Rattle Basket

Sometimes it takes a black matriarch to set everything right

2007

Review: January 23, 2007

Director: Thomas L. Phillips

Starring: Gia Natale, Amanda MacDonald, Alex Walters, Barbara Jacques, Ray Fuller

Not necessary, but an enhancement, as always.

THE SETUP:

Two sisters take an unhealthy interest in their male friend’s love life.

DISCUSSION:

So this director wrote me and said he liked my site and would love it if I reviewed his film. Flattery: it works. Now normally this site is all about movies that you [the reader] could run out and see, but I watched the trailer [and so can you, right here] and it was GOOD. So I agreed to watch it. Now, surely you can imagine the trepidation to watch someone’s virtually unseen film because—what if it sucks? So imagine my great relief to discover that the movie itself is good, REALLY good. So although you can’t run out and watch it right now [as I know you do with every movie I recommend], you can watch for it at film festivals [find screening information here] and, fuck I know about it, but I’d be surprised if you weren’t watching something that will get picked up and be among the next big indie things.

We’re in L.A. The first thing we see is Amanda MacDonald as Cerina staring at a little dog. She meets her sister, Gia Natale as Tabitha, and they take the dog home. Already we have noticed that the film looks great—no pervading sense of “oh, this is really low-budge,” and that the director has a nice visual sense. The two sisters go home where their roommate and childhood friend Stuart is sleeping with some woman. “The mouth breather’s still here,” Cerina says, then goes in to put her face right to the woman, and we hear her mouth breathing up close. Stuart wakes and then does the woman, running out, finding it “disconcerting” to awaken with some stranger that close to her while sleeping. Stuart is annoyed, but we get the sense that this is not the first time this happened. Cerina betrays no remorse or sense that she’s being even slightly annoying. I have written in my notes: “Cerina is a sociopath.”

Now Tabitha has an ex-boyfriend Edgar, a cop, who won’t let her go and beats and possibly raped her. Now Stuart, who has the same open, nerdily adorable face as cute little Sean Astin from The Lord of the Rings, goes over to Edgar’s and threatens him. This is an act of tremendous courage, as obviously Stuart is too sweet and mild to effect any damage on the mean, muscular Edgar, but he bluffs it, and it works. And I am so into it, because I appreciate having these rather interesting scenes with askew characters, and here it works because there is such an underlying sense of real menace. Now anyone who has read my review of Thumbsucker knows how impatient I am with goofy indie movies with quirky characters, but the inclusion of sociopaths and a pervading sense of potential violence kept my dark-side-lovin’ sense into it.

Oh, by the way, Edgar keeps a picture of Roy Scheider on his wall, and before Stuart goes up there we have a hilarious bit with a gay Polynesian fussbuget who lives in the same building. This actually gave me the idea for a future essay in which we consider whether it is bigoted to assume that a character is gay because they act, well, really gay. We then join Tabitha and Cerina at their job at this pizza joint, run by a guy who is constantly praying to the “baby Jesus,” even for a successful night of pizza-making. This scene is were the writing tips its toe into the precious, which it does periodically, but the underlying dark side of the characters and the enhanced hyper-reality the film is constructed in rein it in. The director told me that he considers the movie to be “real,” but I had the opposite sense: that it exists in a bubble of non-reality, which I think is a lot of what keeps the viewer from rolling their eyes at the preciousness and takes what could become mawkishly “quirky” and keeps it at what I consider to be a more advanced meta distance; this is not reality, but a movie with made-up characters, meant to make one reflect on reality. This distance is also what keeps the whole thing so funny, as it is playing along with you, the viewer, rather than asking you to truly embrace its worldview, which can have the opposite effect of alienating one. But maybe I think about these things too much.

