Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Los Angeles and Mallorca, Spain, the action comedy “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” features a cast of white and Latino characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: Desperate for money, famous actor Nick Cage agrees to a $1 million fee to appear at a wealthy superfan’s birthday party in Mallorca, where he reluctantly gets in the middle of an international espionage case.
Culture Audience: “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” will appeal primarily to fans of star Nicolas Cage and comedies that are satires of real people.
Nicolas Cage, Lily Sheen and Sharon Horgan in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” (Photo by Katalin Vermes/Lionsgate)
It’s not the comedy masterpiece that some people have been hyping it up to be, but “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has plenty of hilarious moments in spoofing Nicolas Cage’s public persona and action films. The movie has some genuinely inspired scenes before the film’s last 20 minutes devolve into stereotypical formulas seen in many other comedic spy capers. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is also an above-average buddy comedy, with touches of family sentimentality to balance out some of the wackiness.
Tom Gormican directed “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” from a screenplay that he co-wrote with Kevin Etten. It’s Gormican’s second feature film, after he made his feature-film directorial debut with the forgettable 2014 male-friendship comedy “That Awkward Moment.” Gormican’s background is mainly as a TV writer/producer, with credits that include “Scrubs,” “Desperate Housewives” and “Ed.” At times, “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” veers into stale TV sitcom territory, but the movie has enough originality and charm to rise above its repetitive clichés. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival in Austin, Texas.
Cage has said in interviews that he initially rejected the idea of doing this movie. It’s a good thing that he changed his mind, because “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is easily one of the funniest comedy films that Cage has done in decades. In the movie, he plays two versions of himself: (1) main character Nick Cage, a present-day version of himself, and (2) Nicky Cage, a younger, brasher version of Cage, circa the late 1980s/early 1990s. (According to the movie’s production notes, Nicky’s physical appearance was inspired by how the real Cage looked in his 1990 movie “Wild at Heart.”)
Nicky has de-aging visual effects for his face, and he appears to Nick as a figment of Nick’s imagination, in moments when Nick is feeling insecure. Nicky’s blunt and sometimes crude conversations with Nick (which are either pep talks, insults or both) are among the more memorable parts of the movie. Nicky has a habit of yelling out “I’m Nick fucking Cage!,” in an elongated way, as if he’s a WWE announcer yelling, “Let’s get ready to rumble!” before a wrestling match. In the film’s end credits, the actor listed as portraying Nicky is Nicolas Kim Coppola, which is a cheeky nod to Cage’s birth surname Coppola. (Numerous movie fans already know that Cage is part of the famous Coppola movie family.)
In the beginning of “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent,” Nick is a world-famous actor in Los Angeles, but he’s currently not getting the acting roles that he wants. Nick has been struggling with being labeled a “has-been” who’s been doing a lot of low-budget, low-quality movies in recent years. (Real-life filmmaker David Gordon Green has a cameo as himself in an early scene in the movie where Nick tries to impress him with an impromptu monologue reading.)
When Nicky shows up and talks to Nick, it’s usually to remind Nick that his younger self would never have stooped to the level of the type of work that Nick is doing now. In one of the movie’s early scenes, Nicky is lecturing Nick about it during a drive in Nick’s car, with Nick driving. A defensive Nick snaps back: “Hello! It’s my job! It’s how I pay my bills. I have to feed my family.” Nick ends the conversation by telling Nicky, “You’re annoying!” And then Nick kicks Nicky out of the car.
Nick’s fast-talking agent Richard Fink (played by Neil Patrick Harris, in a cameo role) tells Nick about a job offer from a Nick Cage superfan in Mallorca, Spain. This wealthy fan wants to pay Nick $1 million to make a personal appearance at the fan’s birthday party. Nick says no to the idea, because he thinks that these types of personal appearances are beneath him as a “serious actor.”
However, because Nick gets rejected for a movie role that he had been counting on getting, and because he has high-priced divorce payments and other bills, a financially desperate Nick agrees to the birthday party job offer. Nick makes it clear to Richard that this personal appearance better not include anything involving kinky sex. Nick has no idea that what he thinks will be an easy gig will turn out to be a life-threatening, mind-bending experience for him and other people.
Nick isn’t just having problems in his career. His personal life is also messy. Nick has a tension-filled relationship with his ex-wife Olivia (played by Sharon Horgan), a former makeup artist whom he met on the set of his 2001 movie “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin.” It’s revealed in “The Unbearable Wright of Massive Talent” that one of the main reasons why they divorced was because Olivia thought that Nick put his career above everything else in his life.
Nick and Olivia have a daughter named Addy (played by Lily Sheen), who’s about 15 or 16 years old. Addy is usually annoyed with Nick because she thinks he forces her to do things (such as watch movies) that are according to what he wants to do and his personal tastes, without taking into consideration Addy’s own personal wants and needs. For example, Nick has insisted that Addy watch the 1920 horror film “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” even though Addy has no interest in seeing this movie.
Addy also thinks Nick has been a neglectful father for most of her life. That’s why Nick and Addy are in therapy together. But as an example of Nick’s self-centered ways, a therapy session that’s shown in the movie reveals that Nick spends most of the time talking about himself, while Addy sulks in a corner on a couch. Their therapist named Cheryl (played by Joanna Bobin) has to listen to Nick ramble on about his career problems, while she tries to steer the conversation back to how to improve his personal relationships.
Nick is so financially broke, he doesn’t have a permanent home, and he’s living at a hotel. When he gets locked out of his hotel room due to non-payment, he calls his agent Richard to tell him that he’s taking the birthday party job. A self-pitying Nick also tells Richard that he’s going to quit being an actor. On his way to Mallorca, Nick has no idea that he’s gotten on the radar of the CIA, which has been tracking the activities of the fan who has hired Nick to be at the fan’s birthday party. The CIA has this superfan under investigation for being the leader of a ruthless international arms cartel.
Two CIA operatives who have been assigned to the case are named Vivian (played by Tiffany Haddish) and Martin (played by Ike Barinholtz), who are surprised and confused when they see Nick disembarking from the private plane that the superfan has chartered for this trip. Vivian, who has a take-charge and quick-thinking personality, immediately pretends to be an adoring Nick Cage fan, and stops him at the airport to take a selfie photo with him. It’s really a ruse to plant a tracking device on Nick. Vivian and Martin are generic and underwritten roles, so Haddish and Barinholtz don’t do much that’s noteworthy in the movie.
In Mallorca, Nick is taken to a lavish cliffside mansion, where he is greeted by several employees of this rich superfan, who is described as a mogul in the olive grove business. The fan’s name is Javi Gutierrez (played by Pasco Pascal), and he is so unassuming on first impression, Nick initially mistakes Javi for one of the servants, because Javi was the one who drove Nick to this mansion by speedboat. The two people in Javi’s inner circle who are the closest to him are his cousin/right-hand man Lucas Gutierrez (played by Paco León) and a savvy business person named Gabriela (played by Alessandra Mastronardi), nicknamed Gabi, who is Javi’s director of operations.
Nick soon finds out that Javi didn’t just invite him to make an appearance at Javi’s birthday party. Javi has written a movie screenplay, and he wants Nick to star in this movie. Javi is crushed when Nick tells him that he’s going to quit acting, so Javi desperately tries to get Nick to change his mind One of the running gags in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is how Nick reacts to Javi’s attempts to befriend Nick and get Nick to read his script. It should come as no surprise that Javi makes revisions to the screenplay, based on a lot of the shenanigans that he experiences with Nick.
As shown in the movie’s trailer, Vivian and Martin recruit/pressure Nick to spy on Javi for the CIA. Meanwhile, things get more complicated with the kidnapping of Maria Delgado (played by Katrin Vankova), a teenage daughter of a politician who’s running for a high office in Spain. There are entanglements with a thug named Carlos (played by Jacob Scipio) and a group called the Carabello crime family. And it should come as no surprise that Addy and Olivia somehow get mixed up in this mess too.
Along the way, there’s some drug-fueled comedy that’s intended to make the most of Cage’s slapstick skills. First, Nick accidentally drugs himself with a potentially lethal dose of gaseous poison. Later, Nick and Javi take LSD together and have a bonding experience where they go through various levels of elation and paranoia.
Nick and Javi’s budding friendship is at the heart of the movie. However, there are also some standout moments involving Nicky, Olivia and Addy and how their relationships to Nick end up evolving. (Nicky spontaneously does something outrageous, when he kisses Nick, in a scene that will have viewers either shocked, roaring with laughter or both.)
Pascal is pitch-perfect in his role as Javi, who might or might not be the movie’s biggest villain. When secrets are revealed, they’re not too surprising, but one of the best things about “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is that it doesn’t make Javi into a meaningless caricature. Even though Cage is the larger-than-life central character in the movie, Pascal holds his own and can be considered a scene-stealer.
“The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” has the expected stream of jokes about previous real-life movies of Cage. Among those that get name-checked or parodied include “Con Air,” “Face/Off,” “Moonstruck,” “Valley Girl,” “The Croods: A New Age,” “Gone in 60 Seconds,” “The Rock,” “Leaving Las Vegas,” “National Treasure” and “Guarding Tess.” Also in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” is a recurring joke about the animated film “Paddington 2” (which is not one of Cage’s movies) and how this family film sequel about a talking bear affects certain people who watch it.
Cage is a versatile actor who tackles his role in “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” with gusto. (He’s also one of the movie’s producers.) Cage makes this movie work so well because he’s fully on board with laughing at himself. Not too many well-known actors would risk doing a movie where they have to poke fun at their triumphs and failures, but it’s precisely this risk-taking that has made Cage one of the most interesting and unpredictable actors of his generation. “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” does indeed have massive talent, but this talent helps the movie soar instead of sink.
Lionsgate will release “The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent” in U.S. cinemas on April 22, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on June 7, 2022, and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on June 21, 2022.
The following is a press release from the South by Southwest Conference and Festivals:
The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals announced the 2022 Jury and Special Award winners of the 29th SXSW Film Festival. Feature films receiving Jury Awards were selected from the Narrative Feature and Documentary Feature Competition categories. SXSW also announced all other juried sections, including Shorts, Design and XR Experience Awards. Special Awards announced included: Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, Adobe Editing Award, Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award, ZEISS Cinematography Award, the Mailchimp Support the Shorts Award and the Fandor New Voices Award.
All 2022 film categories will be eligible for category-specific Audience Awards, which will be certified by the accounting firm of Maxwell Locke & Ritter. Online Screenings and Audience Award Voting will conclude at 9am CT on Monday, March 21. Winners will be announced via sxsw.com that week.
“It was extraordinary to gather together in person again after so long and we are so grateful to the filmmakers and audience who joined us at SXSW 2022 in Austin, Texas for our first in-person event since 2019,” said Janet Pierson, VP, Director of Film. “The program was celebrated across the board and tonight we get to give a special shout-out to the award winners.”
The 2022 SXSW Film Festival Juries consisted of:
Narrative Feature Competition: Sheri Linden, The Hollywood Reporter; Siddhant Adlakha, filmmaker and critic; Jenelle Riley, Variety Documentary Feature Competition: Jason Bailey, critic, historian and author; Carlos Aguilar, film critic and journalist; Beandrea July, freelance film critic Louis Black “Lone Star”: Richard Whitaker, The Austin Chronicle; Kathy Blackwell, Executive Editor, Texas Monthly; Karen Valby, author and freelance writer Narrative Shorts Program: Mohammad Gorjestani, filmmaker; Natalie Haack Flores, VP Development, Nuyorican Productions; Inga Diev, GM Ouat Media Documentary Shorts: Greg Rhem, writer, director, producer and creative consultant for MTV Documentary Films; Ryan Harrington, Head of film, Kinema; Yvonne Ashley Kouadjo, series producer, New York Times‘ Op-Docs Animated Shorts: Julia Pott, animator; John Agbaje, SVP of Animation, Bad Robot; Brook Keesling, Head of Animation Talent Development, Bento Box Entertainment Midnight Shorts: Barbara Crampton, actor and producer; Dana Gills, SVP of Development and Production, Monkeypaw; Bea Sequeira, producer, Blumhouse Music Videos: Andrew Unterberger, Deputy Editor, Billboard; Shanna Green, Director of Communications, Commercials and Short-Form Content, Anonymous Content; Meghan Oretsky, Senior Curator, Vimeo Texas Shorts: Cat Cardena, Associate Editor, Texas Monthly; Eric Webb, Entertainment Editor, Austin-American Statesman; Monique Walton, filmmaker Texas High School Shorts: Bart Weiss, Educator and Founder, Dallas VideoFest; Lindsey Ashley, Deputy Director, Texas Film Commission; Dr. Tere Garza, Professor of Communication, St Edward’s University Episodic Pilot Competition: Randi Kleiner, Co-Founder and CEO, SeriesFest; Selome Hailu, Variety; Augustine Frizzell, filmmaker Excellence in Title Design: Victoria Nece, Principal Product Manager, Motion Graphics, Adobe; Hazel Baird, Creative Director and Designer, Elastic; Saskia Marka, independent designer Excellence in Poster Design: Barak Epstein, Texas Theatre in Dallas, producer; Becky Cloonan, illustrator and cartoonist; Kevin Tong, illustrator XR Experience Jury: Nonny de la Peña, founder, Emblematic Group; Kent Bye, Voices of VR; Loren Hammonds, Producer, Co-head of Documentary, TIME Studios
The 2022 Film Festival program includes 100 features including 76 World Premieres, 4 International Premieres, 4 North American Premieres, 2 U.S. Premieres, 14 Texas Premieres + 111 Short Films including 24 Music Videos, 12 Episodic Premieres, 6 Episodic Pilots, 30 XR Experience projects (formerly Virtual Cinema), and 19 Title Design Competition entries.
