Kristen Stewart, ‘I Saw the TV Glow,’ and Sasquatch sex heat up Park City
PARK CITY, Utah — A couple days ago, I found myself eating cold cocktail wieners while talking about Sasquatch genitals. I was at the Sundance Film Festival party for “Sasquatch Sunset,” a new movie from brother duo David and Nathan Zellner. It’s not the easiest film to explain, but imagine a nature documentary crossed with “The Legend of Boggy Creek” and you’ll get the picture.
At the party, a publicist at Bleecker Street, the company distributing the film, told me that one of her team’s marketing questions involved whether Sasquatch penises would count as nudity in the movie’s trailer. I knew then that I had to make time for the film in my schedule — but the conversation didn’t prepare me for the total onslaught of Sasquatch bodily functions I’d go on to see: grunting, burping, pooping, peeing, vomiting, scratching, humping, and Sasquatch sex.
I was surprised, but I shouldn’t have been. Time after time at Sundance — which turns 40 this year — I’m reminded of the truism to expect the unexpected. It’s not the easiest thing for me to do: I’m a Type-A planner, and my instinct is always to schedule my festival out hour by hour. But Sundance isn’t an experience you can really plan. You have to fly by the seat of your pants, playing guessing games and making space for surprises. Paradoxically, I think it’s that strong sense of the unknown, the endless possibility and hope for discovery, that keeps me coming back.
Unlike other major film festivals based in cities like Toronto, Berlin, and Venice, Sundance takes place in a small, freezing ski town around 7,000 feet above sea level — about as far as you can get from the palm trees of Hollywood. Mounds of snow block sidewalks, the handful of overpriced restaurants are constantly booked up, and the parties often reach capacity within minutes, leaving lines of hopeful attendees round the block. Take a stroll down Main Street and you’re bound to be accosted by lanyardwearing film fans and pop-up branded lodges touting festival sponsors like Chase Sapphire, Adobe, and Shutterstock. The whole thing looks a little like a traveling circus, a spectacle destined to be dismantled and returned to normal in a few days’ time.
To me, at least, the hassle of Sundance is also part of its charm. With less pressure on glamour and pre-release hype, the festival’s indie spirit gets to shine. This year, one of the festival’s biggest stars is Kristen Stewart, who headlines two world premieres. I was a little disappointed by one of them, the futuristic romance “Love Me,” which takes as its premise a cutesy gimmick: a buoy and a satellite, both powered by A.I., falling in love. The film involves a mixture of motion-capture animation and liveaction sequences, but its greatest asset is the chemistry between Stewart and her co-star, Steven Yeun. I just wish it added up to something a little more special.
The other Stewart film is “Love Lies Bleeding,” a crime thriller and queer romance from the indie distributor A24 set in the world of bodybuilding. I haven’t yet had the chance to catch it, but I noticed that, in promoting both of her films, Stewart has been right at home with Sundance’s scrappy, casual spirit: She showed up to the two premieres in sneakers and T-shirts.
I’m here as a critic, but other industry members flock to Sundance to buy or sell the year’s first batch of new movies. The hope is that a few of them will emerge as hits, becoming the new “Sex, Lies, and Videotape,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” or
“Call Me By Your Name.”
Nothing as big as those has premiered here this year just yet, and my favorite film I’ve seen so far has been an indie: the sweet comedy “Between the Temples,” directed by Nathan Silver. The film traces the budding connection between a recently widowed cantor, played by Jason Schwartzman, and his adult bat mitzvah student, played by Carol Kane. Kane is magnetic in the role, and Silver’s directorial style, which hinges on characters talking quickly and over one another, is fresh, funny, and enormously appealing.
I’m not the world’s biggest horror fan, so I was surprised to find that I also dug Steven Soderbergh’s “Presence,” a psychological thriller shot from the perspective of a specter haunting an old Victorian home. The film begins as a family of four moves into the house, and then tracks them as the phantom becomes progressively present in their lives. The story rarely strays from the haunted home’s interior, but I wondered if it was meant to be set in the Boston area, since a Red Sox game plays on the television in one scene. (The film was shot in New Jersey.)
Other highlights include “Good
One,” which shrewdly depicts the shifting dynamics among a trio on a camping trip, and “I Saw the TV Glow,” the stunning new feature from Jane Schoenbrun, best known for their internet-fueled horror film, “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.” “TV Glow” is also about the lure of screens, following a pair of teenage misfits in the ’90s who become obsessed with a (fictional) hokey monster serial clearly based on “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” The film morphs into a mystery once one of the friends goes missing.
“TV Glow” is an uncanny trip, and its eerie mood and queer themes have made it one of the festival’s most talked-about titles. I’m still processing it, and not only because of the rowdy, dance-y post-premiere party, which was held at a rented chalet so packed with Gen-Z and millennial partygoers that even Darren Aronofsky struggled to get in; I watched him nudge through an eager throng at the door before a publicist finally pulled him inside. Maybe that’ll inspire him to direct a sequel to “Mother!,” his 2017 horror film about a house party gone very wrong.
I still have a couple more days here, and a handful of documentaries are on my docket. I’m particularly looking forward to the premiere of “Will & Harper,” a road-trip doc in which Will Ferrell navigates his longtime best friend coming out as a trans woman. Ferrell recently told Variety that he had “zero knowledge” about the trans community before his friend came out to him, and that the film tracks some of his learning journey.
But this time at Sundance, I’m going to resist the urge to plan too strictly — just in case any more Sasquatch sex-level surprises present themselves.