us who saw Wild Mountain Thyme) with an Irish romance about as authentic as a Shamrock Shake. Writer/director Aoife Crehan’s The Last Right takes us back to the Emerald Isle to see if there’s any romance or magic left.

Oh, there is? Well, fine then.

Dutch actor Michiel Huisman plays Daniel Murphy, Irishman. Or American. Well, that’s fuzzy, but he’s certainly not Dutch, although his accent is tough to pinpoint. Daniel’s been called back from Boston to County Cork for his ma’s funeral, and to look in on his younger brother Louis (Samuel Bottomley, Get Duked!)

And old man – also named Murphy – dies on the airplane and authorities believe Daniel is his next of kin. They want him to deliver the remains to a church on the northern tip of Ireland, but that’s not his responsibility plus he has all this work to do and he can’t wait to get back to Beantown where his fancy lawyer job waits for him.

But Louis wants to go, and Louis has autism, which is where the film really gets a bit off the rails.

Crehan nods to Barry Levinson’s Rain Man early into the cross-country drive between two brothers with a large age gap, a long way to go and a lot to learn. Along for the ride is mortuary assistant Mary (Naimh Algar) and more contrivances than you can shake a shillelagh at.

Performances are solid. Algar brings a fiery spirit to the roadtrip experience, and Crehan fills small roles with the venerable talents of Brian Cox, Colm Meaney and Jim Norton. Plus the scenery is gorgeous.

There is a perfectly middle-of-the-road romantic dramedy here somewhere. You may enjoy it, assuming you can get past the tangle of convenient plot twists and you don’t wince at the device of an autistic character (played by an actor who is not on the spectrum, although Bottomley delivers a layered and respectful performance) teaching the real lessons.

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Rough Around the Edges

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Sometime Other than Now

by Rachel Willis

Opening on a man sprawled on the beach, a crashed motorcycle and a wallet floating into the ocean, Sometime Other Than Now is immediately intriguing. Written and directed by Dylan McCormick, this is a quickly-paced drama that will just as quickly hook you.

The pacing of the film is the first thing that stands out. It’s faster than you might expect. Characters pop up and interact rapid fire. In the age of the slow-burn, it takes a minute to adjust. But it’s rewarding to watch as instant attractions pay off, as we come to know the characters and their situations. Not every question is answered immediately, but you’ll enjoy yourself as you wait for the solutions.

The dialogue is the next element setting this film apart from similar stories. It’s realistic, funny, no bullshit talk that draws you in and makes you care for characters you haven’t known long.

As the man on the beach, Sam, Donal Logue shows off his talent for drama. Both endearing and frustrating, you want to know where he’s been and to see where he’s going. Playing off Logue with near equal talent, Kate Walsh brings depth to her character, Kate.

The rest of the cast isn’t given same level of attention.  Characters pop up in the beginning that are given some weight, making you think they’ll come up again as a larger part of the story. While they do appear later on, they don’t receive the resolution you might expect. Everyone who plays a role in the film does a fine job, but when compared to the two main characters, they feel hollow.

McCormick is also partly responsible for the film’s score, and it pales in comparison to his writing/directing talent. There’s nothing exactly wrong with the score; it’s just not the right music for the film. Although, there is a particularly lovely song that plays over the end credits that’s worth a listen.

This is only McCormick’s second film (and his first came out 15 years ago), and it’s a bit rough around the edges – a lot like its main character. But that’s part of what gives it its charm.

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Truth Bombs

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Stealing School

by Cat McAlpine

Senior April Chen (Celine Tsai) is days away from graduating from DuPont University, and she already has a lucrative job waiting for her in Silicon Valley. All she has to do is get through her academic misconduct hearing. But her TA, Keith Ward (Jonathan Keltz), is determined to pin her for plagiarism and as the hearing wears on tensions rise and secrets are unearthed.

In a mockery of a courtroom, Stealing School analyzes the personalities and egos that run rampant in academia, criticizing its self-importance, bureaucracy and institutional racism. A particularly good running gag is various character’s introduction of their thesis titles. If you’ve ever had a brush with higher education, you’ll recognize all the archetypes that writer and director Li Dong cross-examines.

Particularly brutal is the Canadian school’s PR policy which seems to rely entirely on “being better than American schools.” Their only answer to accusations of racism and misconduct is that at least they aren’t like the institutions to their south.

Stealing School has good pacing, and a delicious unfurling of tensions between various characters during breaks and in flashbacks. The film analyzes how important it is to be likable, rather than right or good. Keltz is absolutely loathsome and delivers the best performance of the film, being too eager, too righteous, too vindictive. Tsai matches him with a subtler performance, walking a moral gray area that has you unsure of her innocence until the final moments of the film.

