True story: my friend met her husband on a Sundance shuttle bus. They struck up a conversation, kept in touch after the Festival ended, and, 15 years and three kids later, the rest is history. Maybe lightning struck again for some lucky couple this year, but I’m guessing probably not. As much as Sundance staff strived to make the 2021 virtual Fest feel like those of past years, Zoom “waiting rooms” and video Q and A’s just couldn’t replicate the feeling of being bundled up at 7:30am in a waitlist line, passing the time and distracting yourself from the cold by idly asking your neighbor, “What have you seen so far that you’ve liked?” The cheery, disembodied “Hi from Boston!” chats that flashed on screen in this year’s pre-screening digital lobbies just couldn’t offer the same sort of in-person connection that can only be found by bonding over waitlist numbers 99 and 100 and mushy theater concession tuna wraps. That said, however, the quality of the films shown at this year’s Festival, which concluded last week, still measured up to Sundance’s best. Below we take a look at four documentaries and four features that are worth seeing.
Feature Films
1.) Land (USA, 89 min. Dir.: Robin Wright)
Actress Robin Wright makes her directorial debut with this drama, in which she also stars. Wright plays Edee, a woman overwhelmed with grief after an unfathomable tragedy who moves to the remote Wyoming wilderness to both heal and punish herself. The film benefits from some majestic cinematography (it was filmed in Alberta, Canada), the spareness of which helps underline the story’s theme of isolation and restoration. Though some plot elements are a little too coincidentally melodramatic, Wright directs both herself and co-star Demián Bichir, as a local hunter with whom Edee reluctantly bonds, with an authenticity and an even-handedness that allows them to transcend the more cliche elements of the screenplay. In the end, Wright has created a meditation on sorrow and pain that feels both genuine and cathartic.
Land will open in limited theatrical release this Friday, Feb. 12th.
2.) Coda (USA, 111 min. Dir.: Siân Heder)
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Emilia Jones plays Ruby, a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults).
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Director Sian Heder, who was last at Sundance in 2016 with the Grand Jury prize nominated Tallulah, returned to triumph this year, winning all three major Sundance awards (Grand Jury Prize, Dramatic Audience and Directing Awards), as well as the Sundance Critics Best Film honor. Does it warrant all the accolades? Without a doubt, yes. Heder brings a unique angle to a traditional coming of age narrative: while teenage Ruby (a stellar Emilia Jones) struggles to become her own person, her situation is made all the more difficult by the fact she’s the only hearing member of her deaf family of fishermen – a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults). Featuring hearing and non-hearing actors (Oscar winner Marlee Matlin plays Ruby’s spirited mother), Heder’s film is a warm and true exploration of how we can balance familial responsibilities and individual growth without losing ourselves, our dreams, or the love of those closest to us.
AppleTV+, which acquired Coda for a record $25 million, has yet to announce its release date.
3.) Judas and the Black Messiah (USA, 126 min. Dir.: Shaka King)
- Writer/director Shaka King’s new film about the murder of Black Panther Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton (Daniel Kaluuya, terrific) would make a great double bill with last year’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 for understanding the lengths to which the late ‘60s establishment government went to suppress dissension and revolution. “We must prevent the rise of a Black messiah,” Martin Sheen’s J. Edgar Hoover tells agent Roy Mitchell (Jesse Plemons). And the FBI would go on to do so at all costs, using an undercover mole (the Judas of the picture) in the form of William O’Neal (LaKeith Stanfield, further cementing his Get Out chemistry with Kaluuya), a petty criminal saving himself who becomes close to Hampton and the Panther cause while simultaneously reporting back to Mitchell and the Feds. King’s picture works as an engrossing character study of a complicated and conflicted man, while also giving voice to a dark moment in American history that deserves to be told. And, in one of the film’s few female roles, Dominique Fishback, as Hampton’s girlfriend Deborah Johnson, gives a transcendent and indelible performance that you won’t soon forget.
- Judas and the Black Messiah will premiere on HBO this Friday, Feb. 12th.
4.) The World to Come (USA, 90 min. Dir.: Mona Fastvold)
Premiering at the Venice Film Festival last fall, this historical drama had its follow up screening at Sundance. Based on a 2017 short story by Jim Shepard (who co-wrote the script with Ron Hansen), the film follows two couples in mid-19th century upstate New York. Katherine Waterston, Casey Affleck, Vanessa Kirby, and Christopher Abbott portray the couples, whose stoic, workaday farming lives are unsettled when Waterston’s Abigail and Kirby’s Tallie develop an intense and passionate connection. The screenplay is rich and filled with the vernacular and syntax of the era (reminiscent of the Coen Brothers’ True Grit), and Abigail’s voice overs often sound like the narration in a Ken Burns documentary. But both work to great stylistic effect, and the sumptuous frontier drama proves itself affecting and heartbreaking.
