By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Meredith Hama-Brown
Starring: Ally Maki | Luke Roberts | Nyha Huang Breitkreuz | Remy Marthaller | Sarah Gadon
Year: 2024
Running time: 115
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23642420/reference/
Michael says: “Still reeling from her mother’s death, and finding herself in a stagnant marriage, Judith, a Japanese-Canadian woman takes her family to a couples’ therapy retreat. There her two daughters explore the Pacific coast while their parents work on their issues. SEAGRASS explores a lot of issues, the challenges of marriage, grief, racial tensions, masculinity and femininity, coming-of-age, sexuality, and more. Hama-Brown does much of it gracefully, and is able to integrate many of her topics seamlessly into her story. However, there are some characters that seem more like caricatures to make a point, and as a first feature writer/director, Hama-Brown’s ambitions may have outpaced her skill level.
“It’s rare when a film about family provides me more interest in the children than the parents, but that certainly seemed to be the case in SEAGRASS. The children just seemed more authentic and even relatable. Emmy and Stephanie, the two daughters of the featured family are strongly writtenand well portrayed by Remy Marthaller and Nyha Huang Breitkreuz respectively. As Judith, Ally Maki has a difficult task and is saddled with a character that is complex, yet either the script or the performance lets her down. I’m not sure which. Judith’s husband, Steve, played by Luke Roberts (THE BATMAN) seems much more stereotypical at first, but emerges as the more realistic and in some ways, sympathetic character, a turnaround I don’t believe the director intended. Chris Pang (CRAZY RICH ASIANS; PALM SPRINGS) brings charisma to his role as half of another couple in therapy, but his character is just silly in many ways, and it’s hard for him to rise above it.
“All criticisms aside, SEAGRASS is a strong effort for a first feature-length narrative. The cinematography by Norm Li is impressive, capturing the mystery and untamed nature of the Pacific Northwest coast. Composer Oscar Vargas does some interesting work as both Composer and Sound Designer, both of which are fairly integral to the story. 3 cats
“Screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, Friday, 9/8”
Chris says: “A touchy-feely couples retreat with activities so you can bring the kids along? What could possibly go wrong? In Meredith Hama-Brown’s mid-90s-set indie drama, husband and wife Judith (Ally Maki) and Steve (Luke Roberts) and their two young girls travel to the British Columbia coast for this vacation of sorts and no one seems very happy about it. As the parents confront their drifting, gradually fracturing relationship with opposing tactics that do not prove especially helpful for either of them, 11-year-old Stephanie (Nyha Breitkreuz) and 6-year-old Emmy (Remy Marthaller) both deal with their own issues: perhaps due to Judith’s mom having passed away six months before, Stephanie exhibits antisocial behavior while Emmy believes her grandmother’s ghost is omnipresent, observing and also haunting them at their resort and the nearby jagged, voluminous ocean caves.
“While often a fount of amusing material, new age-y couples therapy is a rather easy and familiar target for satire and this hits all the expected notes: props, trustfall-like exercises, screaming and the like. It’s fortunate, then, that not only is the cast game for it, they all function together as a deeply believable dysfunctional unit, one with a shared, extensive history that’s palpable even before specifics are revealed. What pushes the film even further beyond its simple premise is its expansive sound design and sense and manipulation of space. The sequences where Emmy is left to her own devices, letting her imagination and superstition take precedence are gorgeous and eerie, opening up the film to consider the ambience of a world that can seem mysterious and unfamiliar to any six-year-old. Building to a maelstrom of a final act, SEAGRASS evolves from predictable to nearly extraordinary. 4 cats
“Screened at TIFF 2023 (where it won the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics) Prize); no US distribution yet.”