The rest of the supporting cast matches their archetype well, all either jaded by the academic world or still obsessed with its ability to give them better opportunities. But Stealing School’s criticisms don’t stop at academia. Dong also explores racism in broad strokes and the toxic culture of tech that only asks that you provide good code.

Stealing School is a tight hour and 14 minutes, which keeps its mostly single setting from feeling claustrophobic. With good pacing and a satisfying end, this is a great watch for your evening, especially if you regret your degree.

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Bitches of the Badlands

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Nomadland

by Hope Madden

Nobody sees American poverty as honestly or as poetically as filmmaker Chloé Zhao.

Those who saw Zhao’s sublime 2018 cowboy story The Rider will recognize her romantic fascination with the American West. That’s not the only thumbprint the filmmaker leaves on her third feature, Nomadland.

She weaves a spontaneous, near-verite style into lonesome, wide vistas of a rugged America we think of as lost to time. In doing so, Zhao creates a lucid dream where struggle as reality is somehow beautiful but never sentimental.

The incandescent Frances McDormand stars as Fern, an itinerant widow since her hometown of Empire, Nevada ceased to exist once the gypsum mine closed. We join Fern on her journey sometime after that collapse. She’s just beginning to customize “Vanguard,” the van that serves as her new home.

In that same loose style that’s marked Zhao’s previous films, Nomadland follows Fern through her days, boxing product for Amazon in the winter, working vacation rest stops and tourist destinations in season, and traveling the country in the meantime following work, looking for a safe place to park, and getting to know this country.

Zhao—who writes, edits, and produces as well as directs—based the screenplay on Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book. Empire was a real place. Fern is a fictional character, but those who mentor her in her new life—including the endlessly endearing Linda May and brilliantly saucy Swankie—are, indeed, real nomads.

McDormand is perhaps the only perennial Oscar contender who could fit so seamlessly in this tapestry. Without an ounce of vanity or artifice, her performance allows this film to be one of resilience and promise. Given that Normadland is, in fact, the story of a penniless Sixtysomething widow who lives in a van, that is in itself a minor miracle.

But that’s the film—a minor miracle. Perhaps only in a year when the billion-dollar franchises were mainly held at bay could we make enough space to appreciate this vital and beautiful reimagining of the rugged American tale of individualism and freedom, which is almost always also a story of poverty.

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Through the Wringer

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Test Pattern

by Brandon Thomas

The debut feature from writer/director Shatara Michelle Ford, Test Pattern, is a compelling look at date rape, its confusing aftermath, and the ways in which the medical field and law enforcement can fail victims with their chaotic bureaucracy. 

After an opening that delivers one of the sweetest, most awkward “meet-cutes” in recent memory, Test Pattern digs into the burgeoning relationship between Renesha (Brittany S. Hall of TV’s Ballers) and Evan (Will Brill of The Eyes of My Mother). Their life together is put to the test after Renesha is drugged and sexually assaulted after an evening out with her girlfriend. 

Test Pattern offers a matter-of-fact approach that makes it hard to look away. The audience is with Renesha every step of the way as she traverses the confusing hours after her assault. It’s an honest, but tough, journey we take with her as she runs the gamut of emotions and, at times, humiliating experiences.

Nothing in Test Pattern would work if the strength of the cast wasn’t there. Hall is jaw-droppingly good as Renesha. She easily conveys strength, vulnerability, and poise in her early scenes. At one point on their first official date, Evan comments, “I feel like you always know what you’re talking about.” There’s no greater summation of the Renesha we meet early on.

Brill is equally good as the doting, supportive Evan. Evan’s almost “too nice” persona is in contrast to the man we see later in the film. His focused, almost fanatical need to get Renesha in front of a doctor and the police starts to feel like a salve for his wounded pride, not her well-being.

Together, these two actors have the type of natural chemistry that isn’t often seen. They deliver lines from Ford’s already expertly written script with ease and purpose. You can almost feel the history of this relationship pour off the screen. The genuine love and respect shared between Renesha and Evan make it hurt all the more as things start unraveling. 

Ford’s slow-burn approach to the story, and especially the aftermath of the assault, offers an incredibly riveting, and honest approach to this serious subject matter. The tension that begins to build as Renesha and Evan drive from hospital to hospital sometimes feels akin to some of the more emotionally disturbing horror films from recent years. The result is a direct focus on the painful process this couple is forced to endure. 

Test Pattern presents no easy answers. Renesha and Evan’s story isn’t wrapped up in a nice bow for us to feel good about. We don’t get the happy ending; we get the honest one.

