By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Dan Sallitt
Starring: Lorelei Romani | Norma Kuhling | Tallie Medel
Country: united_states
Year: 2020
Running time: 94
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9626278
Michael says: “Everyone who’s made it through college and into their 30’s has a friend like Jo. Often attractive, always charismatic, usually the center of attention, self-involved, and source for lots of unnecessary drama, these are friends who take up a lot of energy, and often make you feel exhausted every time you hang out with them. Mara and Jo have been friends since they met in middle school. Now they are in their mid to late 20’s, living in Brooklyn and embarking on their adult lives. Mara is a teacher’s aide in the public school system, trying to get her first job as a teacher, and Jo is a social worker helping troubled teens. But while Mara is responsible and level-headed, Jo is what you would probably refer to as a train wreck, having trouble keeping a job, sleeping a lot, always showing up late, if she shows up at all, and expecting Mara to drop everything whenever she needs help. It’s the type of behavior that gets increasingly tiresome and difficult to deal with the further into adult life we get and Mara is no exception. Yet Jo is a good friend, and Mara tries, she tries to hard, cancelling on her mother who is visiting from the west coast, rushing over to Jo’s apartment late at night when her current boyfriend calls terrified that Jo is going to hurt herself, only to find the usual dramatics. Yet still she tries… and how hard is hard enough before it just becomes too overwhelming.
“This portrait of a friendship by writer/director/editor Dan Sallitt, is beautifully drawn, with less than $100,000 dollars no less. It’s a movie where the story is more important than the production design or the setting. And Sallitt writes a good story, one we can all relate to. He’s also particularly lucky with his two lead actresses, Tallie Medel as Mara, and Norma Kuhling as Jo. Both embody their characters beautifully, and convert real emotion without ever tripping into melodrama or acting theatrics. It’s a strong, low-key, indie film in the mode of Hal Hartley’s early work, although without the arch humor, and a tad more tragedy, as the roots of Jo’s behavior are unearthed. We never know precisely what’s wrong, but we don’t need to. We’re given enough to understand, to relate, and to feel for the inevitable destination toward which this dark path is leading. 4 cats“