More outstanding Sundance films.
Josephine
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States. In English
Writer-director Beth de Araújo has crafted an honest, disturbing, thought-provoking drama with her second feature, Josephine.
The film opens with a very disturbing scene, eight-year-old Josephine (a deeply affecting Mason Reeves) witnesses a traumatizing graphic assault on a woman in Golden Gate Park.
Her overprotective father Damien (Channing Tatum) and fearful, loving mother, Claire (Gemma Chan) do their best to navigate the fallout as well as decide whether their daughter should testify against the perpetrator–she becomes the only potential witness when the victim leaves town.
De Araújo allows us into Josephine’s vulnerable, bewildered and angry headspace where she is constantly seeing the rapist in her home, not necessarily in a manner that is insidious but more because her young mind is trying to understand things no child should ever have to. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a story told from this invasive (in a good cinematic way) perspective before.
Her loving but confused parents disagree about Josephine giving testimony. Claire feels she should be spared. Damien thinks it’s necessary, not only so justice can be served but for his daughter to learn that the world is a dangerous place. “Fair’s not a real thing,” he angrily tells his wife, “we made it up.”
Chan is exceptional. Tatum has been doing incredible work for two decades now, most of it has been under appreciated. A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints, Foxcatcher and last year’s terrific, Roofman are a few examples of films he’s excelled in. His dynamic work here might finally get him the awards attention he’s long deserved.
And kudos to Philip Ettinger who does quite a bit with a small but significant supporting part.
Josephine is deeply engrossing throughout, never dipping into the melodramatic, maudlin or predictable. Instead, there’s a level of empathy and forgiveness in the film that courts the sublime.
Josephine won both the US Dramatic Audience Award as well as the U.S. Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic. The first film to do so since 2021’s Coda, which went on to win the Best Picture Oscar.
Bedford Park
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States. In English and some Korean with English subtitles
Writer-director Stephanie Ahn has crafted a beautiful, complex, uncompromising look at two very different, damaged adults finding common ground with her debut feature, Bedford Park.
Ahn’s enveloping narrative first introduces us to Korean-American Audrey (Moon Choi) standing up to her boss despite the consequences. She gets word that her mother was in a car accident, and she apprehensively returns to her childhood home, when her brother refuses to help.
We also meet Korean-American Eli (Son Sukku) the man responsible for her mother’s car accident. Eli is angry, volatile and verbally abusive. Audrey sees this firsthand when she confronts him with a fair compromise about car damage payments. Yet somehow the two eventually form a palpable, wholly believable bond.
As the narrative unfolds we learn they both had traumatic childhoods and have carried their pain, resentment and disappointment into their adulthood. But in discovering one other, they also find ways to begin to heal.
The writer-director pays close attention to detail, especially when it comes to the nuanced arc of both her main characters. In early scenes where Audrey and Eli are having sex with other people, Audrey needs to be choked and Eli has rather mechanical, rough sex. Neither care to look at their partner. But when these two come together it’s an entirely different, much more tender scenario.
One of many themes the film takes on is loyalty to family and traditional expectations vs. allowing sons and daughters to figure out their own path. Also, the importance of keeping face in front of people to make sure they know you and your family have a great life, even when none of that is true. Relatable? It certainly was to me.
Choi and Sukku, who radiate kinetic energy, are both excellent playing the steely couple who show just enough vulnerability, so we know so much is going on underneath the surface. Yellowstone’s Jefferson White has a blast as in the brief but potent role of Eli’s stepbrother.
The film ends using the haunting Stevie Nicks song, “Beautiful Child,” which tells us all we need to know about what happens next, without spelling it out. A perfect choice.
Bedford Park won the US Dramatic Special Jury Award for Debut Feature and has been acquired by Sony Pictures Classics.
The Incomer
NEXT, United Kingdom, In English,
I can see how Scottish writer-director Louis Paxton’s wacky and bizarre first feature would be divisive. Comedy is subjective and comedy this off-the-wall vicious and brutal, well, it’s not for the squeamish. But I found it to be a hilarious good time! Fuck those who can’t enjoy a dark, absurd, nasty tale of two lunatic siblings and their fierce fight to hold onto their wacky, if misguided, way of life.