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Shabbat Shalom

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Happy Times

by Cat McAlpine

Tensions at a Shabbat dinner party turn dangerous when a group of Israeli-American friends, family, and business partners boil over before coffee and dessert. Dangerous egos, backstabbing, cheating in love and money, and a struggle for social power all contribute to a brutal and increasingly absurd crescendo of blood and water.

You know, Happy Times.

Michael Mayer’s unique view as director and writer, with co-writer Guy Ayal, keeps the horror comedy from falling too flat. The stereotypes Mayer introduces don’t just create a thrilling sequence of clashes, but also bring out fun performances from the cast as a whole. A conceited struggling actor is moments away from losing it. A young man’s lust for a married woman is bound to get him in trouble. A shady business deal fails to get off the ground and clogs the works.

The characters in Happy Times are vibrant, and though largely unlikeable, you can’t stop watching their descent into chaos. Michael Aloni bristles with ego and rage as Michael. Liraz Chamami is captivating as Sigal, constantly trying to recorrect the course of the evening with hilarious timing and a casual brutality. Stéfi Celma is a lovely straight man to the madness that unfolds around her as the cultural outsider, Aliyah. The full ensemble brings a delightful sin and indulgence to the scene.

As Happy Times continues it starts to lose the plot a bit, with a snowballing bloodlust carrying the final third of the film. But the absurdity is baked in by the final moments. I was left shaking my head and thinking, “Sure. Why not?”

Though it is missing some sparkle at the end, there can’t always be a winner in a social situation as messy as this one. The slow burn of Happy Times perfectly builds the necessary tensions to support its later rampage.

The true success of this film is in the characters it creates, and those characters are what carry genuine laughter and shock. Whether you love or hate your family, Happy Times is a cathartic release of tensions anyone will recognize.

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Moon in Her Eye

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The Reckoning

by Hope Madden

It’s been nearly 20 years since Neil Marshall first caught our attention with his remarkable military/lycanthropic standoff, Dog Soldiers. Just three years later, the writer/director offered his genre masterpiece, The Descent, and suddenly anticipation was high for a filmmaker who knew how to scare us.

A couple of disappointments later and the Englishman began to rebuild his reputation doing one-off TV episodes and horror shorts until possibly sinking his career forever in 2019 with the Big Box Office Bomb that was Hellboy.

The Reckoning won’t help things.

Marshall’s latest, co-written with Edward Evers-Swindell (Dark Signal) and star Charlotte Kirk, takes us back to the Dark Ages. The black plague is wiping out the English countryside, but witch hunters are a close second in terms of death toll.

Striking images are everywhere in this film—a home burning, a horse rearing, misty moors and the like. But the first sight that will really make you scratch your head is that of Grace (Kirk), humble-but-loving wife in full, never-to-be-flawed makeup. It’s so jarring given the plague-ridden scenes surrounding her that you cannot help but notice it.

And for the next hour 50 (at least 30 minutes longer than necessary), Kirk poses. She stands firm. She yearns. She dotes. She hesitates. She resolves. Yes, I believe that runs the full gamut of Kirk’s poses.

It doesn’t help matters that The Reckoning brings so little new to the historical witch torture genre. Grace’s ordeals, once her lascivious landlord brings her up on charges of witchcraft for spurning him, lead to increasingly gratuitous and sexualized torture.

And still, that nude lip liner never smudges.

Around Kirk’s showy performance is a wide variety of talent. Sean Pertwee and Steven Waddington offer fine, villainous turns, for instance.

The writing is not a real strength, as most of the plotting and dialog serve only to create new opportunities to pose. It’s hard to call The Reckoning a wasted opportunity because, aside from some solid framing and cinematography, there’s nothing here to even exploit. It’s a superficial ripoff of a worn out genre, built entirely around a laughable performance.  

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I Dream of Horses

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The Wanting Mare

by Hope Madden

Light on plot, heavy on atmosphere, Nicholas Ashe Bateman’s feature debut drops us in a distant post-apocalypse. Here, those trapped on a sparsely populated island of dust and heat dream of boarding the once-yearly barge that transports the island’s wild horses to a wintry mainland.

Poetic and dreamy, Bateman’s tale plays out before us without allowing us to truly penetrate it. Moira (Jordan Monaghan) has one wish only: passage across. She’s plagued by nightmares of a fiery past—maybe the event that brought about the now-times, nightmares passed down to her from her own mother.

She saves a man. He promises her a ticket. But how good is a man’s word in a society like this?

Bateman’s vision is often transportive. There are leaps in timeline and in logic that you’ll forgive by virtue of the lyrical nature of his story. This is a fable, not a drama. The Wanting Mare has a fantasy for you, if you have the patience for it.

You will need patience, though. The 90-minute runtime feels much longer, partly because Bateman’s storytelling intentionally keeps you at arm’s length from his characters. Without any skin in the game, the game becomes tiresome.

