WHEN FRIENDS ask me how this year’s Sundance Festival was, I always have a stock answer ready: “It was very Sergio Leone: good, bad and ugly.
The good of course was the variety of films on offer with some real quality mixed in among the dross and the unfailing good humor of the festival volunteers. The bad was some of the films, the unbelievable crowds and the constant blizzard conditions. As for the ugly…I can think of a couple of doormen with bad haircuts and worse attitudes, but given the amount of charlatans out there trying to get past the velvet ropes and into the inner sanctum I suppose I can’t blame them.
So here is a personal list of the best movies of the week, presented in alphabetical order.
A GHOST STORY: a moving meditation on loneliness, loss and our ability to accept fate in all its brutality. David Lowery’s absorbing tale stars Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck, the latter as a man who dies in a car crash and then comes back to observe his bereaved wife’s agony at their remote Texas home as a ghost dressed in a white sheet. Critic were divided on this film but I found it fascinating…in many ways it reminded me of a European art-house movie from the 1970s, plenty of leisurely-paced, thought provoking images, not much action, but with themes and ideas that haunt you long after you leave the theater.
BRIGSBY BEAR: An absurd and charming look at super-fandom and the arrest development it brings, this film stars co-writer Kyle Mooney (of SNL fame) as a devotee of a weird live action children’s television show which he has been watching since childhood and is unable to tear himself away from. He doesn’t just love the bear who is the show’s hero, he has incorporated the show’s look, fables and ethos into his life. And when he is faced with new challenges and people in his life, his struggle to adapt is both moving and thought-provoking. Excellent work from Mooney and director Dave McCary.
BUSHWICK: this one is a guilty pleasure. Focusing on how the locals flight back after Brooklyn is invaded by a gun toting militia, there are plenty of well-executed scenes of mayhem, dynamic pacing, thrills and chills. The plot line is paper-thin – ‘city under siege fights for survival’ anyone? But grab some popcorn and enjoy.
MUDBOUND: For me this was the pick of the crop. Dee Rees’ Mudbound is both challenging and moving, immaculate in its recreation of a certain time and place yet completely contemporary in it’s themes. Focusing on two families in the racially-divided, 1940s Mississippi Delta, the film stars Jason Clarke and Carey Mulligan as Henry and Laura McAllan, who have recently relocated to a farm they’ve purchased with their last bit of savings. Sharecropping on the same land are Hap and Florence Jackson (Rob Morgan and Mary J. Blige). Both families are struggling to get and keep their heads above water, and for the Jacksons there is more to deal with, the constant harassment and racism, often from Henry’s father (Jonathan Banks). The story is seasoned by the introduction of Henry’s brother and Hap’s son, both serving in the war, which allows them – if not their parents – to step outside the bonds of class and race issues that define their society. The story of struggle, of change, of adaptation and understanding between these two families is completely compelling and director Dee Rees looks completely sure-footed in finding shoots of optimism among the mire that allow both families to rise just a little, and be just a little less…Mudbound.
TO THE BONE: a chilling look at one young woman’s descent into the dark holes of anorexia, the film features a star-making turn by Lily Collins as Ellen, who’s close to collapse as she refuses all treatment for his disease, much to the agony of half-sister Kelly (Liana Liberato) and stepmother Susan (Carrie Preston). When she finally agrees to enter treatment, she is met with an unconventional doctor (Keane Reeves) and enjoys a meet cute with another anorexic (Alex Sharp) and romance ensues…sort of. Marti Noxon’s directorial debut is fearless, unsentimental and thoroughly absorbing.
– Franz Amussen
