Movies with Abe: Sundance 2020

Showing posts with label Sundance 2020. Show all posts

Sunday, February 2, 2020

Sundance 2020 Wrap-Up

I’m thrilled to be attending and covering the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah for the seventh time. I’m seeing as many movies as I can each day and will post reviews of each as I can, as well as video reviews uploaded to YouTube.

I've been writing up some of the films I see for The Film Experience. Head over there to read my wrap-up of the festival, including my top ten films, best performances, and a review of the official award winners.

It's been a great festival - make sure to read and watch all my reviews!

Sundance with Abe: Promising Young Woman

Promising Young Woman
Directed by Emerald Fennell
Premieres

No matter how much may have changed over the past few centuries or even decades, men still have a distinct advantage over women in America and the world as a whole. A patriarchal society has led to the exclusion of women from certain male-dominated industries and types of activities, which in turn prevent those who have managed to get in from ascending to leadership positions and even having the opportunity to learn about them. This is a disturbing and alarming truth, and it’s a logical inspiration for a film about someone who isn’t content with letting men off the hook, particularly those who don’t think they’re all that bad.

Cassie (Carey Mulligan) leads a seemingly unremarkable life as a thirty-year-old barista living at home with her parents after dropping out of medical school years earlier. She spends her nights, however, going to bars and pretending to be drunk so that she can eviscerate the men who bring her home under the guise of helping her and then try to take advantage of her. When she runs into Ryan (Bo Burnham), a medical school classmate who asks her out, she is reminded of the many people who put her on this path who she needs to ensure are made unquestionably aware that the way they have acted and continue to act is not acceptable.

This film gets off to a biting start with its opening scene, which features shots of men dancing in khakis, framed the way that women are often used as eye candy. From there, Cassie delights in faking confusion and inebriation and then terrifying whatever man was unlucky enough to have taken her home so that he will forever feel ashamed of himself. It’s a very effective formula, one that leads to plenty of humor in the way that it exposes depravity and the lengths men will go to in order to justify their actions as superior to someone else’s who would have done worse.

Mulligan, who got her big break when “An Education” premiered at the Sundance Film Festival eleven years ago, delivers a tour de force performance as Cassie, playing each scene differently as it best suits her to make her point. It’s an extraordinary turn, one that should hopefully bring her back into the awards spotlight. The rest of the ensemble is well-cast, including Burnham, but none hold a candle to Mulligan. This extremely entertaining, entirely captivating film is much more than a revenge thriller. In her feature film debut, “Killing Eve” writer Emerald Fennell has crafted a scathing satire that works on every level and never fails to enthrall.

A-

Sundance with Abe: Downhill

I'm writing up some of the films I see for The Film Experience. Head over there to read my take on "Downhill," the American remake of the Swedish film "Force Majeure."

Sundance with Abe: Promising Young Woman

I'm at the Sundance Film Festival and recording one-minute reviews of everything I see. Subscribe to the movieswithabe YouTube channel to catch them all!

Sundance with Abe: Downhill

I'm at the Sundance Film Festival and recording one-minute reviews of everything I see. Subscribe to the movieswithabe YouTube channel to catch them all!

Sundance with Abe: Falling

Falling
Directed by Viggo Mortensen
Premieres - Closing Night Film

As parents get older, it often falls to their adult children to take care of them in a way not so unlike how they were raised as babies and toddlers. That can be an extraordinarily difficult adjustment, both for the kids who must sacrifice their time and other priorities to make sure their parents are okay, and the parents who were used to being in a position of authority now having to be subservient to the children they brought into the world. Stubbornness is all too common in older adults who think they can still take care of themselves, and it’s much worse if they were already fairly close-minded before reaching old age.

John (Viggo Mortensen) flies with his father, Willis (Lance Henriksen), from his upstate New York farm to John’s California home so that they can begin to look for a house where Willis can live. When he arrives, he claims not to remember any conversation about moving, and he immediately begins his typical tirade of insults about John’s sexual orientation, the national origins of his husband Eric (Terry Chen), and memories of his wife. John struggles to stay calm and keep from exploding at the man (Sverrir Gudnason) who was terrible to him as a child, and who now continues to confuse John’s mother (Hannah Gross) with his second wife (Bracken Burns), both of whom are now deceased.

