By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 4 cats
Director: Mona Fastvold
Starring: Andreea Vasile | Casey Affleck | Christopher Abbott | Daniel Blumberg | Ioachim Ciobanu | Karina Ziana Gherasim | Katherine Waterston | Vanessa Kirby
Country: united_states
Year: 2021
Running time: 105
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt9738716/reference
Michael says: “Stories of forbidden love are nothing new. Even adding a historical context, and a same sex passion isn’t all that original anymore. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do something beautiful with it. Witness this year’s Best Movie winner, PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE. It’s only natural to compare Mona Fastvold’s sophomore narrative directorial effort, THE WORLD TO COME to that film, and there are worse comparisons. But while the two woman in PORTRAIT explore the gaze, Abigail and Tallie’s connection is more cerebral… although there’s plenty of gaze there as well.
“This 19th century tale finds Abigail running a farm with her husband Dyer, struggling through a harsh upstate New York winter after losing their only child to diphtheria. Her grief is overwhelming, and she writes about it in her journal with a lyricism that betrays her hunger for knowledge. When new neighbors, Tallie and Finney move in the two woman turn to each other in their loneliness. Abigail’s language and knowledge turn her inward, while Tallie moves through life like a flower, straining for the sun, reaching for the breeze, her entire body vibrating with tactile awareness, even as her agile mind responds to Abigail’s intellect. At first Dyer is pleased that his wife has found a friend, but eventually their bond seems to supplant that of husband and wife. Finney, on the other hand is controlling and pompous, pushing Tillie to spend more and more time with Abigail.
“Ultimately the cruelty and power of men leads this story to an expected conclusion, but the time Fastvold spends drawing these two women out to become who they were meant to be is beautiful and revelatory. Some have complained of the overuse of Abigail’s journal as narration, but the language is exquisite and Abigail’s voice is sincere and searching. Tallie’s physicality is a perfect counterpoint, and their relationship is beautifully teased out. As portrayed by Katherine Waterston and Vaness Kirby, the two women become real as individual, but also real as symbols of womanhood in a time when women had little agency or control of their lives. Their chemistry is lovely. In a film that is so focused on the two women, I must say I was pleasantly surprised by Casey Affleck’s slow-burn, sympathetic portrayal of Dyer as well. Sullen and stingy with words he gives a quietly moving performance, in severe counterpoint to Christopher Abbott’s sociopathic Finney. It’s unfortunate that Abbot has the task of playing the representative of the villainous patriarchy, particularly despicable for its’ ruin of the beautiful story emerging from the protagonists. Not that he doesn’t do it well, given what little time he has on screen. High marks for production design and cinematography, incarnating the frontier farmer life through a brutal winter, before bursting with live and love into a ripe spring. And Waterston and Finney are on my early list of acting nominees. 4 cats“