Films will continue to be available on the SXSW platform until 9:00am CT on Monday, March 21. SXSW will continue running the Online Shift72 Screening Library through March 31, 2021, for those films that have opted-in to the extended timeframe.
The SXSW 2022 Film Festival Awards:
Feature Film Grand Jury Awards
NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION Presented by Panavision
James Morosini and Patton Oswalt in “I Love My Dad” (Photo courtesy of I Love My Dad LLC/Hantz Motion Pictures)
Winner:I Love My Dad Director/Screenwriter: James Morosini, Producers: Bill Stertz, Patton Oswalt, Sean O’Grady, Dane Eckerle, Phil Keefe, Daniel Brandt, Sam Slater
“A bold, funny film that marks an impressive feature debut for writer-director-star James Morosini, I Love My Dad finely threads the needle with its tale of an estranged father (Patton Oswalt) who catfishes his son (Morosini) in an attempt to reconnect. Working from a screenplay based on his own real-life story, Morosini displays massive empathy as a filmmaker to get into the mind of the father he feels betrayed by, and also as an actor portraying the impact of that betrayal. He’s aided by a great cast, particularly Oswalt.”
Special Jury Recognition for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision: Cast and Crew, It Is in Us All
“Every creative element of It Is in Us All, from its editing and music to its performances and cinematography, works in tandem to craft a haunting atmosphere. Writer-director-actor Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ extraordinary feature debut is a remarkable example of how the various artistic facets of a movie can converge to create something cinematic, in the purest and most soulful sense: a work that accesses some part of you that feels hidden away.”
Special Jury Recognition for Breakthrough Performance: Elizaveta Yankovskaya, Nika
“In her first lead role in a feature, Elizaveta Yankovskaya delivers a knockout portrait brimming with rage, joy, despair, uncertainty and 20-something yearning. She plays Nika Turbina, a real-life figure who, after fame was thrust upon her as a child poet, finds herself past her prime before she’s 30. Whatever narrative conjectures the intimate drama might make, there isn’t a moment in Yankovskaya’s breathtaking performance that doesn’t ring true with messy emotional complexity, or that doesn’t feel like unpredictable life itself unfolding before our eyes.”
A big thanks to our Narrative Feature Competition presenting sponsor Panavision, the global provider of optics, cameras, and end-to-end services that power the creative vision of filmmakers.
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION Presented by IMAX
“Master of Light” (Photo by Jurgen Lisse)
Winner: Master of Light Director: Rosa Ruth Boesten, Producers: Roger Ross Williams, Anousha Nzume, Ilja Roomans
“In both substance and form, Master of Light is a gift. The earnest and gifted painter George Anthony Morton embeds viewers in his world as he struggles to render his mother — both on the canvas and in his psyche. Boesten disabuses us of static tropes about America’s merciless drug war and about contemporary art. With astonishing intimacy, the film’s visuals build an artful bridge between two- and three-dimensional realms that are deeply rooted and utterly transcendent. Put this painting of a film in a museum, next to a Rembrandt and a Morton.”
Special Jury Recognition for Exceptional Intimacy in Storytelling: Bad Axe Director: David Siev, Producers: Jude Harris, Diane Quon, Katarina Vasquez, David Siev
“Stories centered on the pursuit of the “American Dream” abound. Rarely do they portray the sacrifices and recurrent trials that the promise of a better life entails the way director David Siev accomplishes with Bad Axe. Examining those closest to him with profound compassion and incisive curiosity, he paints a distinct and easily recognizable portrait of the alienation many feel in the place they call home, by birth or by circumstance. For its ability to reveal something unexpected about the American fabric and the American family, Bad Axe deserves celebration.”
Special Jury Recognition for Acting in a Documentary: Steve Glew, Pez Outlaw “Steve Glew is the kind of colorful character that most documentarians dream of capturing, a born storyteller with a crackerjack sense of scene-setting and comic timing. In the tradition of Muhammad Ali in The Greatest and Evel Knievel in Viva Kneivel!, The Pez Outlaw‘s reenactment sequences cast the only actor who could credibly bring Mr. Glew’s exploits to life: the man himself. There’s something uniquely American about Glew’s mixture of chutzpah, ingenuity, charisma, and grievance that makes him a mesmerizing onscreen presence.”
Since 1970 IMAX Documentaries have immersed audiences in real-life stories told on a grand scale. In 2022 that tradition continues as a new generation of filmmakers turns its lens to a theatrical experience like no other. Today, IMAX is honored to present this year’s documentary award to recognize the future — gifted storytellers who are bringing their stories to audiences in powerful and wondrous ways.
SHORT FILM GRAND JURY AWARDSPresented by IMDbPro
NARRATIVE SHORT COMPETITION
“All the Crows in the World”
Winner: All the Crows in the World Director/Screenwriter: Tang Yi, Producer: Haozheng Li
“The jury recognizes All The Crows in the World as the Jury Award Winner, a film that reminded us of the power of short-form cinema as a stand-alone art form on its own. The film’s balancing of surrealism, bizarreness, tenderness, and reality was only outdone by its inventive narrative and critiques of patriarchal culture, paired with execution by a director who is clearly in command of her craft.”
Special Jury Recognition for Directing and Community Filmmaking: Glitter Ain’t Gold Director/Screenwriter: Christian Nolan Jones, Producers: Maia Miller, T. Popps, O. Valerie Nicolas
“The jury awards Glitter Ain’t Gold a Special Jury Recognition for Directing and Community Filmmaking, which stood out for its vibrant narrative and authentically palpable energy filled with compelling visuals and inventive editing harmoniously coupled with powerfully nostalgic music. It was clear that its level of specificity was a direct result of a community that came together to make a profound piece of art that touched us deeply.”
Special Jury Recognition for Outstanding Performances: Aphrodite Armstrong, Kyle Riggs, West by God
“The jury awards a Special Jury Recognition for Outstanding Performances to Aphrodite Armstrong and Kyle Riggs for West by God. Their dynamic and visceral performances beautifully emulate the powerful themes within the film about the human condition and the need for love, no matter what your walk of life.”
DOCUMENTARY SHORT COMPETITION
“A Long Line of Ladies” (Photo by Sam Davis)
Winner: Long Line of Ladies Directors: Rayka Zehtabchi, Shaandiin Tome, Producers: Garrett Schiff, Pimm Tripp-Allen, Rayka Zehtabchi, Sam Davis, Dana Kurth
“Long Line of Ladies presents an affecting perspective on celebrated generational cultural traditions. The tapestry of beautiful cinematography and vivid character moments elevates the filmmakers’ vision, inviting us into a devoted community that is committed to preserving their heritage.”
Special Jury Recognition for Visual Reflection: not even for a moment do things stand still Director: Jamie Meltzer, Producers: Annie Marr, Jamie Meltzer, Suzanne Brennan Firstenberg
“In a simple, yet profoundly moving way, not even for a moment do things stand still allows us to sincerely reflect on the lives we have lost over the past two years. The poetic visual language gives us a new perspective on a sadly familiar topic of love, life and loss.”
“Moshari is a terrifying, spine-chilling horror tale centering two sisters that renders a fresh take on blood sucking creatures set in an non-traditional post-apocalyptic world. The compelling performances, the haunting visuals and the layered storytelling highlight the director’s command of the genre and make him someone to watch. Nuhash Humayun has the ability to take recognizable elements, flip them on their head and turn them into nightmares. Moshari has created an allegorical story that will resonate with the viewer on a deeper level.”
Special Jury Recognition for Powerful “Short Trip”:Omi Director: Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Screenwriters: Tamar Bird, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, Producer: Tamar Bird
“Unexpected, effective and engaging film that in under three minutes manages to set up the lore, get us invested in the characters, while leaving us fulfilled and still craving more. Kelly Fyffe-Marshall has created a grounded supernatural story that is provocative, mysterious and unforgettable.”
ANIMATED SHORTS
“Bestia”
Winner:Bestia Director: Hugo Covarrubias, Screenwriters: Martín Erazo, Hugo Covarrubias, Producers: Tevo Díaz, Hugo Covarrubias
“Bestia is an exquisite, intimate peek at the dreams and memories of a sadistic secret agent, set in a tactile stop-motion non-wonderland, where a porcelain exterior isn’t enough to keep the damage away.”
Special Jury Recognition for Unexpected Emotion: Les Larmes de la Seine Directors/Screenwriters: Yanis Belaid, Eliott Benard, Producer: Carlos De Carvalho
“The magic trick of this film is that it describes great tragedy almost entirely with joy. History comes alive as we are immersed in raw beautiful humanity that jokes, laughs, feels nervous, fights, and dies. By illustrating extreme distress with astonishing euphoria, the directors create a fever dream “photo negative” glimpse of what we’ve missed by living with hatred and abuse rather than love and understanding. Like a sad melody played in major key, the film is both haunting and uplifting while stirring emotions like no film we’ve ever seen.”
Special Jury Recognition for Visceral Storytelling: Something in the Garden Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Marcos Sánchez
“It is so important to keep your brain open to play, and we commend this film’s playful spirit combined with its beautiful animation, reminiscent of a graphic novel. It felt at the perfect cross section of horror and ASMR, using impeccable pacing and sound design to take us on a visceral journey that thrilled, scared and delighted us. A brilliant use of the animated short form medium!”
MUSIC VIDEOS
Ishaval Gill and Kamaldevinder Gill in “Meet You at the Light.”
Winner: Desirée Dawson – ‘Meet Me at the Light’ Director/Screenwriter: Alexander Farah
“Without a single detail wasted, we were all moved to tears by this powerful story from a first-time music video director. Featuring equally beautiful performances, editing, and cinematography, we present the Best Music Video award to Desirée Dawson – Meet Me at the Light by Alexander Farah.”
Special Jury Recognition for Going the Extra Mile: Myd – ‘Let You Speak’ Director/Screenwriter: Dan Carr
“Funny, unexpected, and with a meta wink to the industry, our special jury mention went above and beyond our expectations, taking us around the world to various locations with a group of ragtag misfits that made us LOL along the way. Hence, the ‘Extra Mile’ award. The Special Jury Award for Going The Extra Mile Goes to Myd “Let You Speak” by Dan Carr.”
TEXAS SHORTS
“Folk Frontera”
Winner: Folk Frontera Directors: Alejandra Vasquez, Sam Osborn
“Centered around characters who call the desert borderlands of Texas their home, Folk Frontera turns the traditional documentary form on its head. Filmmakers Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn imbue the documentary with the same magic and surrealism that feels authentic to the Chihuahuan Desert and its communities. Dreamlike visuals and nuanced presentation of the subjects’ stories make for a special experience.”
Special Jury Recognition for Vision: Birds Director/Screenwriter: Katherine Propper, Producer: Sophia Loffreda
“Katherine Propper’s Birds feels both fresh and warmly familiar to anyone who’s grown up during a Central Texas summer. Members of the film’s exceptional young ensemble shine in natural performances that help us see gorgeously shot scenery in a new light.”
TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORTS
Honeybee (Photo by Emilio Vazquez Reyes)
Winner: Honeybee Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Emilio Vazquez Reyes “Honeybee is a beautifully-written, thoughtfully-crafted film that unfolds with a gentle and disciplined reveal, helping to humanize the experience of an undocumented immigrant. We felt this film was a graceful way to tell a difficult story, using all of the important elements like cinematography, music and editing to both advance the story and sincerely engage with the audience.”
Special Jury Recognition for Artistic Expression: It’s Getting Bad Again Director/Screenwriter: Sarah Reyes, Producers: Sarah Reyes, Kenneth Rogers “As an artist, Sarah Reyes captures a roller-coaster of an emotional exploration that balances darkness, humor and music in a poetic and refreshing way, all the while prompting an important dialogue about mental health awareness.”
A big thanks to our presenting sponsor, IMDbPro. Celebrating its 20th anniversary, IMDbPro is the essential resource for entertainment industry professionals. This membership-based service empowers entertainment professionals with information and tools designed to help them achieve success throughout their career. IMDbPro has an ongoing commitment to supporting and collaborating with organizations that create greater diversity, equity and inclusion in the entertainment industry and is a service of IMDb, the #1 movie website in the world. Learn more at www.imdbpro.com and follow @IMDbPro
MailChimp is another proud supporter of the Shorts program and have created their own award to help further the career of one lucky filmmaker, as well as provided financial prize support for all of the SXSW Shorts Jury Awards winners.