The World to Come will have a limited theatrical release this Friday, Feb. 12th, and a VOD release on March 2nd.
DOCUMENTARIES
1.) Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It (USA, 90 min. Dir.: Mariem Pérez Riera)
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Rita Moreno talks about her career.
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Executive produced by Normal Lear and Lin-Manuel Miranda, this documentary about EGOT winner and Berkeley resident Rita Moreno is a must-watch for cinephiles and lovers of Hollywood’s yesteryear. Moreno’s story is the stuff of Hollywood legend: as a child, she immigrated to New York from Puerto Rico, overcoming stereotypical casting, racism, and misogyny to become one of stage and screen’s brightest stars. Here, the octogenarian shares professional and personal tales that are both beautiful and horrifying, while costars, colleagues, and family and friends (including Berkeley Rep’s former Artistic Director Tony Taccone) provide their own tributes and recollections about Moreno’s brilliant career.
Rita Moreno will air on PBS later this year as part of its American Masters series.
6.) Homeroom (USA, 90 min. Dir.: Peter Nicks)
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Students from Oakland High are profiled by Peter Nicks in his new documentary.
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Director Peter Nicks completes his Oakland trilogy (The Waiting Room, about Highland Hospital; last year’s The Force about the Oakland PD), with this look at the 2020 graduating class of Oakland High (at the film’s Q&A, Nicks indicated he was inspired by The Wire’s structure to form his trilogy). The film focuses on a trio of activist teens and their early efforts to remove full time police from their campus, even before the George Floyd and Breanna Taylor killings put the topic front and center on the national stage. Watching the students make their case to an initially unyielding school board, only to have the board reconsider by the end of the school year, is just as satisfying as watching the underdog win the big game in a high school sports movie. And one of the film’s most moving moments occurs in late winter of 2020, when Covid was just hitting the news. To watch the kids dismiss it (if you’ve had your flu shot, you’re fine, one says authoritatively), knowing now how the rest of their school year and graduation played out, is to relive all the uncertainty and angst of that time. It’s a heartbreaking moment that makes the chronicle of their remaining school year all the more bittersweet.
Homeroom is currently seeking distribution.
7.) Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street (USA, 107 min. Dir.: Marilyn Agrelo)
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Oscar the Grouch and Carroll Spinney (AKA Big Bird) are featured in a new documentary about their home, Sesame Street.
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“Can you tell me how to get, how to get to Sesame Street?” Michael Davis, who wrote the 2008 book Street Gang: The Complete History of Sesame Street, and Marilyn Agreco, who directed this documentary based on that book, sure can. Agreco, who directed the 2005 acclaimed documentary Mad Hot Ballroom, here takes a look at the children’s television show that changed the nature of children’s programming when it started back in 1969. Geared specifically to target inner city kids whose educational opportunities were lacking, the Children’s Television Workshop created a show that was educational, socially and culturally relevant, and fun all at the same time. Agreco scores plenty of behind-the-scenes interviews with key players, including original cast members (Maria! Gordon! Luis!) and puppeteers, producers, and directors. A fascinating look at both a seminal show and the cultural and historical landscape that surrounded it, Agreco’s film reminds us how important shows like Sesame Street are for kids, and how far we’ve come since the days when Mississippi PBS affiliates wouldn’t air it because of its multracial cast.
Street Gang will be released later this Spring on HBO.
8.) The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (Sweden, 94 min. Dir.: Kristina Lindström and Kristian Petri)
- If you ever saw Luchino Visconti’s 1971 Death in Venice and were entranced by the teenage boy who played Tadzio, you weren’t alone. Björn Andresen, the stunning 15-year-old Swedish boy with the piercing blue eyes who was cast as Tadzio was dubbed “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World,” a label that would come to haunt him. Directors Kristina Lindstrom and Kristian Petri present a biography of Andresen, now in his mid-60’s (and who most recently appeared in the critically acclaimed Midsommar) that also serves as a cautionary tale about early fame and the exploitation of child actors. Andresen faced a multitude of difficulties after the 1970’s role catapulted him to stardom and pop culture idolatry, many of which he only now has the capacity to face. What happens to us in our youth affects us in our adulthood far more than any of us may realize, this film tells us, and we need to acknowledge and process those wounds before we can heal.
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The Most Beautiful Boy in the World will be released theatrically in May.