Speaking of the humor, I was laughing my ass off throughout. One of the funniest scenes is in the pizzeria, when Tabitha and Cerina spot a new mark in this woman seen crying at a nearby booth. They sit down and begin aggressively talking to her, Cerina delivering one of my favorite exchanges: “The pizza here sucks, right? I know. Are you a lesbian?” Barbara Jacques as Bridgett says “I’m Bridgett,” to which Cerina responds “Lesbian Bridgett? Or I-need-me-a-MAN Bridgett?” The sisters take Bridgett home and lock her in the bathroom, where Stuart is taking a shower. He is forced to talk to her while in nothing but a towel, and eventually they get to know and like each other. At one point Bridgett wisely observes “I get the feeling this isn’t the first time this has happened.”

Tabitha and Cerina retire to the roof, where we get the sense that there may be a slight lesbian tinge to their sisterhood, and Cerina says “Tomorrow we should go find some boys and tell them some lies,” to which one who has the malicious sense that movie sociopaths should be encouraged to inflict further mean-spirited [but fun] harm, says “Yeah!”

In the morning, Tabitha is happily walking down the hall when Edgar appears out of nowhere and grabs her, turning her to sudden terror and crying. It's impressive that the sudden shift in tone works, it’s actually scary [making me curious to know how this director would handle a horror movie or thriller], and Tabitha’s change in affect is completely convincing. Then there’s this whole thing with Cerina and her professor, and their friend Wogbe, whose mother will have a notable presence later, is introduced, and then Cerina is in bed with Tabitha and says “We’re going to need Stuart full-time this week. We’ll have to prematurely end his relationship.” Later in the film Cerina notes her need for “a fictional girlfriend [for Stuart] that we can turn on and off.”

But Stuart’s relationship is just getting going. He has a nice romantic rooftop dinner overseen by a Shatner standee that the director places smack in center of the frame—and it’s hilarious. Even more impressively, it STAYS hilarious. Every time that thing appears on screen, it’s funny again! But I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to tell you about the story. It all goes along well and is satisfyingly resolved by a somewhat unexpected but successful twist.

The actors are all very good, and for the most part the movie is free of that “Okay, we’re acting now,” sense that can pervade similar low-budge movies. I particularly enjoyed the performance of Gia Natale as Tabitha, as she gives her character a real impish delight that makes her seem a little mischievous, but just this side of crazy, unlike her sister. Alex Walters is also an excellent bit of casting as Stuart, because he IS genuinely magnetic and attractive. He’s like that nerdy guy who just gets cuter and cuter the more you talk to him, which is precisely what this character needs to be. Everyone for the most part is good, but these two really sold it for me.

The photography is also great, with some of the outdoor shots being ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. The lighting looks great, with only a few scenes not quite matching the rest of the picture. The point of all this is that it doesn’t look like a non-professional movie, so you’re not sitting there going “Oh, this is really low-budget. I guess that shot looks pretty good—for such a low budget,” and you can just sit back and enjoy it without that distraction. I don’t know if the budget here was even a million bucks, but the movie, as they say, looks like a million bucks.

Lastly I was really impressed with the director, Thomas L. Phillips, which was a pleasure not only as a moviewatcher but also because I was really worried about having to go back to him saying “Uh, well, that one shot with the dog was, you know, okay.” For a director who has only made a few short films and I think one previous feature, he has a very assured and intelligent visual and rhythmic sense. The shots are interesting, and continue to convey information, guiding the viewer along—which I prefer—instead of forcing you to sit there 10 steps ahead and waiting for the movie to catch up. He knows when to use visual interest to spice up or comment upon the story, and when to step back and just let it unfold. The editing rhythm works very well in service of the script’s humor—the humor builds in sudden bursts that make you laugh, then he assuredly slips back into a more thoughtful and serious tone that keeps the movie beautifully balanced. The writing by Jared Tweedie is 90% very good and sharply observed and 10% slightly too precious and quirky, but the aforementioned directorial distance and mastery of tone prevents Thumbsucker-esque nausea in the viewer.

So that’s it, a nice little movie made with intelligence and care that I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we heard more about.

SHOULD YOU WATCH IT?

Yes, a very good little movie, especially if you like following emerging talent on the indie scene.