The folklore infused story centers on a backwards sister and brother, Isla and Sandy (Gayle Rankin and Grant O’Rourke), living on a remote Scottish island, who see mythical beings and have been taught to be wary of outsiders.
One day, sweet and tentative Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson) arrives, ostensibly to evict and relocate the two loons. And the sibs initially try to scare him off, sometime using deadly tactics. But something odd begins to happen, the sibs slowly become fascinated with certain mainland ways of living that Daniel tells them about. And Daniel takes a fancy to them. Well, really, to Isla, much to the regret of Sandy, who has been crushing on Daniel since he arrived. “I don’t know if I do really love him. I think I just want to look at his bum,” he tells his sister.
These three terribly lonely people find a strange connection with each other, and then more incomers arrive and things get truly uproariously bonkers.
Gleeson is always terrific but here he’s especially touching. O’Rourke balances buffoonery with a deep aching for love…and lust.
A word about Ms. Rankin. I saw her on Broadway as Sally Bowles in Cabaret and hated her. But her performance stayed with me. And as days passed
, I came to realization that the problem wasn’t with her daring interpretation of the iconic character. The problem was with me not wanting to let go of Liza Minnelli and Natasha Richardson’s very different but brilliant takes on the role. Fine line and all that. I ended up appreciating Rankin’s fierce work.
Watching The Incomer, I instantly took a dislike to Isla until I fell in love with her. Rankin is a truly beguiling thesp who has the bizarre ability to create a seemingly reprehensible character and then peel away at her layers until we empathize with her and then fall for her. I dread and cannot wait for what she does next!
The Incomer is the recipient of the NEXT Innovator Award.
Carousel
U.S. Dramatic Competition, United States. In English.
Filmmaker Rachel Lambert creates a fascinating cinematic tapestry with Carousel. There’s a fluidity to the film that quite effectively, elliptically captures the essence of everyday life—we get vignette-like moments of minutiae that bleed into more of the same—until the film stops to allow these long intense scenes between the two main characters. And because it’s so well written and the superb actors are fully-committed, those penetrating, intimate scenes are absolutely riveting to watch.
Set in the suburbs of Cleveland, Chris Pine plays Noah, a lonely, divorced doctor with an anxiety-ridden daughter Maya (Abby Ryder Fortson) and a failing medical practice. One night at his local bar, he sees his old high school girlfriend Rebecca (Jenny Slate) who left for a career in Washington, D.C. but is back to help her parents sell their home.
The two seem to pick up where they left off but must deal with misunderstandings from the past that broke them apart before they can proceed with any type of real relationship.
Pine and Slate do extraordinary work, portraying two messed up souls so afraid of heartbreak, they fight a bond that’s pretty palpable.
Sam Waterston is quite moving as Noah’s mentor.
The film sometimes plays like a harsh, uber-psychoanalytical episode of the brilliant Apple TV series, Shrinking—and that’s a compliment!
Broken English
Spotlight, United Kingdom. In English
I missed Broken English at the Venice Film Festival last year, but I am thrilled I was able to finally see this weird, genre-busting cinematic hybrid that initially put me off but then, about a half hour in, it hooked me and never let go.
Co-directors Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard have ambitiously woven together a tribute to Marianne Faithful, a true icon, who was too-often reduced to the sum of her perceived mistakes by the incredibly misogynistic press and not given credit for her amazing singing and songwriting legacy.
The film creates a fictional research facility, Ministry of Not Forgetting, led by Tilda Swinton and George MacKay (1917) to begin an inquiry into Faithful’s career. They then delve into the life of the legend. Faithful, herself, is there watching past interviews, music clips and footage from her life, commenting on all of it. It’s fascinating, rich stuff. Faithful was ailing at the time (she had a bad bout with COVID) and on oxygen, but still vital, sharp and funny—a true dynamo with a singular style.
Many joys are to be had in seeing the unearthed moments from her life, like her singing Kurt Weil songs, but also in her honesty about confronting fear and her philosophizing about how creativity and memory are inseparable.
The film is also peppered with stirring performances by Beth Orton, Courtney Love, Nick Cave, and Suki Waterhouse.
For Faithful fans and those curious about her life and career, it is must-see. And for cinephiles it’s an entrancing cinematic experiment that pays off.
More to come…
