Sundance Film Festival
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile | Honey Boy | Jawline | Midnight Traveler | Untouchable
Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile
Directed by Joe Berlinger
Mass murderers have, strangely, become the new rock stars. It’s undoubtedly a great time to be a fan of killing, but is that really okay? These questions are not really addressed by the Ted Bundy comedy(?) Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile, but they’re important nonetheless. Directed by Joe Berlinger (Metallica doc Some Kind of Monster), Extremely Wicked is a bizarre Bundy biopic that fails to reach any of the extremes in its title. Instead, it’s a strangely fun dramedy that focuses on camp and stunt casting (James Hetfield plays a cop) instead of serious character analysis or gritty brutality.
To be clear, everyone is rooting for Zac Efron. Since High School Musical, his pivot to adult actor has included a plethora of wacky comedies that have demonstrated just how likeable he can be. And while there is a manic energy behind his grimace, Bundy’s deep-set evil is more of an afterthought in this film; perhaps Efron is just far too hot to play such a cruel villain. The film is framed around Bundy’s relationship with his fiancé Liz (Lily Collins). Perhaps we’re meant to be kept in the dark as she was, but his dozens of brutal murders are mere hints until the film’s third act. As such, the severity of Bundy’s actions — which include the rape, murder and dismemberment of dozens of young women around America — is greatly understated. Instead, the film plays out like one of those campy Ryan Murphy FX series or, worse yet, I, Tonya. It’s a weird new subgenre where real-life tragedies are played out like campy soap operas, and Extremely Wicked is the worst offender. After all, it takes countless brutal murders and strings along a tapestry of jokes without ever really digging into Bundy’s haunted psyche. In fact, we find ourselves cheering him on as he makes daring escapes from different prisons. The film does hint at the fact that Bundy’s charisma made him a sort of folk hero in his time, but does little to unpack that fact. Instead, Extremely Wicked bolsters Bundy as a protagonist, giving him plenty of likeable lines. It’s a fun movie to watch, and it really shouldn’t be. (COTA Films)
Honey Boy
Directed by Alma Har’el
In 2015, child actor-turned-performance artist Shia LaBeouf spent ten hours watching his own movies. Hashtagged #ALLMYMOVIES, it was another punch line in LaBeouf’s emergence as a self-serious performance artist (and, to many critics, a fraud). With Honey Boy, however, he proves that he was right to look at himself all along. The film is a meta addiction dramedy that sees him go into the heart of his own personal trauma, and the result is a cathartic work of art that will likely stand as LaBeouf’s masterpiece.
Written as an assignment for a court-assigned rehab stint, LaBeouf has penned a script that serves as literal catharsis, exorcizing the demons of his painful childhood by retelling his own origin story. Thankfully, he had the wisdom to give the director reigns to someone else. It’s documentarian Alma Har’el’s first narrative feature, and her dizzying, hypnotic camerawork breathes plenty of life into LaBeouf’s story.
The film follows two distinct timelines. We start in 1995, where child actor Otis Lort (Noah Jupe) is struggling to get through life on set with his chaperone and deadbeat dad James Lort (LaBeouf, playing his own dad). Running parallel to that narrative is Otis in 2005 (played by Lucas Hedges), prone to bursts of anger and binge-drinking. After losing a finger in a drunken car wreck ( just like the real Shia), he’s ordered to go to rehab, where he begins to unpack his painful relationship with his father. These three actors get to the core of Shia’s deeply personal tale, and though none of them really look alike, they manage to carry an emotionally potent story thanks to their acting expertise. LaBeouf completely loses himself in the role of his father, channelling rage and whimpering defeat in a way that could only be done if he had lived it. Hedges and Jupe, meanwhile, manage to arrive at the same approximation of Shia LaBeouf without ever doing an impression.