There is another film about someone dealing with a parent losing their memory at Sundance this year, “The Father.” That film finds its title character being harsh with his daughter because he doesn’t want to be told that he’s lost it, but there’s a sense that they once had a good relationship, and that this mindset comes with old age and memory loss. That’s not the case with Willis, who speaks down to his wife in front of her friends and their children, chastises his young daughter for crying, and berates his son for not being a real man long before a loss of filter can be used as an excuse. It’s difficult to connect with him as a character and to feel anything but sadness for his family members who have always had to put up with his intolerance and cruelty.

This film marks Mortensen’s directorial debut, and he also serves as screenwriter and composer. There are some good ideas here, but the overall effect is a rather depressing and unreedeming story. Mortensen’s performance is fine, but the real stars here are Henriksen, who is now 79 years old, and Swedish actor Gudnason, who are not charged with humanizing Willis and instead portray him as the terrible person he is. Since there’s no real saving grace with Willis, it’s equally hard to find one in a film that feels like it could be headed somewhere but doesn’t really manage to get there.

C+

Sundance with Abe: Falling

I'm at the Sundance Film Festival and recording one-minute reviews of everything I see. Subscribe to the movieswithabe YouTube channel to catch them all!

Sundance with Abe: Herself

I'm at the Sundance Film Festival and recording one-minute reviews of everything I see. Subscribe to the movieswithabe YouTube channel to catch them all!

Sundance with Abe: Palm Springs

I'm writing up some of the films I see for The Film Experience. Head over there to read my take on "Palm Springs," a hilarious time loop comedy starring Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti.

Sundance with Abe: Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness

Yalda, a Night for Forgiveness
Directed by Massoud Bakshi
World Cinema Dramatic Competition

There are laws in some countries that are so foreign to what Americans know that they seem unthinkable. In places ruled by religious doctrine, there is often an overlap between biblical justice and criminal policies that don’t feel like they’ve been truly modified from ancient times. This can serve to penalize those who wouldn’t be treated as criminals elsewhere or would at least be permitted a legitimate defense that they won’t get under archaic laws. One such law in Iran allows a woman who murders her husband to be spared the death penalty if his family forgives her.

Maryam (Sadaf Asgari) has been convicted and slated for execution after accidentally killing her much older husband. Because it is Yalda, the winter solstice in Iran, a popular TV program has decided that it should be a night of forgiveness, where Maryam will have the opportunity to be absolved of her crime by Mona (Behnaz Jafari), the daughter of her late husband. Viewers will be invited to text in their votes of support, and if a high enough threshold is met, the blood money owed to Mona will be paid by the program’s sponsors. Maryam and Mona are guests just like on any other show, but the stakes are much higher than just getting the answers to a few questions correct.

Writer-director Bakshi wasn’t present at the Sundance screening but sent along a video explaining his process and motivations for making this film. The fact that it was actually shot in Iran after obtaining many permits is impressive, and he said that he wasn’t sure whether real life inspired and shaped this film or if it was the other way around. This film plays out at times like an ultra-serious version of “Slumdog Millionaire,” where a young woman’s fate is being decided by another and she is constantly being told to calm down, as if she wasn’t literally fighting for her life.

The framing device works decently here in drawing attention to a phenomenon that is all too common, even if it doesn’t always play out in such a fantastical way. This film is frequently infuriating due to the characters it showcases and the manner in which they demean Maryam and act as if she should be grateful that she isn’t entirely doomed to death. Relative newcomer Asgari and popular Iranian actress Jafari deliver passionate performances, infusing an important piece of social commentary with the right amount of sincere and complicated humanity.

B

Sundance with Abe: Shirley

Shirley
Directed by Josephine Decker
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Imagination is important for any writer, but in order to be able to construct fictional characters and narratives, there must be some real-life inspiration. Many authors travel a great deal so that they can see and experience as much of the world as possible. Others, for whatever reason, are not inclined to go beyond what they know and what feels familiar, retreating into a world of their invention rather than interacting with other people. A lack of social contact can intensify the effect of one particular person, who may in fact become a muse, motivating an author to great creative heights.

Rose (Odessa Young) and Fred (Logan Lerman) move to Vermont so that Fred can pursue a career as a professor at a local college. They arrange to stay with Stanley Hyman (Michael Stuhlbarg), a respected professor, and his wife Shirley Jackson (Elisabeth Moss), a famed horror author. Rose, who has academic ambitions of her own, is relegated to cleaning the house and keeping an eye on the reclusive Shirley in exchange for their room and board. Initially resistant to the idea and Shirley’s toxic mood swings, Rose eventually comes to see Shirley for who she really is, as the author also begins to take a liking to her unwanted babysitter.