EPISODIC PILOT COMPETITION
“Something Undone” (Photo by Marie Davignon)
Winner: Something Undone Director: Nicole Dorsey, Screenwriters: Michael Musi, Madison Walsh, Producers: Max Topplin, Jordan Hayes
“The jury honors Something Undone for cleverly rethinking and repurposing oft-used elements of mystery/horror storytelling. The subtlety of the episode’s writing and acting are complemented by specific and stylized direction and cinematography. And above all, Something Undone sets itself apart with its smart use of diegetic sound, establishing quietly humorous commentary on the sounds of the genre at large — while also totally terrifying us in just ten minutes.”
Special Jury Recognition for Unique Vision in Writing and Directing: Pamela Ribon and Sara Gunnarsdóttir, My Year of Dicks
“For its thoughtful curation of imagery combined with a funny and inventive script, the Special Jury Recognition for Unique Vision in Writing and Directing goes to Pamela Ribon and Sara Gunnarsdóttir for My Year of Dicks. Their bold voices overlap to make for an experience of feminine youth and sexual exploration that is both relatable and entirely its own.”
SXSW Film Design Awards Presented by Adobe
POSTER DESIGN COMPETITION
“More Than I Remember” (Image by Maya Edelman)
Winner: More Than I Remember Designer: Yen Tan, Maya Edelman
“This poster evokes so many feelings at once, from the captivating gaze to the lush swirl of colors that surround you — it draws you in, tempting you to look harder, to try and unlock whatever secret is hidden just beyond reach. The text and illustration are perfectly integrated to create something powerful and mysterious, catching not just your attention, but your imagination as well.”
Special Jury Recognition: The Sentence of Michael Thompson Designer: Juan Miguel Marin
“Understated intensity and a timeless quality make this poster truly effective — from across the room it immediately catches the eye. Type, design, and image work together to form a complete narrative, one you want to know more about. Understated intensity and a timeless quality make it truly effective.”
TITLE DESIGN COMPETITION
“Foundation” (Image courtesy of Imaginary Forces)
Winner: Foundation Title Sequence Designer: Ronnie Koff Company: Imaginary Forces
“A beautifully constructed sequence that encapsulates the show’s futuristic setting as humans have colonized the galaxy. Using a particle system to form these incredible images each frame is a visual triumph as we journey through this vibrant main title.”
Special Jury Recognition:The White Lotus Title Sequence Designers: Katrina Crawford, Mark Bashore Company: Plains of Yonder
“This title’s distinctive design perfectly sets up the audience for the show and reflects the suffering before enlightenment of its protagonists. Its stunning illustrations capture the soul of the story and are enhanced by the flawless score.”
XR EXPERIENCE COMPETITION
“On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World)” (Image courtesy of Atlas V & Novelab)
Winner: On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World) Directors: Dr. Jamaica Heolomeleikalani Osorio, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Pierre Zandrowicz, Arnaud Colinart, Screenwriters: Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio, Producers: Arnaud Colinart, Mike Brett, Steve Jamison, Jo-Jo Ellison
“On The Morning You Wake (To the End of the World) is an emotionally impactful and beautifully told story, delivered with stunning technical craftsmanship. This project explores the potential of immersive experiences, refining the grammar of spatial narrative. This particular story deals with the urgency of nuclear disarmament that has very unfortunately come into sharp focus due to current events. It effectively presents a massive geopolitical issue and grounds it in emotional and personal stories, translating what are usually abstract concepts into an embodied context.”
Special Jury Recognition for Immersive Storytelling:(Hi)story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow Directors: Quentin Darras, Gaëlle Mourre, Screenwriter: Gaëlle Mourre, Producers: Charlotte Mikkelborg, Gaëlle Mourre
“(Hi)story of a Painting: The Light in the Shadow receives a Special Jury Recognition for immersive storytelling. This experience uses the medium of VR to transport us into history, revealing the story of a lesser-known female baroque artist, her resistance to the patriarchy and determination in the face of adversity.”
SXSW Special Awards
“What We Leave Behind” (Photo by Monica Wise)
Fandor New Voices Award Fandor is proud to present the first ever Fandor New Voices Award, celebrating an outstanding feature making its worldwide premiere this year at the 35th annual SXSW festival. At Fandor, we are delighted to elevate the work of inspiring, imaginative, and independent storytellers, so it is with great pleasure that we present the Fandor New Voices Award to a female or person of color who is making their directorial debut with a Narrative Feature or Documentary. Fandor is and always will be proud to uplift the work of these amazing filmmakers.
Fandor New Voices Award Presented to:What We Leave Behind Director: Iliana Sosa, Producers: Emma D. Miller, Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel (co-producer)
“Chee$e” (Photo by Damian Marcano)
Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award In honor of a filmmaker whose work strives to be wholly its own, without regard for norms or desire to conform. The Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award is presented to a filmmaker from our Visions screening category.
Adam Yauch Hörnblowér Award Presented to:Chee$e Director/Screenwriter: Damian Marcano, Producer: Alexa Marcano
Ke Huy Quan, Jamie Lee Curtis and Michelle Yeoh in “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (Photo by Allyson Riggs/A24)
Adobe Editing Award Adobe is committed to celebrating creativity for all and empowering everyone to bring their stories to life. By creating greater opportunity for all voices, we can enact change in our communities and move the world forward. We are proud to celebrate the art and craft of editing as we grant the Adobe Editing Award at the SXSW Film Awards. We are also pleased to spotlight this year’s incredible title and poster designers through the Film Design Awards presented by Adobe.
Adobe Editing Award Presented to:Everything Everywhere All At Once Editor: Paul Rogers
“What We Leave Behind”
Louis Black “Lone Star” Award To honor SXSW co-founder/director Louis Black, a jury prize was created in 2011 called the Louis Black “Lone Star” Award, presented to a feature film world premiering at SXSW that was shot primarily in Texas or directed by a current resident of Texas. (Opt-in Award)
Louis Black “Lone Star” Award Winner: What We Leave Behind Director: Iliana Sosa, Producers: Emma D. Miller, Iliana Sosa, Isidore Bethel (co-producer)
“Iliana Sosa’s exquisite documentary What We Leave Behind is a love letter to her Mexican grandfather, whose final decline she chronicles with artful grace. It is also a moving look at a family disconnected by both border and dreams, and how their patriarch, too old now for his monthly 20-hour bus rides from Durango into Texas, worries who will hold the center once he’s gone. Eighty-nine year old Julian has the face and gravitas of an old time movie star. Sosa has made a profound, gorgeous movie worthy of her precious subject.”
“A Vanishing Fog” (Photo courtesy of @ Schweizen)
ZEISS Cinematography Award ZEISS Cine Lenses is honored to be returning this year to support the SXSW film community in the Cinematography category. We believe that by supporting the art within the frame, ZEISS helps filmmakers realize their creative vision.
ZEISS Cinematography Award Winner: A Vanishing Fog Cinematographer: Gio Park
“The Voice Actress”
Mailchimp Support the Shorts Award Mailchimp is committed to uplifting and supporting creators. We’re so proud to support SXSW by helping short films win big. We congratulate the honorees of the Support the Shorts Award as well as the entire SXSW-invited filmmaking community.
Mailchimp Support the Shorts Award Presented to: The Voice Actress Director/Screenwriter: Anna J. Takayama, Producer: Joe Skinner
“With its impeccable compositions and captivating lead performance, The Voice Actress offers a sensitive peek behind the scenes of an ever-changing industry. This patient study of imagination and aging achieves extraordinary depth thanks to Anna J. Takayama’s soulful direction, and we are delighted to support the career of such a remarkable talent.”
SXSW is proud to be an official qualifying festival for the Academy Awards® Short Film competition. Winners of our Best Animated, Best Narrative and Best Documentary Short Film categories become eligible for Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awards (Oscars). Any British Short Film or British Short Animation that screens at SXSW is eligible for BAFTA nomination. Films are also eligible for the Independent Spirit Awards, more information on eligibility here.
The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conference and Festivals announced the Audience Award winners for the 29th SXSW Film Festival. The Audience Awards follow the previously announced 2022 Jury Awards and the 40 Years of Massive Talent Award presented to Nicolas Cage at TheUnbearable Weight of Massive Talent screening on Saturday night. For the complete list of 2022 Award Winners, visit www.sxsw.com/festivals/film-awards/.
Over the course of nine days the SXSW Film Festival screened 101 features including 76 World Premieres, 4 International Premieres, 4 North American Premieres, 2 U.S. Premieres, 14 Texas Premieres, plus 111 Short Films including 24 Music Videos, 12 Episodic Premieres, 6 Episodic Pilots, 30 XR Experience projects (formerly Virtual Cinema), and 19 Title Design Competition entries.
Films in the SXSW 2022 lineup screened in the following categories: Headliners; Narrative Feature Competition presented by Panavision; Documentary Feature Competition; Narrative Spotlight; Documentary Spotlight; Visions; Midnighters; Global presented by MUBI; 24 Beats Per Second; and Festival Favorites. The Episodic program consisted of Episodic Premieres and the Episodic Pilot Competition. The SXSW 2022 Shorts Film Program presented by IMDbPro featured seven competitive sections. Our XR Experience Competition, Spotlight and Special Events programming were held in-person with a selection of works in our XR Experience World in VRChat, presented by Non-Fungible Labs. All Categories with the exception of Special Events were eligible for section-specific Audience Awards.
Select conference sessions and music festival content is available to registrants through April 17 on the SXSW Online Schedule and Connected TV app. A full list of available content can be found here.
2022 SXSW Film Festival Audience Award Winners:
NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION presented by Panavision
James Morosini and Patton Oswalt in “I Love My Dad” (Photo courtesy of I Love My Dad LLC/Hantz Motion Pictures)
Audience Award Winner: I Love My Dad Director/Screenwriter: James Morosini, Producers: Bill Stertz, Patton Oswalt, Sean O’Grady, Dane Eckerle, Phil Keefe, Daniel Brandt, Sam Slater
DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION
“Bad Axe” (Photo by David Siev)
Audience Award Winner: Bad Axe Director: David Siev, Producers: Jude Harris, Diane Quon, Katarina Vasquez, David Siev
NARRATIVE SPOTLIGHT
Audience Award Winner: Pretty Problems Director: Kestrin Pantera, Screenwriters: Michael Tennant, Britt Rentschler, Charlotte Ubben, Producers: Katya Alexander, Britt Rentschler, Charlotte Ubben, Michael Tennant
DOCUMENTARY SPOTLIGHT
Yvonne Bradley in “We Are Not Ghouls” (Photo courtesy of AP-LefterisPitarakis)
Audience Award Winner: We Are Not Ghouls Director: Chris James Thompson, Producers: Jessica Farrell, Jack Turner, Andrew Swant
HEADLINERS
Britt Rentschler and Charlotte Ubben in “Pretty Problems” (Photo by Alyssa Brocato)
Audience Award Winner: Atlanta Director: Hiro Murai, Producers: Donald Glover, Stephen Glover, Hiro Murai, Stefani Robinson, Paul Simms and Dianne McGunigle
VISIONS
“Shadow” (Photo by Jeff Busby)
Audience Award Winner: Shadow Director: Bruce Gladwin, Screenwriters: Michael Chan, Mark Deans, Bruce Gladwin, Simon Laherty, Sarah Mainwaring, Scott Price, Sonia Teuben, Producers: Alice Fleming, Meret Hassenen
MIDNIGHTERS
“Bitch Ass” (Photo by Shane Brown)
Audience Award Winner: Bitch Ass Director: Bill Posley, Screenwriters/Producers: Bill Posley, Jonathan Colomb
GLOBAL presented by Mubi
“Without Prescription”
Audience Award Winner: Without Prescription Director: Juliana Maite, Screenwriter: Marietere Vélez, Producer: Vilma Liella
24 BEATS PER SECOND
Tanya Tucker and Brandi Carlile in “The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile”
Audience Award Winner:The Return of Tanya Tucker – Featuring Brandi Carlile Director: Kathlyn Horan, Producers: Kathlyn Horan, Julie Goldman, Christopher Clements, Carolyn Hepburn
FESTIVAL FAVORITES
Chris Watts (pictured at left) in “The Art of Making It.” (Photo by Sebastian Lasaosa Rogers/Wischful Thinking Productions )
Audience Award Winner: The Art of Making It Director: Kelcey Edwards, Producer: Debi Wisch
Shorts Film Program presented by IMDbPro
NARRATIVE SHORTS COMPETITION
“Aspirational Slut” (Photo by Michael Greenwood)
Audience Award Winner: Aspirational Slut Director/Screenwriter: Caroline Lindy, Producers: Kate Hamilton, Ellyn Jameson, Maddy Nimoy, Emily Wolfe
DOCUMENTARY SHORTS COMPETITION
“The Sentence of Michael Thompson” (Photo by Logan Triplett)
Audience Award Winner: The Sentence of Michael Thompson Directors: Kyle Thrash, Haley Elizabeth Anderson, Producers: W. Ian Ross, Kyle Thrash
ANIMATED SHORTS COMPETITION
“Five Cents”
Audience Award Winner: Five Cents Director/Screenwriter/Producer: Aaron Hughes
MIDNIGHT SHORTS COMPETITION
“Tank Fairy” (Photo by Danny Wang)
Audience Award Winner: Tank Fairy Director/Screenwriter: Erich Rettstadt, Producers: Anita Tung, C.K. Hugo Chung
TEXAS SHORTS COMPETITION
“Act of God” (Photo by Taylor Camarot)
Audience Award Winner: Act of God Directors/Screenwriters: Spencer Cook, Parker Smith, Producer: Matthew Harrington
TEXAS HIGH SCHOOL SHORTS COMPETITION
“Football.” (Photo by Peyton Randolph)
Audience Award Winner: Football. Director: William Herff, Screenwriters/Producers: William Herff, Nicholas Campos, Peyton Randolph
MUSIC VIDEO COMPETITION
Ishaval Gill and Kamaldevinder Gill in “Meet You at the Light.”