Admittedly, the film could have used stronger female characters. Lort’s absent mother only appears as a voice on a telephone, and FKA Twigs’ character, a sex worker who comforts young Otis and arguably crosses the line with him, feels particularly underwritten. But these might be unfair criticisms for a story this personal. After all, Honey Boy is Shia’s story. In going to the depths of his own personal pain, he’s uncovered a beautifully intimate portrayal of cyclical brokenness and generational wounds. It’s the sort of catharsis that leads to inner healing. (Automatik)
Jawline
Directed by Liza Mandelup Thanks to the endlessly perplexing yet unstoppably successful nature of online influencer culture, there have been plenty of documentaries on the subject, mostly for cringe-watching or tsk-tsking. Thanks to the empathetic, non-judgemental lens of director Liza Mandelup, Jawline offers something new — a film that humanizes influencers. The film’s titular facial structure belongs to Austyn Tester, a dirt-poor teen from Kingsport, TN who dreams of life beyond the walls of their home. Victims of domestic abuse, the Testers have grown up without a father while their single mom has struggled to make ends meet. Still, Tester is unflappably positive, and his contagious optimism has allowed him to build a modestly impressive following on the streaming app YouNow. As the film progresses, he signs on for a tour and it seems as though he just might make it. Meanwhile, in L.A., we meet Michael Weist, a titan of the influencer industry. He started out by building an online following of his own before spinning that off into an empire. He now shares a mansion with a whole team of young boys, all of whom whine about their workload when they’re asked to shoot a five-minute YouTube video each day.
This contrast between up-and-comers and those that are over it creates a nice (if familiar) framework for the film, but it wouldn’t be the same without Mandelup’s fantastic direction. Rather than follow the influencers with cold, standard doc cinematography, the film is packed with spectacular imagery, thanks to stunning bokeh shots and surreal edits. Those elements help to highlight just how absurd modern life can be, but it’s also clear that Mandelup isn’t judging her subjects. Yes, there are times when we laugh at the influencers, but the humour is less about their career path and more about the hypocrisies, contradictions and insecurities that come with adolescence. By approaching her subject matter with a deft, artful touch, Mandelup has made a definitive documentary on a truly peculiar topic. (Caviar See)
Midnight Traveler
Directed by Hassan Fazili
Using nothing more than footage from three cellphones, Midnight Traveler is a jaw-dropping, heart-pounding documentary about one family’s immigration crisis that brings new depth to the term “immersive.” A native of Afghanistan, Hassan Fazili finds that the Taliban have put a bounty on his head. Fearing for his life — along with the lives of his wife and two young daughters — he embarks on a long, harrowing journey through the Middle East and Eastern Europe. While these stories are often retold by Western journalists, Fazili and his cellphones have allowed for an impressive, unfiltered firsthand account. Every harrowing detail is documented, from suspense-filled forest treks, to tearful frustrations in rundown migrant camps, to confrontations by bigoted locals in a number of Eastern European countries. Along the way, we meet the Fazili family
and uncover just how charming they really are. Because of the cellphone footage, the film’s panic and feeling of intimacy are both amplified. While most documentaries, no matter how wellintentioned, seem to exist as a form of confirmation bias for its viewers, Midnight Traveler feels like it could actually change minds. (Old Chilly Pictures)
Untouchable
Directed by Ursula Macfarlane
The movie industry loves two things: scandal, and stories about the movie industry. Untouchable probably won’t serve as the best film about Harvey Weinstein, but it’s the first. Produced by BBC and directed by veteran television director Ursula Macfarlane, Untouchable is a serviceable doc that’s heavy on talking-head narration and stock footage. The film does benefit from Macfarlane’s deft interview skills. Still, the film feels like it lacks a strong enough direction. Though it’s built around the stories of Weinstein’s victims and the breakthrough journalism from Ronan Farrow and others that finally took him down, there’s also a long, fawning section about the glory days of Miramax. Weinstein was simply too successful, too powerful and too intimidating for anyone to stand up to him. That’s a powerful message, but it’d be even better if it was presented more directly. Instead, Untouchable is a mostly by-the-numbers doc that will thrive because everyone’s obsessed with the subject matter. (BBC)