On Tuesday, after days of wandering around Park City, Utah, complaining about movies and the logistical headaches this mountain resort town presents, I found myself transported to the Sundance Film Festival I always look forward to, the one where a film surprises and moves. and perhaps it will delight me, and it so successfully fulfills its promise that, after the lights come up, the crowd offers the festive version of Hallelujah with an ovation that made the ground shake. I admit, I didn't expect that to happen when I walked into Will Ferrell's new place.
That would be “Will & Harper,” a Josh Greenbaum documentary in which Ferrell and his old friend Harper Steele, a trans woman, embark on a momentous cross-country journey of discovery. Former colleagues at “Saturday Night Live,” where Steele was head writer, have collaborated on other Ferrell vehicles, including the Spanish-language comedy “Casa de Mi Padre.” Here, driven by love and concern (Steele longs to feel more comfortable in public, Ferrell wants to support and understand her friend's transition), they deepen their friendship as they travel across a predictably divided country.
Like many, if not most, of the films in this year's lineup, “Will & Harper” will likely hit theaters and streaming. I hope that's the case for another film about trans identity: Jules Rosskam's “Desire Lines,” a low-budget documentary that has no star power, just heart and intelligence.
It deserves more attention than, say, “It's What's Inside,” Greg Jardin's gimmicky, ugly, non-scary horror film, which Netflix bought for a staggering $17 million. Flashy festival offerings like this generate a lot of buzz, but there's always a lot of haggling going on behind the scenes, so I'm hopeful that “Desire Lines” and some of the other lower-radar selections will reach a wider audience.
A love of film is the reason tens of thousands of attendees continue to gather at Sundance, which ends Sunday. With 91 feature films in theaters, the program has been somewhat more agile this year than in recent editions; In 2023 it presented 110 performances. Park City's smaller lineup and reduced number of theaters suggested that rumors about the festival having serious money problems were true. It also made me wonder if the festival was really going to leave Park City this time. When I asked Eugene Hernandez, festival director, if the event was moving, he responded, “Park City is our home, Utah is our home.”
In that case, I'll still be traveling to Utah to slide on the ice and sit in the dark because in January Sundance is the place to be for movie lovers. Since its founding in 1985, the festival has withstood many gossips, dramas and changes, including in its identity as a cultural brand, symbol of artistic independence and actor in the cinematographic ecosystem.
This year the event celebrated its 40th anniversary, a milestone that organizers marked with screenings of restorations of eight hits, including Rose Troche's “Go Fish” (1994), Jared Hess' “Napoleon Dynamite” (2004) and “Pariah.” by Dee Rees (2011), which together offer a snapshot of Sundance's commitment to diversity, inclusion and, yes, entertainment.
Missing from this showing was “Sex, Lies & Videotape,” the 26-year-old Steven Soderbergh's 1989 film that put the festival on the proverbial map, reshaping the American film scene. “Sex, Lies” gained international recognition (it won top honors at Cannes) and became a surprisingly lucrative global hit; it also helped turn its American distributor, Miramax Films, into a major player.
What happened next was strange, sometimes cool and sometimes completely crazy. The festival erupted, the mainstream invaded, the stars descended, the paparazzi swarmed, and the major studios formed (and then closed) a series of specialized divisions. Indiewood became mainstream, for better and sometimes worse. Sundance did not invent independent cinema, which has always existed and often struggled in the shadow of the mainstream. What the festival did was give a type of market-ready independent film a cohesive, media-exploitable, commercially friendly identity that worked for both audiences and Hollywood.
Given Soderbergh's history at Sundance, it was fitting that he returned this year with “Presence,” one of the show's strongest and most formally bold selections. Once again, she has teamed up with screenwriter David Koepp to create a smart, funny and enjoyable film that, like her latest collaboration, “Kimi” (2022), makes inventive use of a restricted physical space. . This new collaboration, set entirely within a ramshackle family home, is at once an immersive domestic melodrama and a chilling (emotionally and otherwise) haunted house story.
Director Rose Glass (“Saint Maud”) clearly had a great time making “Love Lies Bleeding,” an expressionist thriller with pools of shadows and blood. In another American cul-de-sac, a classic nowhere town with a menacing force of evil (a hilariously wig-wearing Ed Harris) and conveniently deserted streets (making it easy to transport dead bodies), a gym worker (Kristen Stewart ) and a bodybuilder (Katy O'Brian). ) get hooked and fall into a spiral of disaster. The story is based on a familiar scenario in which beautiful strangers in love cannot do the right thing because they must go wrong. To quote the tagline of an infinitely better precursor, “Bonnie and Clyde”: “They're young…they're in love…and they kill people.”
There were all kinds of emanations at this year's festival, but what caught my attention the most were the cascades of tears generated by male characters, including in “Rob Peace” and “Exhibiting Forgiveness.” Written and directed by British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (who adapted it from a book by Jeff Hobbs), “Rob Peace” dramatizes the heartbreaking and infuriatingly unfair life story of its main character (a very moving Jay Will), a brilliant child of New Jersey. who charted a course from a poor neighborhood to a prep school and Yale. Filled with richly inhabited performances, especially from his young cast, the film is a take on the classic American wrestler, albeit one haunted by family (Ejiofor plays his father) and deep generational trauma.
André Holland stars in “Exhibiting Forgiveness,” another drama about the bonds that can unite and almost destroy children and parents, written and directed by visual artist Titus Kaphar. The story begins after Holland's character, a successful painter named Tarrell, receives an unwanted and shocking visit from his long-estranged, abusive father (John Earl Jelks).
As the characters surround each other with caution and anger, Kaphar explores what it means to survive great personal hardships in an equally brutal country. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is lost as Tarrell's mother and there are awkward passages (and ungainly writing), but Holland and Jelks are charming and flatten you emotionally.
A few other movies affected my tear ducts, including “Between the Temples,” Nathan Silver's melancholic and often very funny comedy about a widowed cantor (Jason Schwartzman) whose crisis of faith is derailed when a former teacher (an incomparable Carol Kane) re-enters his life. A prime example of what I consider an Albert Brooks-style comedy of Jewish unrest, the film explores identity with humor and without a hint of sentimentality.
It would make a fitting double bill with “A Real Pain,” a touching, beautifully acted, laugh-filled drama about two cousins, played by a brilliant Kieran Culkin and Jesse Eisenberg, who also wrote and directed, on a trip to Poland. An exploration of family, faith, loss and the lasting trauma of the Holocaust, the film is spectacular; I can't wait to see it again.