Audience Award Winner: Desirée Dawson – ‘Meet You at the Light’ Director/Screenwriter: Alexander Farah
Episodic Program
EPISODIC PREMIERES
Audience Award Winner: 61st Street Showrunners: Peter Moffat, J. David Shanks, Director: Marta Cunningham, Screenwriter: Peter Moffat, Producers: Annie Rhodes, Frank Baldwin, Allison Davis
EPISODIC PILOT COMPETITION
Courtney B. Vance and Aunjanue Ellis in “61st Street” (Photo by George Burns/AMC)
Audience Award Winner: Brownsville Bred Showrunner/Director/Screenwriter: Elaine Del Valle, Producers: Adrienne Lovette, Elaine Del Valle, Leslie Cohen, Debbie Esko-Gold, Eddie Frente
XR Experience
XR EXPERIENCE COMPETITION
“Gumball Dreams” (Image by Christopher Lane Davis)
Audience Award Winner:Gumball Dreams Director: Deirdre V. Lyons, Screenwriters: Deirdre V. Lyons, Christopher Lane Davis, Producers: Ferryman Collective, Screaming Color
XR EXPERIENCE SPOTLIGHT
“The Choice” (Photo by Tom C. Hall)
Audience Award Winner:The Choice Director: Joanne Popinska, Producers: Joanne Popinska, Tom C. Hall
SXSW Film Design Awards (three-way Tie)
EXCELLENCE IN TITLE DESIGN
“Blade Runner: Black Lotus”
“See”
“WandaVision”
Audience Award Winner (tie): ‘Blade Runner: Black Lotus’ Title Sequence Company: CO3/Method Made / Creative Director: John Likens
Audience Award Winner (tie):‘See’ Season 2 Title Sequence Company: CO3/Method Made / Creative Director: John Likens
Audience Award Winner (tie):‘WandaVision’ Main On End Title Sequence Company: Perception / Creative Director: John LePore
About SXSW Film Festival Now in its 29th year, SXSW Film Festival brings together creatives of all stripes over nine days to experience a diverse lineup and access to the SXSW Music and Comedy Festivals plus SXSW Conference sessions with visionaries from all corners of the entertainment, media, and technology industries.
About SXSW SXSW dedicates itself to helping creative people achieve their goals. Founded in 1987 in Austin, Texas, SXSW is best known for its conference and festivals that celebrate the convergence of tech, film, music, education, and culture. An essential destination for global professionals, the annual March event features sessions, music and comedy showcases, film screenings, exhibitions, professional development and a variety of networking opportunities. SXSW proves that the most unexpected discoveries happen when diverse topics and people come together. SXSW 2023 will take place March 10 – 19, 2023. For more information, please visit sxsw.com. To register for the event, please visit sxsw.com/attend.
SXSW 2022 is sponsored by White Claw, Blockchain Creative Labs, Porsche and The Austin Chronicle.
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror film “Hypochondriac” features a cast of white, Latino and African American characters representing the working-class middle-class.
Culture Clash: A pottery maker is haunted by his traumatic childhood in ways that begin to affect his relationship with his boyfriend.
Culture Audience: “Hypochondriac” will appeal primarily to people in horror movies that explore themes of mental illness and generational trauma.
Although it can get a little repetitive, “Hypochondriac” skillfully shows the blurred lines between psychological horror and mental illness. The movie’s plot is fairly simple, but the striking and often horrifying visuals in the movie will leave an impact. “Hypochondriac” is the feature-film debut of writer/director Addison Heimann, who shows promise as a filmmaker who can craft stories and characters that hold people’s interest. “Hypochondriac” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
In “Hypochondriac,” which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city, the opening scene shows a mentally ill woman (played by Marlene Forte) having paranoid delusions in her home. She looks frantically out of the window, because she thinks people are out to get her. And then, this unnamed mother turns hostile toward her only child—a 12-year-old son named Will (played by Ian Inigo)—and she accuses him of “being in collusion with them.” After Will denies her accusation, she does something horrifying: She tries to kill him by strangling him.
Later, another incident that’s not shown in the movie involves this mother, a knife and a lot of blood in the house’s kitchen. Viewers find out that this incident is the one that caused the mother to be sent to a psychiatric facility. Will’s unnamed father (played by Chris Doubek) tells Will that Will’s mother has been taken away to get psychiatric help, and he orders Will to not look in the kitchen until it can be cleaned up. But, of course, Will does look in the kitchen. And he sees that it’s a blood-splattered mess.
“Hypochondriac” then fast-forwards 18 years later. Will (played by Zach Villa), who is openly gay, is now a pottery maker for a small company that caters to upscale clients. He seems to be fairly happy, and he has settled into a loving relationship with his boyfriend Luke (played by Devon Graye), who is as laid-back as Will is neurotic. Will and Luke (who is an AIDS counselor) have been dating each other for the past eight months.
Will has been guarded with Luke about his past. But things happen in the movie that cause Will to open up to Luke about the childhood trauma that still haunts him. Will also has a co-worker named Sasha (played by Yumarie Morales), who is a sassy friend, but she has her own personal struggles too. There’s a scene in the movie where Sasha has a panic attack, and Will helps her get through it.
It isn’t long before Will’s seemingly stable life starts to unravel. He gets mysterious headaches. Then he seems to be having random fainting spells. Throughout the story, Will visits a series of clinic doctors and other medical professionals, who can’t find anything that’s physically wrong with him. Michael Cassidy has a satirical cameo role as a nurse practitioner named Chaz, who insists on being called “NP Chaz” and who gives off-the-cuff, incompetent diagnoses.
Will also starts getting phone calls from his mother, whom he does not want to hear from at all. His mother repeatedly warns him not to trust Luke. She also leaves a lot of rambling messages on Will’s voice mail. And there are recurring visions of someone dressed in a wolf costume that have to do with Will’s Halloween memories from when he was a child.
It’s very easy to tell at a certain point in the movie how much is reality and how much is a hallucination. Thanks largely to Villa’s riveting performance and the engrossing direction of the movie, the entire journey of “Hypochondriac” is a harrowing ride that takes viewers into the mind of an increasingly disturbed person. “Hypochondriac” has an ending that might not satisfy some viewers, but it realistically shows how mental illness remains with people throughout their lives and isn’t like a nightmare that goes away when someone wakes up.
XYZ Films will release “Hypochondriac” in 2022, on a date to be announced.
Pictured clockwise, from top left: Y’lan Noel, Cleopatra Coleman, Lex Scott Davis, Shamier Anderson and Justin Hartley in “A Lot of Nothing” (Photo by John Keng)
“A Lot of Nothing”
Directed by Mo McRae
Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the comedy/drama film “A Lot of Nothing” features a racially diverse cast of characters (African American, white and some Asians) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: An African American husband and wife, who both work for the same law firm, kidnap and hold their white neighbor captive in their home after the spouses find out that he’s the cop who’s in the news for killing an unarmed young man.
Culture Audience: “A Lot of Nothing” will appeal mainly to people who think they are supporting a Black Lives Matter advocacy movie, but this horrendous misfire is anything but supportive of civil rights and positive portrayals of black people.
A complete tonal mess, the comedy/drama “A Lot of Nothing” makes a disgusting mockery of the Black Lives Matter movement and insults African American women the most. Apparently, the filmmakers think the best way for black people to fight racism is to become criminals and perpetuate racist stereotypes. If this trashy movie wanted to be a satire, it demolishes any credibility because it can’t decide if it wants to be an absurd farce or a serious thriller. Worst of all, it takes real-life trauma that families and other loved ones experience because of unjustified killings committed by cops, and uses this trauma as a gimmicky plot device, just so the filmmakers could get a cash grab out of this heinous movie. “A Lot of Nothing” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
The fact that “A Lot of Nothing” was directed by an African American (Mo McRae) does not excuse the utter depths of stupidity where this movie goes when it comes to exploiting these real-life tragedies. McRae wrote the abysmal screenplay for “A Lot of Nothing” with Sarah Kelly Kaplan. And they both seem to have particular contempt for black women, because of how black women are portrayed in this movie. That’s because out of all the dimwitted characters in “A Lot of Nothing,” the black women characters are the dumbest and the flakiest.
The moronic story of “A Lot of Nothing,” which takes place in Los Angeles, is that an African American married couple named James (played by Y’lan Noel) and Vanessa (played by Cleopatra Coleman)—who both work at the same law firm—kidnap and hold captive a white cop named Brian Stanley (played by Justin Hartley), who happens to be their next-door neighbor. Brian is divorced and lives alone, so there’s no one in his house who immediately notices that he’s missing when he’s kidnapped from his home. James is a lawyer, while Vanessa (who has an MBA degree) is some kind of business manager at the law firm.
What would cause this highly educated, upper-middle-class, respectable couple to commit such a drastic crime? Vanessa is angrily triggered because she saw on the news that Brian is under investigation for the shooting death of an unarmed, young adult man, who was killed during a traffic stop. Some of this incident was captured on video footage that went viral on the Internet and was shown on TV. Brian has been put on leave from his job, pending the investigation.
Before the kidnapping takes place, Vanessa rants to James in their home about how she’s tired of hearing about cops killing innocent black people. James tells Vanessa repeatedly that they need to hear all the facts of this case before they jump to conclusions. But that doesn’t stop Vanessa from obsessing over the idea that she needs to lecture and interrogate Brian about what happened, as if she’s a prosecutor questioning him during a trial. She marches over to Brian’s house and demands that he talk to her and explain what happened during the shooting. Brian doesn’t want to talk to her, but she insists.
As someone who’s married to a lawyer and as a business manager who works for a law firm, Vanessa should know that Brian is probably under an attorney’s orders not to talk about the investigation to anyone without an attorney present. As a black woman (and as a human being who should have common sense), Vanessa should also know how stupid it is to pick a fight with a cop who’s under investigation for shooting and killing an unarmed person. The filmmakers don’t care, because they want to make Vanessa the worst stereotype of an angry black woman.
Brian’s response to Vanessa’s hostile confrontation? He tells her: “As an officer of the law, I suggest you take your high yellow ass back to your nice little house and drop it.” That racist remark is enough for Vanessa to later go over to Brian’s house with a gun, while James is trying smooth things over with Brian. Vanessa wants to provoke a racist cop, and apparently doesn’t care about making things worse, and possibly doing something that could get people killed.
Vanessa pulls a gun on Brian, forces him into the couple’s garage, and orders James to tie up Brian. James is shocked and horrified. At first, James objects to Vanessa’s unhinged actions, but then he reluctantly goes along with this idiotic abduction and the rest of the crimes that Vanessa wants to commit in the name of Black Lives Matter. In other words, the movie is saying that educated black people with no criminal records are actually irrational, violent criminals who’ll use any racial excuse to commit crimes, thereby embodying the worst stereotypes that racists have of black people.
Vanessa is such an obnoxious lunatic, she commits this cop kidnapping less than an hour before James’ brother Jamal (payed by Shamier Anderson) and his pregnant fiancée Candy (played by Lex Scott Davis) are due to arrive for a family dinner. Candy and Jamal show up, find out about the kidnapping, and participate in the crime too. Jamal turns into a thug, while Candy is an airhead who spouts a lot of New Age gibberish.
There’s really no point in describing this awful movie anymore, except to say that the movie’s writing and direction are trash; the pacing is erratic; and all the cast members’ performances get worse as the story goes down a steep slide into a putrid abyss of racial hatred that’s hell-bent on making black people look as bad as possible. The movie ends with a “reveal” that just makes everyone involved look even more insanely stupid, with no real consequences. “A Lot of Nothing” is really just a lot of nonsense and a worthless train wreck that should be avoided at all costs.