It’s never less than beautiful, but it’s definitely less than compelling. There are brief scenes in the second act that almost offer excitement, plot twists, some genuine call for redemption. These are the only scenes in the film that Bateman rushes.

Performances are necessarily stilted and can’t be criticized for that. We are not meant to feel close to these characters, although Bateman himself does personalize his character. His own acting style is far more accessible and intimate than that of his co-stars.

The benefit: act 2 feels more emotionally compelling than the rest of the film. The drawback: the film’s point of view becomes muddy. We travel through time along with Moira and her offspring, but because we identify with Bateman’s nameless man, these women become even more distant and peripheral. They are idealized reasons for the film to be rather than a driving force or voice in the film itself.

And that’s what the film is missing. It’s a gorgeous effort, poetic and somber and dreamlike. But it lacks a central voice, and without that, any real connection with the audience.

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Is Anyone There?

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Go/Don’t Go

by Brandon Thomas

The opening minutes of Go/Don’t Go hint at a burgeoning relationship drama. Shy boy meets an outgoing girl. Girl draws the boy out of his shell. Hints of electricity crackle as they find themselves engrossed in conversation. The parts are all there, but as the scene comes to a close, Go/Don’t Go crosses into something a little more…sinister. 

Set in a not-so-distant future, Adam (writer/director Alex Knapp) spends his days completing routine tasks. He cleans, prepares meals and works on repairing a car. When not doing his day-to-day, Adam wanders the countryside, checks homes and marks areas on a map as “Go/Don’t Go.” Adam appears to be the only person left.

Isolation and loneliness exist in the periphery of every post-apocalyptic type movie. In Go/Don’t Go, the isolation is front and center. Adam doesn’t spend the entire running time evading cannibalistic marauders or dispatching shuffling zombies. No, Adam’s conflict exists in the haunted memories of a past love, K (Olivia Luccardi, It Follows). 

Looked at as a typical horror/thriller, Go/Don’t Go could be a frustrating watch for many. There’s a purposeful aloofness to the narrative that builds a lot of mystery, but also never shows much interest in resolving said mysteries. Adam’s flashbacks fill in interesting character gaps instead of explaining how Adam found himself in his current situation. 

The film’s most interesting angle is how it plays with metaphor. Is the landscape in which Adam lives even real? Every house he enters has running water and electricity. The market he goes to is always stocked full of fresh products. Maybe Adam’s shyness, hinted at in those opening minutes, has consumed him after the ending of a relationship. Of course, nothing is definitive and most of this is left to the viewer to decide. 

Knapp’s handling of familiar territory is a breath of fresh air. Despite the lack of momentum in the narrative, Knapp taps into a sense of urgency through clever editing. This allows layers of character to be peeled back piece by piece. It’s enough to keep us interested and invested in a story that moves at more of a sporadic pace. 

By focusing on character and theme, Go/Don’t Go manages to stand out in a sea of post-apocalyptic tales. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38k4Mmat_6I

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Fear and Loathing on the Nile

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Luxor

by Matt Weiner

Faulkner wrote that the past is never dead… it’s not even past. British aid worker Hana (Andrea Riseborough) is hellbent on putting this to the test in Luxor, a slow burn of a spiritual journey from writer/director Zeina Durra that brings together vibrant Egyptian settings and a remarkable, nuanced performance from Riseborough.

Hana, taking some time off from her medical work on the Jordan-Syrian border, returns to the city of Luxor. It’s a place that holds great meaning and memories for her, even if her PTSD has collapsed much of those memories into an unnerving fog of past and present events and regrets all confronting her at once.

Hana’s stay is further complicated by the appearance of Sultan (Karim Saleh), her ex-lover. Sultan is an archaeologist working on a dig, and it’s an irony that does not escape Hana’s notice that the two are back together in the ancient city to excavate their pasts—and come across a few noteworthy relics.

The collision between old and new is a recurring motif for director Durra, made physical with the temple ruins but even more poignantly through Hana’s fragile mental state. This is where the film’s evocative settings of the past come to life, powered by Riseborough’s urgent reveries that drag her from past to present, and finally force her to come to terms with the trauma she has fled.

Much of the film follows Hana and Sultan wandering the city, their conversations going around in metaphorical circles as Hana does her best to elide over any sort of catharsis. In a way, the film is like a spiritual counterpart to Michael Winterbottom’s The Trip series: those characters play their mid-life ennui up for laughs, but there’s an uncanny shared impulse to travel outside of one’s regular life to find whatever it is they think they’re missing.

It’s a journey that Durra treats with reverence, and with an emotional payoff that upends the film’s measured pace. Who knew archaeology could dig so deep?