This film is meant to be a biopic of Jackson, who wrote many well-known short stories and several books over the course of her career in the mid-1900s. Shirley is indeed a featured character, but this film doesn’t really get to know her. It opens with her already mostly confined to her home, expressing displeasure at her husband’s penchant for affairs with other women, something that she has approved so long as phone calls from any of them don’t interrupt their dinner. Shirley has clearly been through a lot, and her eagerness to find inspiration in newspaper clippings about a missing college girl takes most of her focus until Rose demonstrates her value.

Much of this film features Shirley and Stanley delighting at chipping away at whatever self-confidence their younger guests have. Shirley comes on strong early as she gets into Rose’s head, and Stanley refuses to acknowledge Fred as anything more than competent when he asks him for a recommendation so that he can fast-track his career. Whatever talents they may have, Shirley and Stanley are not nice people, and this film often feels just as alienating as its characters. Moss and Stuhlbarg are indeed good, disappearing into their roles, but that’s enough to make this long and tedious film, a different kind of horror filled with horrific people, palatable.

C+

Sundance with Abe: Beast Beast

Beast Beast
Directed by Danny Madden
NEXT

Social media has expanded the world considerably for a lot of people. It’s a way that teenagers and young adults can be connected to their friends at all times, even when they’re physically in the same place, and it can also serve to foster communication between those who live in faraway places or are from radically different age or socioeconomic groups. Becoming an Internet star is a dream of many, and anyone who tries hard enough is likelier to experience harsh backlash from those who aren’t interested in what they have to say than to actually succeed.

In a southern town in the United States, Krista (Shirley Chen) focuses most of her energy on theater at her high school. She is intrigued by the arrival of Nito (Jose Angeles), a new kid in town whose skateboarding videos showcase true talent. As Nito spends more time with friends who appreciate his ability to get in and out of places undetected, he and Krista begin to develop a close relationship. Krista’s neighbor, Adam (Will Madden) is now twenty-four and still living with his parents, spending all of his time filming gun videos and refreshing his stats to see how many people have viewed them.

This film is reminiscent of the 2014 Sundance entry “Hits,” which follows a man looking for a platform and his daughter pining desperately for Internet stardom. This film, though full of laughs, is more serious, particularly as it follows its narrative beyond the events summarized above. Adam is someone whose appreciation for good weaponry isn’t rooted in a desire to kill or rid the world of those he believes are inferior, but those are absolutely the people who comment on his videos, and his worldview definitely leans that direction when he expresses a surprising concern about defending his family, to which his parents respond dismissively that they live in an incredibly safe area.

As an expression of social commentary, this film serves a purpose. Crafting three compelling characters who are all very different and convincingly portrayed by three talented young actors is also a success. But there’s still something off-kilter and unfocused about this film, which chooses a strange title that feels only tangentially appropriate and is prone to some more experimental flourishes. It’s absolutely a perfect fit for Sundance’s NEXT section, probing new ways of thinking about what an era dominated by social media can really mean for society.

B

Sundance with Abe: Dinner in America

Dinner in America
Directed by Adam Carter Rehmeier
U.S. Dramatic Competition

There is a wide spectrum of behavior practiced by families, clearest most when everyone is seated around the dinner table. There are those who, for example, use cloth napkins, eat politely with no distractions, and refrain from the consumption of drugs and alcohol while also abstaining from the use of foul language. Others have the television on, shout and swear at each other, and rarely have a calm experience that doesn’t end with a shattered dish or a broken heart. Having the two encounter each undeniably leads to interesting things.

Angry punk rocker Simon (Kyle Gallner) emerges from a test study and wastes no time in nearly breaking up a family and setting their lawn on fire. On the run from the police, he encounters Patty (Emily Skeggs), a highly impressionable outcast who has just been fired from her job and is happy to help Simon find somewhere to lay low. As he spins a tale about missionary work in Africa to convince her gullible parents, Simon learns more about his host, who it turns out harbors a love for the masked singer whose secret identity is none other than Simon himself. Though they’re nothing alike, they find surprising common ground and help each other become better through a series of wild experiences.

There is an aggression that follows Simon everywhere he goes, and a furious musical beat that introduces his volatile tendencies. Patty, whose parents tell her to “take it down a notch” when she seems even mildly upset and who is frequently mocked by others who perceive her as slow, is so fascinated by Simon in a nonjudgmental way, making both of them more vulnerable since he tells her what he’s planning and she’s along for the ride without any true concept of what’s coming. Much of what occurs in this film is extremely irreverent, but there’s a serious appeal to this unusual story of friendship and highly unlikely romance.

