Introduction
Cinema Scholars continues its coverage of the 2022 Tribeca Festival. We are pleased to bring you reviews and a brief synopsis of five more of the films that had their world premieres at this year’s event. Annually held in lower Manhattan, the Tribeca Festival is one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. If you missed the first part of our coverage of the festival, click here!
God’s Time
dir. Daniel Antenbi
[4 out of 5]
Dev (Ben Groh) and Luca (Dion Costelloe) are best friends. Additionally, they are also both recovering addicts who religiously attend recovery meetings in their New York City neighborhood. Both young men also harbor crushes on fellow group member Regina (Liz Caribel Sierra). When Regina announces she’s going to kill her ex-boyfriend, Dev and Luca undertake a cross-city odyssey to stop her. Equal parts thrill ride and comedy of errors, God’s Time puts all three leads through an absolute ringer.
First-time feature director Antenbi crafts God’s Time as a love letter to New York cinema while defining his own style. A hard-hammering pace full of brisk tracking shots and rapid cuts evokes Spike Lee. Dev breaks the fourth wall and narrates much of the film, making a lead to Martin Scorsese only logical. Further, Dev and Luca’s exploits nod to the Safdie brothers’ more recent brilliance in Good Time (2017). Antenbi’s clearly done his homework, but he never rests on simple pastiche. Weaving his reference points with a singular and wicked sense of dark humor, he finds a sweet spot of rip-roaring fun.
The key to all of that is a trio of fully committed performances. Groh anchors the film with his frenetic energy and fast-talking ways. He’s always pushing hair out of his eyes and gabbing a path through crisis. As a result, he’s an electric personality. Costelloe is more the straight man in the duo, cutting Groh’s tumult with a nice aura of internalized existential dread. Additionally, Caribel Sierra, in her first-ever on-screen role is bonkers good. She splits the tones making Regina a broken addict trapped in a continuous spiral as well as remaining truly hilarious.
God’s Time is the directorial debut of Daniel Antebi. The film stars Ben Groh, Dion Costelloe, and Liz Caribel Sierrai and is available to stream on the Tribeca at Home platform through the end of the festival on June 26th.
Rounding
dir. Alex Thompson
[2 out of 5]
Young resident Dr. James Hayman (Namir Smallwood) is shaken by his patient’s death. After stepping away from the hospital for a few months, he transfers to a smaller facility to recoup. Yet, the traumas and anxieties from his prior experience have no intention of staying put in the past. When 19-year-old asthma patient Helen Adso (Sidney Flanigan) to reasons for a worsening state, Hayman grows obsessed. Against counsel, Hayman digs into Adso’s case and risks breaking himself all over again.
Rounding is an unfortunate example of the impossibility to make a great film from a lackluster screenplay. Without a sturdy story foundation, there’s no amount of slick filmmaking and great acting that can drown out shoddy writing. The script, which Thompson co-wrote with his brother, meanders through a bloated first two acts. There are chilling moments, such as when Hayman starts losing time and hallucinating, but that rigor sinks beneath overwrought and repetitive interpersonal drama. Content-wise, Rounding has about enough convincing story for a 20-minute short.
That is such a shame because Smallwood is an entrancing talent. He captures Hayman’s mental distress through viscerally physical performance. Tapping fingers and shaking legs. Rigid posture in the hospital but slouching exhaustion everywhere else. He’s also surrounded by a talented cast, especially when it comes to Flanigan’s lived-in patient and Michael Potts’ chief medical officer. Thompson directs them gamely in a handful of taught scenes, but flat lighting design and redundant shot selection gradually sap any real thrills.
Rounding is directed by Alex Thompson from a script by Thompson and his brother Christopher. The film stars Namir Smallwood, Sidney Flanigan, Kelly O’Sullivan and is available to stream on the Tribeca at Home platform through the end of the festival on June 26th.
We Might as Well Be Dead
dir. Natalia Sinelnikova
[3.5 out of 5]
In an undefined dystopia, residents of a housing community viciously defend their pristine existence. One of these residents is Anna (Ioana Iacob), the community’s security guard. Anna is also the first line of defense from residential applicants. She shows them around and sizes them up before reporting back to the board. The community prides itself on flawless existence, exhibiting little empathy for those facing issues. This poses a problem for Anna, whose daughter Iris (Pola Geiger) has locked herself away in the bathroom for days worried she has developed an “evil eye.” As increasingly surreal issues arise, Anna is stuck in the eye of her neighbor’s heightening desperation to maintain appearances and their particular vision of life.