Sarah Jones (as herself, as the Nereida character and as the Bella character) in “Sell/Buy/Date” (Photo courtesy of Sell/Buy/Date Film)
“Sell/Buy/Date”
Directed by Sarah Jones
Culture Representation: Taking place in New York, California and Nevada, the documentary film “Sell/Buy/Date” features a racially diverse group of people (African American, white, Latino and Native American) from the working-class and middle-class discussing American society’s attitudes and laws about sex workers.
Culture Clash: People offer different perspectives on whether or not certain types of sex work should be legal and what the repercussions would be if the laws changed.
Culture Audience: “Sell/Buy/Date” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching an unusual documentary about sex workers that blends comedy and the seriousness of hard-hitting issues.
In the very unique documentary “Sell/Buy/Date,” director Sarah Jones takes viewers on a personal journey exploring diverse perspectives of sex workers in America. The movie’s tonal shift from lighthearted to tragic is jarring but necessary. The first two thirds of the film put more emphasis on Jones alternating between comedic sketches and interviews that she conducted with sex workers and celebrities. The last third of the film is when the documentary takes a much darker and more realistic turn, when sex workers talk about the exploitation and abuse that’s part of the sex industry, whether the sex work is legal or not.
“Sell/Buy/Date” is based on Jones’ one-woman stage show “Sell/Buy/Date,” which had a limited off-Broadway run in New York City in 2016 and a limited engagement in Los Angeles in 2018. In the stage show, Jones played various characters representing various perspectives of the sex industry. Jones is also known for her one-woman, off-Broadway show “Bridge & Tunnel,” which won a special Tony Award in 2006. Meryl Streep was an executive producer of “Bridge & Tunnel,” and Streep has the same title for the “Sell/Buy/Date” documentary.
In the “Sell/Buy/Date” stage show, Jones played 19 fictional characters of various races, ethnicities and genders. In real life, Jones (who usually identifies as African American and sometimes as biracial or multiracial) is the child of “an African American father and mother of mixed Euro-American and Caribbean descent,” according to Jones’ Wikipedia page. She calls herself a “woman of color” in the documentary.
In the “Sell/Buy/Date” documentary, Jones portrays four fictional characters: Lorraine, an outspoken 85-year-old white Jewish grandmother; Bella, an academic-minded white college sophomore, who’s majoring in sex-work studies and who’s “ashamed of her white privilege”; Nereida, a sassy half-Dominican, half-Puerto Rican advocate for female rights; and Rashid, a working-class African American man who’s an aspiring entrepreneur and who works as an Uber driver to pay his bills. The “Sell/Buy/Date” stage show also had fictional characters in the sex industry, but none of the play’s sex-worker characters are in the “Sell/Buy/Date” documentary, because Jones interviews real-life sex workers in the film.
Jones interviewed people in New York state (where Jones is based), California and Nevada. The interviewees range from sex workers to activists to people who are not in the sex industry but who know Jones personally. It’s clear from watching the tonal shift of the film that Jones started off thinking that the film was going to go one way, and it turned out going another way. “Sell/Buy/Date” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
The movie opens with a scene of Jones, Lorraine, Bella and Nereida gathered in Jones’ dressing room, as they talk about the “Sell/Buy/Date” stage show, which will soon close. It’s a comedy sketch where the four women discuss the controversy over the show, such as protestors and critics who call Jones and “Sell/Buy/Date” a “danger to women.” Nereida comments that with the “Sell/Buy/Date documentary, Jones was trying so hard to be the “wokest” to please everybody, the play has just ended up angering “everybody.” In a staged scene, Jones is seen getting criticism on social media for being a SWERF: Sex Worker Exclusionary Radical Feminist, which is a label that Jones says does not apply to her.
In a voiceover, Jones says of the “Sell/Buy/Date” characters that she created: “On stage, in my play, they help me share different sides of a topic that’s not often talked about in the sex industry.” As time goes on in the documentary, Jones eventually reveals that she’s created “Sell/Buy/Date” (the play and the movie) as a way to try to emotionally heal and come to terms with the death of her 18-year-old sister Naomi, whose drug addiction led to her becoming a sex worker. Jones doesn’t go into too many details about this tragedy in the movie, but she has said in media interviews that Naomi died at the start of Jones’ career in the entertainment industry.
Early on in the documentary, Jones mentions dreading the anniversary of Naomi’s death. She also talks about keeping Naomi’s journal for three years and being afraid to read it, although she eventually does read parts of the journal on camera in the documentary. It’s one of the best parts of the movie, when Jones is being herself and showing a very vulnerable side to her, instead of playing characters to get some laughs.
Jones’ mother Leslie (an obstetrician/gynecologist) appears briefly in the documentary and mostly shows support for Jones in making this movie, but she also expresses her disapproval of her daughter having to spend so much time with people whom Leslie thinks are unsavory characters because of their line of work. These mother-daughter scenes are mostly heartwarming, but viewers can tell that the subject of Naomi is too painful for them to talk about in depth on camera. (Jones’ parents are divorced, and her father does not appear in the documentary.)
There’s a little bit of Leslie that comes across in Jones’ grandmotherly Lorraine character. The character of Bella represents people who think all sex work should be legal everywhere. The character of Nereida is vehemently opposed to prostitution being legal, because she believes that prostitutes (especially female prostitutes) will still be exploited. In the beginning of the movie, Nereida argues with Jones about Jones glorifying prostitution in the documentary. And later, Nereida gives a passionate monologue that’s one of the movie’s best scenes. As for Rashid, this character is in the movie for pure comic relief as Jones’ driver. He doesn’t have much to say about the sex industry except to hint that he’s had experience in hiring sex workers.
People have different definitions of “sex work,” so “Sell/Buy/Date” talks mostly to sex workers whose primary sex work involves sex acts that are done in person. For example, there are no interviews with people who work only in phone sex or Internet/webcam sex. It’s debatable whether or not getting paid to strip and dance nude is considered “sex work,” but the movie includes a segment where Jones goes to a pole-dancing class taught by Amy Bond, founder of Pole + Dance Studios in San Francisco. During her interview, Bond opens up about her puritanical Mormon background and how she used to do porn. Bond encourages Jones and other people in the pole-dancing class to have more of a mind/body connection.
One of the more ironically interesting parts of the documentary is when Jones is in Las Vegas for a Sex Industrialist Revolution Conference taking place right next to an anti-sex trafficking conference. However, the documentary could have used more exploration of what making prostitution legal would really mean for sex-trafficking activities and how it all relates to gender issues. Men are the majority of customers for prostitutes, but the customers are punished less than the prostitutes, when it comes to the law and society’s judgments. It’s debatable if legal prostitution really erases the society stigma that prostitutes (who are usually female) have to bear more than their customers.
Some celebrities make cameos as themselves in the documentary. Rosario Dawson gives words of encouragement to Jones about making the movie. Ilana Glazer and Jones talk about the controversy over the “Sell/Buy/Date” play. Bryan Cranston appears toward the end of the film and shares a very personal story with Jones about how he lost his virginity to a prostitute.
At various points in the scripted parts of the movie, Jones is seen interacting by phone only with two characters from her “support team”: her manager Roger and her publicist Nora. These are fictional characters that could be based on real-life people. In the movie, it’s mentioned that Jones is in a “dead-end relationship” with Roger and that they are “just using each other.” Roger is also evicting her from a home that he’s been renting for her because he doesn’t want to pay her rent anymore. It’s never really explained in the movie how true any of this information is, but it looks out of place in a documentary.
For most of the documentary, the fictional characters drift in and out of the narrative. Other scenes not involving these fictional characters are deliberately staged, such as a scene where Jones is in a waiting room for a doctor’s appointment, and she’s sitting near a sex worker named Tish “The Dish” Roberts. The scene is staged to make it look like Roberts and Jones are meeting as random strangers for the first time, as Roberts sees Jones and gushes to Jones that she’s a fan of the “Sell/Buy/Date” play.
In this waiting room, the two women then talk about Roberts’ experiences as a sex worker. Roberts (who is African American) says she became a sex worker at age 17, when a white male schoolteacher she had at the time gave her a lot of attention that she craved. The teacher knew that Roberts came from an impoverished, broken home, so the attention that he gave her eventually turned to paying her to perform sex acts with him.
Roberts says that these payments for sex acts continued on more than one occasion, and she obeyed the teacher’s orders to keep everything a secret. She comments to Jones about that sexual experience: “It felt like a transaction. I learned to detach from it.”
In the conversation, Roberts thanks Jones for doing the “Sell/Buy/Date” play and movie for giving a voice to sex workers. Jones doesn’t pass judgment on Roberts, but neither does Jones call this teacher-student experience for what it really is: sexual exploitation. And depending on the age-of-consent-law in the state where it took place, it would have been illegal sexual abuse.
Lotus Lain, a sex worker who is also described as a “sex worker advocate,” warns Jones about the pitfalls of directing this documentary and not being in the sex industry herself: “You’re about to get yourself cancelled. You’re an outsider. You are what we call a ‘civilian.’ You do not understand what it is we go through to be telling our stories.” The conversation between Jones and Lain ends on a cordial note, but Jones does seem very aware throughout the film that she’s learning more about the sex industry as she goes along in making the documentary.
At first, some of the sex workers interviewed in the documentary paint a rosy picture of being in control of their work and their bodies. A common theme in this talk is that sex work can equal “empowerment.” But what “Sell/Buy/Date” eventually does is expose the different layers of the sex industry to show that the people who push the most for prostitution to be legal are the ones who are most likely to get the most financial gain from it. And men are the vast majority of the business owners in the sex industry.
In the documentary, these business owners include porn entrepreneur/actor Evan Seinfeld (also known as a musician who used to be the lead singer/bassist for the rock band Biohazard), who essentially brags about how much money he can make from porn and talks about how his employees (who are mostly women) can make a lot of money too. What he doesn’t mention (but is obvious to anyone who knows anything about business) is that because Seinfeld owns his company, he still makes more money than the people who work for him.
In Nevada (where prostitution is legal), brothel owner Alice Little gives Jones a cheerful tour of her Chicken Ranch brothel, which has only women as sex workers. Little talks about how the brothel is safe and regulated, but she glosses over any negative experiences her employees have had with customers. Little admits that she’s one of the very few women in the United States who owns a legal brothel. What Seinfeld and Little have in common is promoting their businesses in this documentary, so of course their agenda is to make the sex industry look as glamorous as possible.
But then, Jones shows another side of the sex industry that is more common: the workers who don’t own businesses in the sex industry, and who are at the mercy of customers, pimps/madams and other people who can exploit them. The documentary starts to get real when sex workers/activists such as Esperanza Fonseca (a transgender woman) and Pueblo tribe member Terria Xo open up about the violence and other abuse they’ve experienced in their line of work. Addictions to drugs and alcohol are also occupational hazards. When people talk about making prostitution legal, no one likes to talk about who’s going to pay the medical bills when these sex workers get viciously assaulted during their work.
Jones interviews Xo with other Native American activists, such as Jennifer Marley (who is Tewa, part of the Pueblo tribe) and Becki Jones (from the Diné/Navajo tribe), who give honest and direct talk about how sex workers who are women of color and transgender women are disproportionately more likely than any other sex workers to experience violence and death because of sex work. And therefore, they say that even if prostitution became legal everywhere in America, it still would not change the violence that can happen, and the racial and gender disparities in who gets to profit the most from sex work. “Sell/Buy/Date” doesn’t force viewers to think one way or another about these issues, but it admirably presents enough perspectives for viewers to make up their own minds.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Texas in 1979, the horror film “X” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with one Latina and two African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: Six people go to a rented farm to make a porn movie, but the elderly spouses who own the farm show their violent disapproval.
Culture Audience: “X” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of writer/director Ti West and horror flicks that skillfully blend horror with satirical comedy.
Pictured clockwise, from left: Owen Campbell, Brittany Snow, Mia Goth, Scott Mescudi and Jenna Ortega in “X” (Photo by Christopher Moss/A24)
“X” is a horror film that doesn’t break any new ground, but this “slow burn” movie delivers some gruesome terror with touches of social satire that can bring some laughs. Written and directed by horror master Ti West, “X” is sure to count as one of his best movies. Will “X” be considered an iconic classic that influences other horror films? No. However, “X” takes a simple concept that other slasher movies mishandle and makes it something that horror fans can thoroughly enjoy, as long as people can tolerate watching some bloody violence that can be nauseating to some viewers.
“X” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin, Texas. It’s fitting that the movie premiered in Texas, since the story takes place mostly in a rural and unnamed part of Texas. (“X” was actually filmed in New Zealand.) In “X,” the year is 1979, when porn movies made in the U.S. got an “X” rating for adults-only content. Six people in the adult film industry are going on a road trip to an isolated farm that the producer has rented, in order to make a porn film called “The Farmer’s Daughter.” This porn movie is a very low-budget film with only one camera.
The six people on this fateful trip are:
Wayne Gilroy (played by Martin Henderson), a brash, fast-talking middle-aged producer whose immediate goal in life is for “The Farmer’s Daughter” to be a blockbuster porn movie—or at least make a fraction of what “Debbie Does Dallas” made, so that Wayne can get out of debt.
