Sundance 2013 – batch 2
January 25th, 2013 at 6:31 am (Movies, Reviews)
In movies, it seems, normal suburban families are only normal for the first reel. Then problems surface; in Breathe In it happens after the family accepts a visit from a fetching and musically talented exchange student, played with easy charm by Felicity Jones. The script paces the will-they-or-won’t-they-get-together expertly, and a few beautiful musical performances elevate the romance in this bittersweet movie. B+
Documentary Salma tells the extraordinary story of a Tamil woman’s life of resistance against the mindless tradition of her Muslim village in India, and the lengthy home imprisonment she endured as a consequence of her efforts to assert her basic rights and educate herself. She ultimately succeeded in gaining notoriety by getting her poetry published, but only by getting it smuggled out of her home.
Salma was present at the Q/A following the screening, and, through a translator, made it clear that the key to effecting change for women in that culture is to allow them to receive an education. B
The writing/directing team behind 2011’s twilight-zony Sound of My Voice returns to Sundance with the more ambitious thriller The East. The tale follows the exploits of a young, ambitious, corporate security consultant who mixes with a band of anarchists bent on righting the various wrongs corporate America has inflicted on the masses.
The film explores the motivation of the domestic terrorists as they debate tactics. It turns out that if you are spurning a society’s laws and social norms to achieve your own agenda, reaching a consensus on how to go about it is, gosh, so hard. With some engaging action scenes, solid performances, especially by cowriter and lead actress Brit Marling, and a few creepy moments, this film survives a muddled anti-corporate agenda to provide a fun ride. B
Slow paced and occasionally messy, like life on a cow farm, documentary The Moo Man spends 98 minutes telling the story of one year on a small family-owned cow farm in England. The film is rich with detail on the daily operations, on the surprisingly personal relationship the workers have with the livestock, and also on the large-scale market economics that are working against small farms. The people were interesting; some of the cows had personalities but were still cows. C+
During an angst-filled summer vacation on Cape Cod, a meek teenage boy stumbles into some friendships that raise his confidence a few notches in The Way, Way Back. A nicely crafted script and direction by oscar-winning writers / cult-TV characters Nat Faxon and Jim Rash provides heart warming comedy, and gives Sam Rockwell and Alison Janney some great parts that they deliver with comic perfection. The amusement-park-as-life-changing-experience theme is not exactly original; for example, it was done with style in Sundance 2009’s period piece Adventureland. This one has a bit more substance. A