While the Sundance Film Festival rides out until the 30th of this month, I have reached the end of my viewing road last night. That’s right, there were even more movies shoved into this past week! Days five through seven offered some pretty good films, including my favorite of the festival! Let’s dive in.
Emily the Criminal – Emily is hard up on luck. Failing to graduate from art school many moons ago after a felony assault charge, she is scraping by with a catering job. One day a co-worker gives her a secretive number saying she could make 200 dollars in an hour. She goes to the location the number gives her and then is told she’d have to do something illegal to get the money: make a purchase with stolen credit card information. She does it, and then decides to keep doing it. The catch is that the longer her cons go on, the more dangerous the scenarios. The rules also get more complicated, so when Emily relaxes her defenses a few times, she pays the price. Some unexpected bonus out of all this is falling for the guy who runs the cons. Something totally different for Aubrey Plaza in this role, but still has that awesome indie film quality to it. I love Theo Rossi in his supporting role, as well.
Sharp Stick – For a film that had a pretty short run time, this thing felt like it dragged on forever. Sarah Jo is a woman in her mid-twenties, who kind of still acts like a child, but due to some early teen trauma, she sort of missed out on all of the important pubescent and sexual encounters she probably should have. She ends up pursuing Josh, the father of a kid she babysits. The two explore a lot together, but when he decides to shun her in favor of his family (because, yes), she reaches out to her dream porn star for advice. I mean…don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of parts in this film that were sexy, but it just was kind of like surface level entertainment for me. And that’s a shame, because Jon Bernthal’s ass is in this.
Cha Cha Real Smooth – I think this feel good film comes away as my favorite of the whole fest! And if Film Twitter is anything to go by, I’m not alone. Andrew is kind of an aimless recent college grad, who’s back living at home and working at a fast food mall joint. He finds a little bit of a calling as a Bar Mitzvah hype-man, when he gets the party going for one of his younger brother’s friends. There, he is also taken with a young mother, Domino and her autistic daughter, Lola. The three bond so closely, but Domino reveals she is engaged. That doesn’t really stop them from flirting endlessly. Sure, Andrew hits some road blocks on this recent stint in his life, but at his core you can see he’s a good person just trying to figure out who he is. Lots of topical things make their way into this film, that the director/actor himself called “a love letter to mothers.” This thing was so sweet, and I can’t wait to watch it again. Thank you Apple+ for picking it up!
Am I OK? – This was definitely a rom-com that I personally didn’t find all that funny, but it was light and enjoyable nonetheless. Lucy and Jane are best friends in their early thirties, just living life. Jane is more career focused while Lucy is kind of wobbling through life a little bit. She’s given up on her passion of painting, and once Jane announces she’s moving to London for a job opportunity, Lucy breaks down and confesses she might be gay. I suppose it was the fear of losing her best friend to make her come to this realization, but she’s embarrassed that she doesn’t fully know herself this late in her life. I’m sure plenty of people can relate to that! All parts of this film had their enjoyable moments, I just thought it was weird to combine two pretty prominent story lines into one thing. I would say check out the other Dakota Johnson Sundance effort (Cha Cha Real Smooth) instead.
Palm Trees & Power Lines – Woah. I just kept seeing Film Twitter compare this to Red Rocket before I watched this film, but what I got instead was something much darker and punishing. This film never let up to bring any levity to the situation, which I don’t necessarily think it should have done. But other than the age/power dynamics of the relationships at the forefront of these films, I kind of fail to see their similarities. Yes, the men in these films are grooming their younger female “love interests” for some sort of personal gain, but in this specific drama, Tom takes things a worse step further. Who knows, maybe Red Rocket would have gotten there if we’d followed his story further (and more successfully), but the brutality that Lea faces is devastating, and then at the end, realistically disturbing. Who knows if this film will see the light of day, but I thought it managed to tackle some really tough subject matter quite delicately.