Maxine Minx (played by Mia Goth), an up-and-coming actress who wants to be as famous as “Wonder Woman” TV star Lynda Carter. Off camera, Maxine (who’s in her 20s) is Wayne’s lover (he left his wife for her), and Wayne has promised to make Maxine a star. Maxine also has a cocaine habit, since she’s seen snorting coke several times in the movie.
Bobby-Lynne Parker (played by Brittany Snow), an experienced porn actress in her 30s, who styles her physical appearance like Marilyn Monroe, and who likes to think of herself as the reigning Southern belle of porn.
Jackson Hole (played by Scott Mescudi), the porn name of a well-endowed actor in his 30s who is the only male cast member doing the porn scenes in “The Farmer’s Daughter.” Bobby-Lynne and Jackson are also sex partners off-camera, in a “friends with benefits” relationship.
RJ Nichols (played by Owen Campbell), the director of “The Farmer’s Daughter.” RJ, who’s in his late 20s, likes to think that the porn movies he directs are cinematic art.
Lorraine Day (played by Jenna Ortega), RJ’s girlfriend, a “jack of all trades” crew member who is essentially RJ’s assistant. Lorraine is in her late teens or early 20s and is relatively new to the adult film industry. She’s eager to learn all that she can about filmmaking.
The movie’s opening scene shows viewers that this porn movie shoot will result in a massacre, since police officers arrive at the farm and see several bloody and mutilated dead bodies. The movie circles back to this crime scene at the end of the film. The rest of “X” shows what happened 24 hours earlier, leading up to the massacre.
It takes a while for “X” to get going, since the first half of the movie is about the road trip, arriving at the farm, and filming the sex scenes. The farm is owned by an elderly couple named Howard (played by Stephen Ure), nicknamed Howie, and his wife Pearl (also played by Goth), who have been married to each other for decades. Ure and Goth wear balding hair pieces and prosthetic makeup that give creepy and decrepit physical appearances to Howard and Pearl. Goth gives an absolutely maniacal performance as Pearl, who is much more disturbed and volatile than Howard.
Howard is a cantankerous veteran of World War I and World War II. The first thing that Howard does when he sees Wayne is pull a gun on him, until Wayne reminds Howard that he’s the movie producer who’s renting the farm for a film shoot. Wayne doesn’t tell this farm couple that this film shoot is for a porn movie, but Howard and Pearl inevitably find out because they’re on the property during this film shoot.
Pearl is starved for affection from her husband. When she tries to make amorous advances on Howard, he pushes her away and mentions his heart condition when he says, “You know I can’t. My heart.” Pearl is a former dancer who sees a lot of younger herself in Maxine and instantly fixates on Maxine. Pearl is also a voyeur, so it should come as no surprise that Pearl ends up watching one of the sex scenes that’s being filmed in the barn. And when she finds out that a porn movie is being made on her property, all hell breaks loose.
Before the murder and mayhem begin, “X” makes some sly commentary on how gender affects perceptions and judgments of people’s involvement in porn. This small cast and crew of “The Farmer’s Daughter” are a microcosm of larger issues in the adult film industry: Men are usually in charge and usually make the business decisions. The women are usually expected to follow orders.
Women in adult entertainment also get more of society’s stigma and degradation, compared to men in adult entertainment. A woman is much more likely than a man to be called a “whore” for doing porn. This derogatory name-calling happens in a scene in “X,” even though for “The Farmer’s Daughter” porn movie, a man is just as much of a participant in the sex scenes as the women. There’s a moment in the movie where one of the women flips the proverbial script and makes a decision that greatly upsets one of the men.
And because there are three couples on this trip, their dynamics also represent the types of relationships that can occur in the adult film industry. Wayne and Maxine represent a stereotypical older filmmaker who hooks up with a young actress and tells her a lot of big talk about making her a star. Bobby-Lynne and Jackson are swingers who don’t have any commitment in their relationship and don’t want to be bound by traditional sexual expectations. RJ and Lorraine represent people who are in the porn industry only to get filmmaking experience so that they can move on to mainstream movies.
“X” has the expected sex scenes, but there are also scenes that show the type of camaraderie that can happen during a film production. On their first night after filming scenes from “The Farmer’s Daughter,” the cast and crew hang out and have some drinks together. Bobby-Lynne leads a toast where she says, “Here’s to the perverts who’ve been paying our bills for years!”
After this toast, Bobby-Lynne sings Fleetwood Mac’s “Landslide,” while Jackson plays acoustic guitar. Snow’s performance of “Landslide” is very good and one of the unexpected highlights in this horror film. This laid-back party scene is effective in showing how the people in this group have no idea what’s in store for them.
“X” has a few nods to 1970s horror classics, such as 1974’s “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” and 1978’s “Halloween.” The comparisons to “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre” are obvious. In “X,” Blue Oyster Cult’s 1976 song “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” song is played during a pivotal scene. Horror aficionados know that “Don’t Fear the Reaper” was also prominently featured in 1978’s “Halloween.”
Even though the first half of “X” doesn’t have any real terror, “X” still manages to keep viewers on edge over what might happen. There’s no real mystery of who the villains are, because this is a slasher flick that clearly forecasts who will be the perpetrators of the violence. Although the ideas in “X” aren’t very original, they’re still filmed in very suspenseful ways. And there’s an interesting twist/reveal toward the end of the film. Ultimately, “X” doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is: a worthy tribute to retro slasher films that makes “X” memorable in its own right.
A24 will release “X” in U.S. cinemas on March 18, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD is April 14, 2022.
Callie Hernandez and Ashley Denise Robinson in “Jethica” (Photo by Pete Ohs)
“Jethica”
Directed by Pete Ohs
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in New Mexico, the comedy/drama film “Jethica” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Latina and one African American) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A woman has an unexpected reunion with a former classmate from high school, but this former classmate has a big problem: a stalker who follows her everywhere.
Culture Audience: “Jethica” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in offbeat dark comedies that are unpredictable.
Callie Hernandez and Will Madden in “Jethica” (Photo by Pete Ohs)
The dark comedy thriller “Jethica” blurs genres and cheekily plays with viewer expectations on what the movie is about and how it’s all going to end. Directed by Pete Ohs, “Jethica” has a relatively small number of cast members, and the movie clocks in at 70 minutes. It’s just the right amount of time to tell this story, in what could have easily been a short film. “Jethica” has a simple concept, but it’s depicted in a compellingly eerie way.
Five people have screenwriting credits for “Jethica”: director Ohs and four of the movie’s cast members: Callie Hernandez (who plays Elena), Ashley Denise Robinson (who plays Jessica), Will Madden (who plays Kevin) and Andy Faulkner (who plays Benny). By having so many cast members credited as screenwriters, “Jethica” gives the impression that much of this movie was improvised. And sure enough, in the production notes for “Jethica,” Ohs makes this statement: “Our creative process was an experiment. We went to New Mexico without a script and wrote the movie as we went.” “Jethica” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival.
On the surface, “Jethica” (which takes place in an unnamed city in New Mexico) sounds like a typical “woman in peril” movie about someone being followed by a stalker. But there’s more to the story than the stalking. The beginning of the film shows a woman in her 20s named Elena having a sexual tryst in the back of a car with an unnamed man (played by Alan Palomo), whose face is never seen in the movie. Based on their conversation, she thinks of him as no more than a casual hookup whom she sees on a semi-regular basis.
During this tryst, he asks Elena why she hasn’t invited him to her home. She explains that she has a roommate and doesn’t want to deal with scheduling their hookups based on when the roommate will be home or not. Elena then tells him that about a year ago, she lived alone in an isolated trailer that she inherited from her grandmother.
Elena states matter-of-factly that the reason for her seclusion was “because I killed somebody.” Elena’s lover responds sarcastically, “I had no idea I was hooking up with a murderer.” Elena then begins to tell what happened when she lived alone in that trailer. The movie then switches to flashback mode for nearly all of the story.
The flashback begins with Elena getting gas for her car at a gas station, where she randomly sees Jessica, a former classmate from high school, who’s getting gas for her own car. Elena and Jessica haven’t seen each other since they were high-school students. Their reunion starts off a little awkward, because Jessica doesn’t seem that happy to see Elena. Jessica comes across as uncomfortable and a little standoffish when talking to Elena.
Jessica says that she used to live in California, but she left because she had a stalker. She then moved to Santa Fe, but the stalker found her there too. Jessica says she’s on a road trip but doesn’t mention where she’s going. Elena invites Jessica to her place to hang out and have some coffee. At first Jessica says no, but then she changes her mind.
While Jessica follows Elena back to Elena’s trailer, she notices that Elena has stopped on the road to say hello to a man in his late 20s or early 30s. He seems to be walking with a slightly off-kilter gait and has a vacant stare. It’s unclear if the man is homeless or not. When they get to the trailer, Elena explains that the man’s name is Benny, and he’s a platonic friend of hers.
Jessica begins to open up to Elena about her stalker ordeal. She says that her stalker is a man named Kevin Morris, whom she barely knows, but somehow, he became obsessed with her. Jessica also mentions that the police won’t help with her stalking problem because Kevin didn’t break any laws by showing up in public in the same places where Jessica was.
However, Jessica shows Elena some of the creepy videos and letters that Kevin sent her. Although he never threatened her with bodily harm, his rantings became increasingly hostile because he became upset with Jessica for not responding to his communication. Kevin talks with a lisp, which is why the title of the movie is “Jethica.”
Elena generously tells Jessica that she can stay in Elena’s home as long as Jessica needs to stay. For now, Jessica just accepts the offer to stay the night. But it isn’t long before a man shows up outside the trailer. He restlessly paces back and forth and yells out Jessica’s name repeatedly.
A terrified Jessica peers out the window and is certain that the man, who looks a lot like Kevin, can’t possibly be Kevin. How can she be so sure? Who is this man? And how did he find Jessica in this very remote area? Those questions are eventually answered in the movie.
“Jethica” is a very atmospheric film that makes great use of the scenic vistas in New Mexico’s desert landscapes and Puebloan ruins. (The movie was filmed in Estancia, New Mexico.) “Jethica” director/co-writer Ohs is also the movie’s producer, cinematographer and film editor. Some of the sunset and nighttime shots in the movie are as breathtaking as they can be foreboding, because most of the movie takes place in a remote area where something ominous always seems to be on the brink of happening.
It’s not quite a horror film, but “Jethica” has some aspects of supernatural horror. Still, viewers should not expect major terror or chase scenes that are typical of supernatural horror movies. The movie has plenty of suspense and touches of sardonic comedy that make it worthwhile to viewers who can appreciate eccentric, low-budget films.
“Jethica” isn’t a movie where people give award-worthy performances, although all of the cast members are perfectly fine in their roles. That’s because all of the movie’s characters in this New Mexico desert area are guarded about something. The secrets that come out are what people will remember most about “Jethica.”
James Morosini and Patton Oswalt in “I Love My Dad” (Photo courtesy of I Love My Dad LLC/Hantz Motion Pictures)
“I Love My Dad”
Directed by James Morosini
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city and in Augusta, Maine, the comedy film “I Love My Dad” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few African Americans) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A divorced father, who is a pathological liar, tries to reconnect with his estranged, young adult son by creating a fake online profile where the father impersonates a woman who pretends to be romantically interested in the son.
Culture Audience: “I Love My Dad” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in quirky comedies that have incisive social commentary on “catfishing” (creating a fake online persona to deceive people) and dysfunctional family relationships.
James Morosini and Patton Oswalt in “I Love My Dad” (Photo courtesy of I Love My Dad LLC/Hantz Motion Pictures)
Inspired by a true story, “I Love My Dad” is the type of comedy that adeptly turns its most cringeworthy moments into its funniest moments. It’s not an easy challenge, considering that it’s a movie that will make many viewers uncomfortable. “I Love My Dad” has a double meaning, because it’s about a divorced father who pretends to be an attractive young woman online, so that he can lure his estranged son into an online emotional relationship. It’s all because this disturbed father is so desperate to reconnect with his son, he’s concocted this elaborate ruse, even if he knows it’s a disaster waiting to happen.
It’s the type of warped story that people might think could only be fabricated for a movie. However, it happened in real life to “I Love My Dad” writer/director James Morosini, who also stars as the hapless and beleaguered son in this movie. “I Love My Dad” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival, where it won the event’s top grand jury prize: Best Narrative Feature. As messy as the movie’s subject is, it’s also a wild and entertaining ride that’s made all the more poignant because it’s a deeply personal story.
“I Love My Dad” opens with a flashback scene of Chuck Green (played by Patton Oswalt) and his son Franklin Green (played by Seamus Callahan), who’s about 8 or 9 years old, taking home a stray black Labrador retriever that they found on the street. Eager to please his son, Chuck tells Franklin (who has no siblings) that they can keep the dog, which is male. Franklin asks, “What if he’s lost?” Chuck just shrugs.