We Might as Well Be Dead is easily read as an allegory for creeping fascism. The housing community is literally a white tower on a hill surrounded by forest. The resident’s spiraling violence and cruelty are therefore constantly couched in a promise of the greater good. Yet, their actions constantly reveal selfish goals motivated by an unfounded fear of the Other. Sinelnikova’s script, which she co-wrote with Viktor Gallandi, makes the subtext explicit by foregrounding Anna’s Judaism. Even her seeming friends refer to her “difference” as something that nearly disqualified her from originally joining the community.
Sinelnikova’s direction and her work with cinematographer Jan Mayntz imbue the film with an unsettled immaculateness. The building is spotless and bright, but Sinelnikova’s camera fractures it into disjointed corners and stairwells. Mayntz ensures that the colors fade into one another. Pastels and whites evolve into a united front of bland autocratic design. The only thing that holds We Might as Well Be Dead back is that this is not new ground. Much of it comes off as a too-close approximation of Yorgos Lanthimos. All the same, it is all executed with such wonderful craft that it remains an easy film to be swept up by.
We Might as Well Be Dead is co-written and directed by Natalia Sinelnikova. The film stars Ioana Iacob, Pola Geiger, Jörg Schüttauf and had its world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 11, 2022
Attachment
dir. Gabriel Bier Gislason
[3 out of 5]
After meeting by chance in a library, Maja (Josephine Park) and Leah (Ellie Kendrick) quickly fall in love. Maja is a washed-up Danish actress, and Leah is visiting the country for grad school research. When Leah has a seizure and breaks her leg, the two women travel back to Leah’s home in London. She lives in an apartment above her devout Jewish mother Chana (Sofia Gråbøl), who jumps to attention when they return. Maja works to ingratiate herself to Chana, but the woman’s coldness grows alongside increasingly strange events in the apartment.
Folklore and mysticism are consistently inspired ways to root horror in history. Attachment does so with the rich realm of Jewish folklore, a generally untapped space in our current folk horror revival. With that backdrop, Bier Gislason molds Leah and Chana’s apartments into an urban haunted manor. From darkened hallways and doorways to a possessed candle, there are plenty of shiver-inducing frames. Even so, Attachment drags in the middle as it transitions from a charming romance into a darker sort. It is bookended by strong and direct filmmaking, but the second act would have benefitted from another pass for bloat.
However, both central actresses keep the drag from overwhelming the film, alongside Gråbøl’s eerie work. They embrace the dance between new lovers and an overbearing parent as a unit. Gråbøl and Kendrick make a convincing mother-daughter pair, and the chemistry between Park and Kendrick is off the charts. Each works to parse out who they are in relation to these fresh dynamics, and their performances never slip below utterly convincing. It all adds up to a devastating final stretch where each gets the chance to swing for bold choices after a slow burn.
Attachment is written and directed by Gabriel Bier Gislason. The film stars Josephine Park, Ellie Kendrick, Sofie Gråbøl, David Dencik and is available to stream on the Tribeca at Home platform through the end of the festival on June 26th.
The Year Between
dir. Alex Heller
[2 out of 5]
Clemence Miller (Alex Heller) is not doing well. Away at college, her soon-to-be diagnosed bipolar disorder is taking over. When it reaches a breaking point, Clemence’s mother (J. Smith-Cameron) comes to collect her. With no other option, Clemence settles into the family basement to sort through what comes next. Between therapy appointments, med check-ins, and a new job at a bargain lot, Clemence fights with her family and struggles to understand her mental illness. A darkly comic character study, Heller’s film parses out the overlapping crises of individual health and family history.
The Year Between fits snugly into a subgenre of dramedy that you always encounter at festivals. A caustic protagonist in the midst of a personal mess. Small town setting ready to go with family and faces from the past. For all the intense subject matter, the story never quite dips below a comfortable medium temperature of discomfort. In this instance, all that adds up to The Year Between unfurling as an entertaining enough exercise in cliché. It doesn’t help that beyond the plot mechanics and family characters, The Year Between also features two of the most eye-rollingly hackneyed representations of therapists this side of How to Get Away with Murder.
The cast ensures that The Year Between at least remains pleasant even when the story sags and the platitudes pile up. J. Smith-Cameron and Steve Buscemi spin underwritten parent roles into charming moments. The film’s best beats come when Heller shares the screen with Wyat Oleff and Emily Robinson, who play her siblings. Each character is a bundle of tired tropes, but the performers nonetheless mine biting drama and warmth when given something to work with. Heller herself is clearly a talented actress and filmmaker, so there’s the hope that this is a throat-clearing exercise.
The Year Between is written, directed, and stars Alex Heller. The film also features J. Smith-Cameron, Steve Buscemi, Wyatt Oleff, Emily Robinson and is available to stream on the Tribeca at Home platform through the end of the festival on June 26th.
