Ingrid Goes West
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Oh, look, some Hollywood elitists want to wag a finger in our general direction and lament how our obsession with social media connections keep us from making real ones. Can’t wait.
Hold on, Ingrid Goes West is smarter than your average wag, and the feature debut from director/co-writer Matt Spicer sports a welcome swagger that holds the film’s satirical bite just when you think it’s going soft.
Aubrey Plaza is Ingrid Thorburn, a shall-we-say “high strung” young woman in Pennsylvania who earns some mental health evaluation after an unsavory incident at a friend’s wedding. Ingrid’s spirits are lifted when she comments on a post by Instagram star Taylor Sloane (Elizabeth Olsen), and Taylor actually responds.
Uh-oh.
Newly motivated, Ingrid is off to California, where she finds a way to insert herself into Taylor’s perfect life, maybe make a boyfriend out of her Batman-obsessed landlord Dan (Straight Outta Compton‘s O’Shea Jackson, Jr.) and definitely live out her social media fantasies.
Though Spicer freely uses contrivance to set up and maintain his narrative, the comedy is deliciously dark and the characters keep us invested even when they’re far from likable. Plaza (earning another producing credit) easily makes Ingrid an appealing mix of sympathetic and psychotic, while Olsen crafts the perfect embodiment of insufferably attractive hipster.
The metaphors aren’t always subtle, but Ingrid Goes West finds a delicate balance in its travels, one that understands the allure of a volatile facade.
Leap!
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Hey kids, believe in your dreams.
Pop song, pop song.
Believe in our dreams.
Yawn.
Good Time
by Hope Madden, MaddWolf.com
Regardless of the film’s title, Connie Nikas (Robert Pattinson) does not appear to be having a Good Time.
Connie is trying to keep the system away from his mentally impaired brother Nick (Benny Safdie, who also co-writes and co-directs). He uses what means he has, none of which are legal.
After a botched bank robbery sees the brothers separated and Nick incarcerated, Connie engages in ever riskier behavior in a desperate attempt to save his brother.
Safdie, alongside his real brother and filmmaking partner Josh, once again explores an urban underbelly. The two have proven with films like their 2014 festival favorite Heaven Knows What that they can tell a deeply human story set on the fringe of society.
Good Time is a bit more high energy than Heaven Knows What, but once again the Safdies create a world that’s simultaneously alien and authentic. It’s hard to believe people live like this, and yet every moment of Connie’s increasingly erratic evening rings true. Nuts, but true.
Pattinson delivers his strongest performance yet. His glittering vampire days long behind him, he’s shown versatility in recent projects including Cosmopolis, The Rover and Maps to the Stars. Here he balances a seedy survival instinct with heart-wrenching loyalty and tenderness.
Everything Connie touches, he poisons. In Pattinson’s hands, he’s righteous enough to believe in his own cause, even when it means convincing himself that he’s protecting someone – his brother, a teenage girl, another lowlife looking for a score – who’d be better off without him.
Benny Safdie impresses in front of the camera as well as behind. His understated performance shows no sign of artificiality, and his skill as a filmmaker has never shined more brightly.
His gift for pacing that matches the hustle – the constant shifting, shuffling and scheming needed for survival – keeps Good Time both exhilarating and exhausting.
The film showcases the kind of desperation that fueled many a New York indie of the Seventies, Midnight Cowboy among them. The urgency of a quick con that could lead to freedom but will undoubtedly end in tragedy seems the only kind of choice Connie ever makes.
It’s a grim film full of bruised people, but it never loses hope entirely.
Whose Streets?
by George Wolf, MaddWolf.com
Moving like a living, breathing monument to revolution, Whose Streets? captures a flashpoint in history with gripping vibrancy, as it bursts with an outrage both righteous and palpable.
Activists Sabaah Folayan and Damon Davis share directing duties on their film debut, bringing precise, insightful storytelling instincts to the birth of the Black Lives Matter movement. Together, they provide a new and sharp focus to the events surrounding the 2014 killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Ferguson, Missouri police officer Darren Wilson.
But what’s even more striking in this debut is how little these new directors care if they’re following anyone’s filmmaking 101 checklist. This is an extremely raw, incendiary story with a fitting perspective to match. To Folayan and Davis, buoyed by a stellar assist from film editor Christopher McNabb, these events demand nothing less, and they are correct.
Inevitable finger-pointing about a one-sided perspective is dealt swift, preemptive justice. As we’re quickly reminded of how the mainstream media framed their reporting on the Ferguson riots, urgent new footage bearing a citizen journalist zeal drives home the filmmakers’ point.
What most people have been shown has been “one sided for a reason.” This is the other side, and the unforgettable sights begin to mount.
A Ferguson resident displays the various military-grade ammo casings strewn about the local streets. An African-American police officer tries to remain stoic when her priorities are questioned. A white officer wears a “support Darren Wilson” bracelet while on duty in Ferguson.
As deeply as it cuts on a blunt, visceral level, Whose Streets? also benefits from a powerfully subtle context. It takes the pulse of communities that have railed against unequal policing for decades, only to find even more frustration when added video evidence failed to result in social justice.
To Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr., riots were “the language of the unheard.” Whose Streets? lays bare the rise of a movement powered by the voiceless going quietly no longer.
