by James Mottram
The curtain has just drawn on this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which returned to in-person screenings in Utah’s Park City after two pandemic-disrupted editions. This year, however, the festival also retained the online element that became essential during COVID, when cinemas were shut, and it’s how I experienced the festival.
Having been to Sundance twice, there’s nothing quite light the heady atmosphere of this ski-town but watching the best of world independent cinema from the comfort of your sofa has got its plus points.
So, what was on offer? Firstly, there was an excellent array of Australian films playing across the festival. The best was Talk To Me, a crafty horror from debut directors Daniel and Michael Philippou [aka RackaRacka]. It starts with a party scene that might just be one of the most visceral sequences seen in some time, and doesn’t get any less twisted from there, as a group of teenagers (will they ever learn?) start messing around with the undead. Miranda Otto co-stars, but it’s the relatively young headliners that impress the most.
Sophie Wilde plays the troubled Mia and Alexandra Jensen is Mia’s best friend Jade, who along with their hard-partying mates have found a way to connect with demonic spirits. Gripping an embalmed, dismembered hand in what might be the creepiest handshake you’ll ever see, the user is immediately thrown in touch with a random ghost. Then comes the fun part as they ‘let them in’ – a trippy high that beats any drug but inevitably causes serious issues. A24 bought the film, and it has the potential to be the biggest Aussie horror breakout since The Babadook.
While it’s not as outright horrifying, Run Rabbit Run [below] was also an unsettling psychological drama. Directed by Daina Reid, who previously helmed episodes of The Handmaid’s Tale and Shining Girls, both with Elisabeth Moss [who was originally cast in the lead role here], this mother-daughter tale is scripted by celebrated author Hannah Kent. Heading the cast is Succession’s Sarah Snook, who could frankly sit stock still for ninety minutes and still be fascinating to watch. Here, she plays a fertility doctor whose young daughter Mia starts behaving oddly, not least wearing a pink rabbit mask.
It gets weirder, as Mia’s temper becomes erratic, and hallucinations begin to impinge and spin the film in an increasingly unhinged direction. Run Rabbit Run comes packaged with a glorious support cast – including Damian Herriman, Greta Scacchi and British comedienne Julia Davis. Reid also conjures a truly moody atmosphere throughout, even if the end result isn’t quite the sum of its parts.
A hugely impactful work was Shayda [below], the directorial debut of by Iranian-Australian director Noora Niasari. Executive produced by Cate Blanchett and her husband Andrew Upton, the film unspooled in the World Cinematic Dramatic strand and took home a richly deserved Audience Award. A tale of domestic violence and the need to find sanctuary, it follows the story of Shayda (Zar Amir Ebrahimi), four years on from when she first moved to Australia with her husband Hossein (Osamah Sami), while he studied medicine.
While the increasingly violent Hossein demands that they return to Iran as a family, Shayda has filed for divorce and is living in a women’s shelter, overseen by Leah Purcell’s no-nonsense character Joyce. There’s added tension with Hossein allowed visitation rights to their 6-year-old daughter (Selina Zahednia). Set during Nowruz, aka Persian New Year, Niasari films her locations in tight-knit close-ups, so much so you might not even guess it was based in Australia. But that doesn’t stop Amir Ebrahimi, who won Best Actress in Cannes last year for Holy Spider, from delivering a powerful turn.
Outside of the Australian contingent, there was an impressive crop of movies on offer. Debuting in the Premieres strand, Brandon Cronenberg’s Infinity Pool [below] brought with it a wild and weird story with White Lotus vibes, telling of a holidaying couple (Alexander Skarsgård, Cleopatra Coleman) in a luxury resort whose vacation takes a bizarre turn when they hook up with a louche pair (Mia Goth, Jalil Lespert), who convince them to leave the compound – something they’ve been told not to do.
What follows is best left discovered, but its trippy, sci-fi-tinged tale is light years from the other recent films like The Menu and Triangle of Sadness that set out to skewer the super-rich. Perversity rules in a story you’ll find difficult to shake from your head. Like Cronenberg’s last movie Possessor, it’s replete with chilling practical effects created by Dan Martin. Mia Goth also continues her rampaging form of the past year, following her work in Ti West’s X and Pearl.
Actor Ben Whishaw also came to Sundance with two very different, but equally affecting roles. In Ira Sachs’ brilliant Passages [above], he is the long-suffering husband of a young, flighty film director (the excellent Franz Rogowski), who undertakes an affair with a young female teacher (Adèle Exarchopoulos). He also shows his lighter side in Bad Behaviour, playing a spiritual guru. Co-starring Jennifer Connelly as a woman seeking enlightenment at a retreat, it marks the directorial debut of Alice Englert, daughter of Jane Campion (who cameos). It’s a long way in tone from what her mother might make but shows great promise.
In the U.S. Dramatic competition, Chloe Domont’s Fair Play [above] was an electric relationship drama set in the world of hedge funds. It was snapped up by Netflix, and deservedly so. Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich play a couple working for the same company, who are secretly dating – something that’s against company policy. The twist comes in that it’s Dynevor’s character who is the real high-flyer and the one being groomed for success by the boss (played with excellent detachment by Eddie Marsan). Jealousy sparks in this unforgiving battle of the sexes.
Jonathan Majors shone in Magazine Dreams, the story of an aspiring bodybuilder. Written and directed by Elijah Bynum, Majors’ physical transformation into Killian, a grocery clerk with ambitions to be on the covers of muscle magazines, will obviously grab the headlines. But the actor who’s about to be seen in Creed III and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (as the Avengers’ new foe Kang the Conqueror) takes the role way beyond superficial aesthetics. It’s a knockout performance, and one that you can expect to be hearing a lot more about in the coming months.
Talking of the Avengers, the MCU’s Randall Park marked his directorial debut with the likeable Shortcomings [above], a San Francisco-set angsty rom-com about a cinema manager (Justin H. Min) who goes on hiatus with his girlfriend when she heads to New York. Based on the graphic novel by cartoonist Adrian Tomine, it’s hugely enjoyable, thanks to the sharpness of writing and the acute observations of twenty-something life. The cameo by Timothy Simons is absolutely delicious.