As Chuck and Franklin walk home together with the dog, Chuck sees a “missing dog” flyer posted on a telephone pole. The dog in the flyer’s photo is the same dog that Chuck has taken, and the owner wants to find the dog. Out of Franklin’s sight and without any guilt, Chuck tears the flyer off the pole because he wants to keep the dog. It’s an indication of Chuck’s personality: impulsive, wanting immediate gratification, and very selfish.
The movie then fast-forwards to showing Franklin in his early 20s. His parents have been divorced for years, and Franklin is in therapy for anxiety and depression—mostly because his irresponsible and unreliable father Chuck has caused a lot of emotional damage to Franklin. Chuck is a chronic liar whose dishonesty was the main cause for the divorce.
Franklin is a misfit loner who lives with his mother Diane (played by Amy Landecker), who is very protective and concerned about Franklin’s mental health. Franklin is currently unemployed, but his dream job is to be a computer coder for a video game company. He spends a lot of time playing video games. The movie doesn’t mention where Franklin and Diane live, but it’s thousands of miles away from Chuck. Diane has not been in regular contact with Chuck for a long time—and she wants it to stay that way.
Meanwhile, Chuck (who lives in Augusta, Maine) is despondent because Franklin, whom he has not spoken to in about a year, has recently blocked Chuck from all of Franklin’s social media. Chuck is sulking about it at his office job (the movie never mentions what Chuck does for a living), and his mopey attitude is noticed by a co-worker named Jimmy (played by Lil Rel Howery). Jimmy asks Chuck why he looks so sad, and Chuck tells him about Franklin’s online snubbing.
Jimmy mentions to Chuck that when he was blocked online by an ex-girlfriend, all he had to do to continue following her on social media was to create a phony online persona and get on her online “friends” list again. Jimmy brags that the trick worked, and he was able to keep tabs on what this ex-girlfriend was doing. It’s an idea that Chuck takes to extremes.
Shortly after getting cut off from Jimmy, Chuck goes to eat by himself at a local diner called Carl’s Kountry Kitchen. (“I Love My Dad” was filmed in New York state, and the movie includes the real Carl’s Kountry Kitchen, which is in Syracuse, New York.) Chuck’s server is a friendly young woman in her early 20s named Becca (played by Claudia Sulewski), who has a “girl next door” attractiveness about her.
When Chuck goes home, he looks up Becca on the Internet and finds all of her social media. And that’s when he gets the idea to pretend to be Becca and contact Franklin. Chuck steals Becca’s identity and many of her online photos to create fake online profiles of her. When Franklin accepts the fake Becca’s friend requests, Franklin asks her during a chat why he’s the only person she’s following.
As the fake Becca, Chuck quickly comes up with an excuse that “Becca” has new accounts because she deleted her previous accounts when she took a break from social media. Franklin believes this excuse. Over time, Franklin and “Becca” get closer, as they open up to each other about their emotions and family problems. And it should come as no surprise that Franklin ends up falling for “Becca,” as Chuck gets more caught up in this elaborate and twisted masquerade.
Chuck is ecstatic that Franklin is talking to Chuck again, even though it’s all based on Chuck’s concocted lies. Chuck confides in his co-worker Jimmy about the fake online persona. Jimmy warns Chuck not to continue this deception because Franklin might permanently cut Chuck out of Franklin’s life if Franklin finds out the truth. Chuck ignores this advice because he’s self-centered and has become accustomed to lying to get what he wants.
One of the funniest aspects of “I Love My Dad” is how it shows Becca appearing to exist in person with Franklin when he’s chatting with her online or having fantasies about her. But then, the camera suddenly switches to the reality that Chuck is talking to Franklin, so Chuck is shown doing the things with Franklin that Franklin is simultaneously imagining that Becca is doing with Franklin. This switch of perspectives is cleverly edited to bring many of laugh-out-loud moments for people watching the movie. Chuck has fantasies too, where he places himself in moments where he wants to emotionally bond with Franklin.
Franklin knows that “Becca” doesn’t live near him, but he eventually wants some kind of contact with her beyond words and photos on a screen. When he tries to set up an online video chat, “Becca” comes up with the excuse that her computer’s video camera is broken. Whenever Franklin becomes skeptical of “Becca” being real, Chuck thinks of something to continue the ruse.
At one point, Franklin insists on talking to “Becca” on the phone. And so, Chuck averts Franklin’s suspicions that “Becca” is a fake persona when Chuck enlists a neurotic co-worker whom he’s been dating named Erica (played by Rachel Dratch) to impersonate “Becca” over the phone. Erica is infatuated with Chuck, but she’s very reluctant to be a part of this deceit. Chuck lies to Erica by saying that it’s a prank that he and Franklin play on each other as a father-son tradition. Erica participates in this con only after she gets Chuck to agree to have sex with her at their office.
Of course, there’s a sexual component that becomes a part of Franklin’s online “romance” with “Becca.” It’s a part of the deception that makes Chuck the most squeamish and feeling very guilty about what he’s doing. But that doesn’t stop dishonest Chuck from making Erica an unwitting accomplice during a hilarious scene involving online sex talk.
To be clear: “I Love My Dad” does not condone incest or sexual abuse. Rather, it shows in amusing and unsettling ways how pathetic online liars can be with their con games. The people who know Chuck’s secret (his co-workers Jimmy and Erica) express their disapproval to Chuck, but Chuck is the type of person who will do what he wants, no matter what other people say about it being wrong. The movie makes it obvious that as much as Chuck thinks he’s too smart to get caught, he’s really the one who’s degrading himself the most.
“I Love My Dad” has some hilarious twists and turns as Chuck’s lies get bigger, and he goes to greater lengths to prevent his lies from being exposed. This movie works so well as a comedy, mainly because the story doesn’t take itself too seriously. It’s really a “truth is stranger than fiction” movie that seems so absurd, it might as well be a comedy. Morosini admirably channels what must have been a very painful time in his life into a story that can not only entertain people but also provoke thoughtful discussions about healing from family dysfunction, deciding what to forgive, and choosing which family members to have in one’s life.
The lead performances by Morosini and Oswalt make this movie’s engine run with a crackling energy of two characters who are at odds with each other but also weirdly co-dependent on each other for emotional validation. Some viewers might not care for how “I Love My Dad” ends, while other viewers will love the movie’s ending. Either way, the intended message of “I Love My Dad” is that there’s sometimes no way to predict what people will do to be close to the ones they love.
UPDATE: Magnolia Pictures will release “I Love My Dad” in select U.S. cinemas on August 5, 2022. The movie is set for release on digital and VOD on August 12, 2022.
Pictured clockwise, from bottom left: Olivia Luccardi, Dana Millican, Stefanie Estes, Rebekah Wiggins, Eleanore Pienta and Nina E. Jordan in “Soft & Quiet” (Photo by Greta Zozula)
“Soft & Quiet”
Directed by Beth de Araújo
Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the dramatic film “Soft & Quiet” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two Asians and one Latina) representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: White supremacist women gather to form a racist hate group, and some of them plot to get revenge on two Asian women in a crime that spirals out of control.
Culture Audience: “Soft & Quiet” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in movies that have accurate depictions of racist hate crimes and the people who commit them.
Stefanie Estes in “Soft & Quiet” (Photo by Greta Zozula)
Even though this movie’s title is “Soft & Quiet,” the movie’s message is meant to sound a very loud and urgent alarm. It’s a brutally realistic and disturbing depiction of female white supremacists who try to look harmless, but whose toxic bigotry can erupt into vicious hate crimes. Most movies (fiction and non-fiction) about white supremacists often focus on male racists, because male racists tend to be more visible to the public, such as when men are the majority of attendees at hate rallies. “Soft & Quiet” writer/director Beth de Araújo exposes the equally dangerous and often more covert insidiousness of women who identify as white supremacists and who will do whatever it takes to oppress and violate people who aren’t white.
Although the characters in this movie are fictional, they represent exactly how many hate-filled racists actually think and act in the real world. “Soft & Quiet” had its world premiere at the 2022 South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Festival. It would be foolish to dismiss “Soft & Quiet” as being overly dramatic or an “only in a movie” story. Anyone can look up real-life hate crimes to see that what happens in this movie has happened in one form or another in real life—and the crimes are often much worse than what’s in a movie. And those are just the crimes that were reported. There are unknown numbers of unreported crimes that will never be made public.
People who watch “Soft & Quiet” without knowing anything about the movie beforehand might think from the film’s first 15 minutes that it’s just a lightweight story about some suburban women getting together to form a support group in a church. That’s the intention of the movie: to make people aware that racists who have these hateful beliefs often give the appearance of being inoffensive, law-abiding citizens. It’s that false sense of “unthreatening normalcy” that acts as a façade for many racists who are hiding in plain sight and who intend to violate other people’s civil rights, based on their race.
“Soft & Quiet,” which takes place in an unnamed U.S. city, begins with a scene in an unnamed primary school restroom, where a schoolteacher in her 30s named Emily (played by Stefanie Estes) is in a toilet stall and looking at the result of a pregnancy test. Emily bursts into tears when she sees the result of the test. Later in the movie, it’s revealed that Emily and her husband have been unsuccessfully trying to start a family. This latest pregnancy test shows that she’s not pregnant.
Emily gathers her composure as she walks out of the restroom. School sessions have ended for the day, and Emily sees a cleaning employee named Maria (played by Jovita Molina), who’s doing her job on the premises. Emily apparently is a teacher of first graders or second graders, because one of her students is a boy named Daniel (played by Jayden Leavitt), who’s about 7 or 8 years old.
Daniel is waiting outside by himself because his mother is late in picking him up. Emily expresses some concern about this child being alone, but she’s more concerned about telling Daniel to scold Maria to not mop any floors until after Daniel leaves. Emily says it’s because Daniel could slip and hurt himself on a wet floor. When Daniel’s mother arrives, Emily makes sure to tell her that she was looking out for Daniel and that this school employee could’ve put Daniel’s life in danger. Daniel’s mother expresses gratitude to Emily for being so conscientious.
Emily is not saying these things out of the kindness of her heart. The movie shows in subtle ways, which become more obvious when Emily’s true racist nature is revealed, that Emily wanted Daniel to put this Latina employee “in her place,” because Emily firmly believes in white supremacy. Throughout the movie, there are several references to the white supremacist women being preoccupied with feeling that their race is “endangered” in America.
After she leaves the school, Emily goes to a local church, where she has gathered a group of five other women (ranging in ages from late 20s to late 30s) for a meeting. At first, the women exchange small talk. But then, Emily unwraps the cherry pie that she brought to the meeting. The pie has a Nazi swastika carved in the center. All of the women laugh with glee and amusement when they see this hateful and disgusting symbol.
That’s because the women who have gathered for this meeting want to form a group called Daughters of Aryan Unity. A few of the women already know each other, while others do not. The women sit in a circle and introduce themselves, beginning with Emily, and they all express much of their racial hostility and resentments. Many of their vile comments are what you would expect from bigots who think that people who are white, Christian, heterosexual and cisgender are superior to everyone else.
Here are brief descriptions of the other members of the group:
Kim (played by Dana Millican), a married mother of two children, is the owner/manager of a local convenience store. Kim has a journalism degree and a brittle, no-nonsense attitude. She offers to be in charge of the group’s planned newsletter. Kim immediately shows her anti-Semitism when she complains about Jews owning banks and controlling the mainstream media. Emily and Kim have known each other for years.
Leslie (played by Olivia Luccardi) has recently moved to the area. She’s a bachelorette who later reveals that she’s an ex-con and comes from a “shitty family.” Leslie was invited to this meeting by Kim, because Leslie works at the same convenience store. Leslie thinks of Kim as her mentor. It should come as no surprise, considering Leslie’s criminal background, that Leslie ends up being the biggest loose cannon in the group.
Marjorie (played by Eleanore Pienta) is a retail store employee, who’s angry that a female co-worker of Colombian heritage got a job promotion that Marjorie wanted. Even though Marjorie admits that her supervisor told Marjorie that the promoted employee has “better leadership skills” than Marjorie does, Marjorie still thinks that Marjorie was entitled to the promotion because she’s been a store employee longer and because she is a white American. Marjorie, who dismisses any of the promoted co-worker’s job qualifications, says that the co-worker only got promoted because of “diversity and because she’s brown.”
Nora (played by Nina E. Jordan), a lifelong member of the Ku Klux Klan, says that her father was a KKK chapter president in Valentine, Nebraska. Nora, who is married and pregnant with her fifth child, believes that people of different races are better-off being separated from each other. She has this to say about race mixing: “I’m here to talk common sense. Multiculturism doesn’t work.”
Alice (played by Rebekah Wiggins), an awkward loner, says that she’s a married homemaker who spends “a lot of time by myself and in my thoughts.” Even if this group has beliefs that unite them, the “mean girls” element is still there. After the meeting, a few of the women single out Alice behind her back because they think Alice is a misfit who might not be compatible with the other women.