Gallner, who sports an uneven haircut that merits comments from multiple people he encounters in the film, brings a fantastically immutable rage to Simon, who is endearing despite the fact that he tears down - and often beats up - pretty much everyone he meets. Skeggs brings a sensitivity to Patty that makes her gradual buildup of self-confidence all the more terrific. They’re a superb duo, guided well by the vision of writer-director Adam Carter Rehmeier. This is an inarguably strange film, but it’s one that manages to make its content work, against all odds.

B

Sundance with Abe: The 40-Year-Old Version

The 40-Year-Old Version
Directed by Radha Blank
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Art gives people the opportunity to share their experiences and worldviews. What isn’t always possible for everyone, however, is the access to a wider audience to broadcast that message and perspective. In some cases, a person with great creativity and vision may only be able to get their work out into the world with the help of someone who has the resources to do it but insists on changes to make it more palatable and widely relatable. That process can serve to corrupt the original intent, making the value of its production questionable.

Radha (Radha Blank) is fast approaching forty, and she isn’t where she wanted to be. She is teaching drama at a school while trying hard to stage a production of her latest play about Harlem. With the help of her loyal manager and lifelong friend Archie (Peter Y. Kim), her play is set to be put on by a wealthy white producer (Reed Birney) who wants to ensure that her story of a black community facing gentrification includes white faces so that the audience can relate. Upset about its direction, she considers a return to rapping, putting the words she writes so well to rhyme and attempting to express herself as everything becomes too much to bear.

While this film features an instance of pure, honest work being turned into something that looks nothing like it, the overall project here is filled with a genuine sincerity. Blank, who serves as writer, director, and star, brings her signature personality to this formidable character, a woman with many strengths who is all too susceptible to being brought down by a taunt from one of her students or a disparaging comment from someone who thinks she hasn’t gotten anywhere in her life. When she meets D (Oswin Benjamin), an artist set to provide her with a beat for her raps, she is opened up to a new way of thinking, one that will begin to guide her towards a place of more self-worth.

This film makes excellent use of black-and-white cinematography to frame its story, which Blank describes as her love letter to New York City. It feels in many ways like a classic New York movie, one that lives and breathes the streets of the city without always explicitly referencing or emphasizing where a given scene takes place. This film is wondrously fresh, totally committed to its main character, no matter where she may end up going. Blank is a marvel, and this astounding debut behind the camera should be a sign of many great things to come for the multi-talented artist.

B+

Sundance with Abe: Save Yourselves

Save Yourselves
Directed by Alex Huston Fischer
U.S. Dramatic Competition

Millennials have a tendency to spend too much time on their phones. What didn’t exist for previous generations is all too available, keeping information easily searchable and much of the mystery of life too solvable. Some people, when they notice that they rarely look up from their phones and actually talk, choose to unplug for a period of time, to reconnect with themselves and others, as well as with nature. That can be good and all, though it’s always possible that the one time people aren’t connected is precisely where they most need to be.

Jack (John Reynolds) and Su (Sunita Mani) are in a bit of a rut and feel that they could use some time away from the Internet and the city. They decide to take a week off and leave Brooklyn to head up to a friend’s house in the woods. They find a charming place waiting for them, one that can’t immediately fix all their problems but offers and idyllic environment in which to try being honest. What they don’t know, however, is that aliens that look like rats are invading New York, and their choice to disconnect couldn’t have come at a more disastrous time.

Much of the humor in this film comes from the questionable decisions that Jack and Su make and the idiotic things that they say. For those who do have so much access to information, they’re ignorant of quite a bit, and that’s amplified considerably when they have to contend with the murderous aliens they refer to as “poofs” because they initially think they must just be decorative furry pillows. Those laughs only go so far, but this reviewer’s audience was cracking up at the incredible level of incompetence demonstrated by these technologically-dependent people with no idea what they’re up against and pretty poor notions of how to fight it.

Reynolds and Mani do a great job of leaning into their characters, delivering their lines with purpose and energetically conveying their weaknesses. They’re having fun and embracing this film for the absurdity that it is. While it is funny, it’s also extremely over-the-top, and at a certain point it’s just a mockery about stupid people whose ability to survive an alien invasion is truly baffling. In the end, it’s more fun than not, and this film might have more value as a parody of sci-fi or horror films that give their protagonists all too much credit.

B

Sunday, February 2, 2020

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