Emily leads the discussions and makes these remarks: “We are here to support each other during this multicultural warfare. I have been brainwashed to feel shame for my heritage, to feel guilty for the prosperity our husbands, our fathers, our brothers created in the Western world and that everyone else benefited from.” In her racist speech, Emily ignores historical facts about the United States, where white supremacy caused genocide of indigenous people, enslavement of black people, and other racist human-rights violations that resulted in white people benefiting and prospering the most from this racism.
When talking about the proposed newsletter, Emily makes a comment that best sums up why these types of female white supremacists are so sneaky: “We have to be careful with the first issue [of the newsletter]. We want to engage the mainstream. We can’t come on too strong, okay? Soft on the outside, so vigorous ideas can be digested more easily. We are the best secret weapon that no one checks at the door because we tread quietly.”
Not everyone is welcoming of this group’s racist beliefs. Something happens that abruptly breaks up the meeting: The church pastor, who is in the building, apparently overheard this discussion, and that’s how he found out that Emily was hosting a white supremacist meeting. The pastor takes Emily aside privately, expresses his disapproval, and tells her that if she and her group leave immediately and never come back, he won’t report them. Emily ends the meeting, but she doesn’t tell the other members of the group that they have been kicked out by the church pastor.
Not long after this church expulsion, something happens that changes the course of the story. Emily, her husband Craig (played by Jon Beavers) and Marjorie happen to be in the convenience store where Kim and Leslie are working. The store is about to close when two sisters in their 20s go in the store. Kim announces that the store is closed, but the older and more assertive sister, whose name is Anne (played Melissa Paulo), says she just needs to quickly buy a bottle of wine. The younger sister’s name is Lily (played by Cissy Ly), who is quieter than Anne and is more likely to want to avoid confrontations.
Anne and Lily both happen to be Asian. And when they go in the store, they are the only people of color who are there. What happens next triggers a series of events that turn “Soft & Quiet” from a conversation-driven movie into a gripping portrayal of heinous and irreversible actions. It’s enough to say, without revealing too many details, that the white supremacists instigate a physical altercation at the store, and then they impulsively hatch a vengeful plot that targets Anne and Lily.
It’s important for viewers to notice that when the members of this white supremacist group commit the crimes that they commit, they are always thinking about how they can use their privileges as white women to get away with the crimes. There are subtle and not-so-subtle references to how they think because they are white women, they are more likely to be believed than people who aren’t white. They also engage in a lot of ego posturing about how they are the “good people,” while their victims and targets of their hate are the “bad people.” And during one particularly harrowing scene, Kim mentions that she knows plenty of cops who can protect her and other members of this racist group if they do something wrong.
All of the cast members in the movie give authentic portrayals of their characters, which is why “Soft & Quiet” will touch a lot of nerves in viewers who might see people they know in these characters. Emily has a respectable job as a teacher of very young and impressionable kids, but it masks her dark side that she only shows to certain people. Estes gives a chilling but effective performance as someone who presents herself as one way to most of the world but is actually another way in reality.
Luccardi’s unhinged portrayal of Leslie represents the type of white supremacist who doesn’t really care about hiding hate. Leslie is the only one in this movie who mentions anything about her background. She’s the only one in this group who has a criminal record. But the point of “Soft & Quiet” isn’t to blame family upbringings or over-explain backstories for why these women turned out the way that they did. The point of the movie is to show viewers that this is how a lot of racists are behind closed doors.
“Soft & Quiet” is an impressive feature-film debut from writer/director de Araújo, who shows great skill in how the movie unpeels the layers of racist hate. The movie also succeeds in how it credibly transitions from camaraderie-filled discussions to a maelstrom of terror and violence. The film’s compelling cinematography (by Greta Zozula), music (by Miles Ross) and editing (by Lindsay Armstrong) will engulf viewers in this tension-filled environment.
“Soft & Quiet” is not an easy film to watch. It’s meant to make people uncomfortable. It might make people angry or sad. The violence and hatred unleashed by the movie’s racist characters might be triggering for some viewers who’ve experienced these types of crimes. Some viewers might be so turned-off or upset, they might not be able to finish watching the movie. Regardless of what people think of “Soft & Quiet,” the movie serves its purpose if it makes people more aware and less in denial about the racists who live among us and how poisonous these bigots can be.
Culture Representation: Taking place in Ireland, the horror film “The Cellar” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class.
Culture Clash: A married couple and their two children move into a house that has a history of being haunted and where previous residents have mysteriously disappeared.
Culture Audience: “The Cellar” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching formulaic horror movies that don’t do anything truly unique.
Eoin Macken and Abby Fitz in “The Cellar” (Photo by Martin Maguire/RLJE Films/Shudder)
“The Cellar” succeeds in creating a spooky atmosphere, but it fails to rise above countless other haunted house stories, because of the movie’s weak screenplay, mediocre acting and dull pacing. “The Cellar” is too generic to be a memorable horror film. There are so many overused concepts in “The Cellar” that are in better haunted house movies, you can really do a checklist of all the ideas that are recycled in “The Cellar.”
Written and directed by Brendan Muldowney, “The Cellar” is based on his short film “The Ten Steps.” It’s yet another story about a family moving into a house with very dark secrets that the family won’t discover until it’s too late. And the people living in the house stay much longer than most people would in real life, just so the terror in the movie can be stretched out in repetitive scenes. “The Cellar” had its world premiere on the same date at the 2022 editions of the South by Southwest (SXSW) Festival and FrightFest Glasgow.
The family at the center of “The Cellar” are spouses Keira Woods (played by Elisha Cuthbert) and Brian Woods (played by Eoin Macken) and their children Ellie Woods (played by Abby Fitz) and Steven Woods (played by Dylan Fitzmaurice Brady). Ellie, who’s about 16 or 17 years old, is a stereotypical pouty teen. Her idea of rebelling is reading books on anarchy and getting an ankle tattoo of the anarchy symbol. Steven, who’s about 10 or 11 years old, is a stereotypical adorable tyke with the expected wide-eyed, open-mouthed, shocked reactions when the terror in the house begins to happen.
The Woods family’s new home is a drab and shabby mansion in an unnamed city in Ireland. (The movie was actually filmed on location in Roscommon, Ireland.) And as haunted houses typically are in horror movies, this house is in an isolated wooded area. The family members are all natives of Ireland, except for Keira, who’s either Canadian or American. (Cuthbert is Canadian in real life.)
“The Cellar” opens with the Woods family’s first day and night in the house. Brian and Steven are already there, while Keira and Ellie arrive separately by car. Ellie is already sulking because she didn’t want to move away from her friends. Upon seeing the house for the first time, Ellie says, “Holy shit. It’s so ugly!”
Why is this the first time that Ellie is seeing this house? It’s because Brian and Keira bought the house at an extremely low price at an auction. And they later find out the hard way that this bargain was too good to be true. And yes, “The Cellar” is another haunted house movie where the new residents didn’t bother to find out any background information about the house before buying it. The house still has furnishings and decorations left behind by the previous owner.
“The Cellar” doesn’t waste any time in showing that the house’s cellar is a place where sinister things happen. Within minutes of being in the house for the first time, Ellie goes in the cellar and declares to Keira, who’s near the door: “It’s filthy!” Keira replies, “I like to think of it as character.” And sure enough, Ellie mysteriously gets locked in the cellar, she freaks out, and then manages to escape. “I’m not staying in this house!” Ellie wails.
But of course, Ellie does stay in the house. After all, where else is she going to go in a hackneyed horror movie? Of course, all of the house’s rooms are predictably dark, as if everyone who’s lived there couldn’t be bothered to get a proper lamp or lighting than can illuminate more than certain corners of a room.
Ellie gets even more irritated with her parents when she finds out she has to look after Steven like a babysitter on their first night in the house. That’s because Keira and Brian, who are independent TV producers, have to work late because of an important pitch meeting related to their business. Keira tells Ellie that they need to sell this pitch in order for the family to financially survive.
Meanwhile, back in the mansion that doesn’t know the meaning of full-wattage light bulbs, Ellie is bitterly complaining to her boyfriend on the phone about how she much she dislikes her new home and how it’s unfair that she and Brian have to be in this creepy house alone on their first night there. The boyfriend listens to Ellie gripe about how much she misses him and their friends, and he suggests that he stay with her, even though Ellie’s parents wouldn’t let her do that. Ellie tells him why her parents are working late and says, “I hope they go bust, and we have to sell this house!”
Keira and Brian are independent TV producers who are trying to launch a reality show geared to teenagers called “Natural Selection,” where a young actress will pretend to be a popular vlogger. The pitch meeting takes place in a darkly lit conference room (everything in this movie is darkly lit or in tones of gray), where Keira and Brian are trying to sell this show to TV executives. There are vague mentions about viewer voting based on the physical appearances of the reality show’s cast members. It sounds like a horrible idea.
While Keira and Brian are in this meeting, the electricity suddenly goes out in their house. And what a coincidence: The circuit breaker is in the cellar. Guess who has to be the one to go back to the dreaded cellar to figure out what’s going on with the circuit breaker? Ellie calls Keira, who excuses herself from the meeting and tells Ellie that she has to be the one to fix the electricity problem by finding the circuit breaker.
Ellie is in a near-panic because she’s scared and reluctant to go back to the cellar. During this phone conversation, Keira instructs Ellie on how to find the circuit breaker in the cellar. And because this movie is filled with as many horror clichés as possible, Ellie is holding a lit candle in the cellar, instead of a more practical flashlight or a smartphone light.
Keira guides Ellie by telling her how many steps she needs to take to get to the circuit breaker. To help calm down Ellie, Keira tells Ellie to count out loud how many steps she’s taking for this walkthrough. During this counting out loud, the phone disconnects. Keira calls back and gets no answer. And when Keira and Brian get home, they find out to their shock that Ellie has disappeared.
A police investigator named Detective Brophy (played by Andrew Bennett) is called to the scene. Keira and Brian aren’t completely alarmed because they tell the detective that Ellie has run away before, and she’ll probably come back in a few days. A small search team looks though the woods to no avail. Keira puts up some missing-person flyers around the area. Meanwhile, “The Cellar” is so poorly written, it never shows Keira or Brian contacting any of Ellie’s friends to find out if these friends have seen her, which would be one of the first things that parents of a missing child would do.
The rest of “The Cellar” gets a bit monotonous, as Keira discovers strange symbols in the house and tries to find out what they all mean. Eventually, the search for Ellie becomes less of a priority in the movie than Keira playing detective to find out the history of the house and to get more information about the previous residents. Ellie contacts the auction manager, who says that the house was previously owned by an elderly woman whom he never met because her attorney was his main contact for the auction.
Because clues are easily given to Keira throughout the movie, she notices that the house has a portrait painting of a university mathematician named John Fetherston, the deceased patriarch of the family that previously lived there. She goes on a quest to find out this family’s background. The answers she gets are utterly predictable.
During this investigation that takes up a lot of Keira’s time, the movie never bothers again to address Keira and Brian’s job predicament that has made them financially desperate. As the days go by, and Ellie remains missing, these parents of a missing child don’t have realistic conversations about this family crisis of a child’s disappearance. It’s why “The Cellar” mishandles the separate terror of a family who has a missing child.
Instead, the movie puts more emphasis on the banal horror trope of a woman being perceived as mentally ill if she suspects what’s going on has to do with the supernatural. Brian questions Keira’s mental health when she divulges some of her theories about why the house might be haunted. Keira also begins to believe that Ellie didn’t run away but that Ellie was abducted—and not necessarily by a human being.
Meanwhile, more stereotypical haunted house hijinks ensue. Doors mysteriously open on their own. Objects get moved with no explanation. Steven gets locked in a room on one occasion, even though no one else appears to be there. The house’s electricity malfunctions again. It all just leads to a conclusion that would only be surprising to people who fell asleep during the movie’s boring middle section. The movie’s last scene is actually one of the few highlights of “The Cellar,” but it’s too little, too late.
One of the more commendable aspects of “The Cellar” is composer Stephen McKeon’s effectively haunting score. This music is sometimes used in over-the-top ways, but it does bring a consistent level of invoking the right moods for each scene. The production design for “The Cellar” is also noteworthy, although nothing in this movie is going to win any awards. The movie’s visual effects are adequate and not gruesome, for viewers who don’t like seeing bloody gore. Still, most of the movie’s “jump scares” just aren’t very scary, and they lack originality.
Unfortunately, the quality of “The Cellar” is lowered by Cuthbert’s stiff performance. She’s never really believable as a mother who’s frantically worried about her missing child. And in scenes where she should be conveying more emotion, Cuthbert just delivers her lines flatly. All the other cast members are in underwritten and underdeveloped roles, with nothing particularly special about their acting. “The Cellar” isn’t the worst horror movie ever, but it doesn’t have the spark, personality or creative imagination to make it stand out from other horror movies with the same ideas.
RLJE Films will release “The Cellar” in select U.S. cinemas on April 15, 2022, the same date that the movie premieres on Shudder.
