Sundance 2022
Let's talk about The Sundance Film Festival
The month of January felt like it lasted roughly 200 years but it is quickly coming to an end. With the end of January comes The Sundance Film Festival. Robert Redford’s annual celebration of film is usually held in beautiful Park City, Utah, but as with many things in our current societal landscape, the festival has moved to the virtual and online realm for its last two iterations.
Last year, I attended my first (virtual) Sundance and wrote about the wide range of movies I partook in. Some of them went on to wide releases, while others struggled to find a home.
This year, I only did about half as many movies as I did last year, as I didn't have as much time to enjoy the festival as I would have liked. While I only saw 3 movies, I felt as though all three movies were worth discussing and wanted to offer a quick recap of each and why they are all worth your time. Below, you’ll find them in the order of which I enjoyed most. That said, I liked all 3 for various reasons and I think each one is worth seeking out when they come to wider audiences later this year, hopefully, sooner rather than later.
Title: The Worst Person In The World
Director: Joachim Trier
Starring: Renate Reinsve, Anders Danielsen Lie, Herbert Nordrum
What if you made the wrong decisions repeatedly? What if you were never quite sure what you wanted to do? What if what you wanted to do wasn’t just one thing? What if those bad decisions didn’t ruin your life like you maybe thought they would or were told they would?
You might remember from our Favorite Movies of 2021 article that my good friend Steph picked this movie as her favorite of the year. Unfortunately for me, this film was nigh impossible to see here in the states. I saw it on a few friends’ “best of” year-end lists and it was quickly becoming a word-of-mouth darling among those lucky few who had been able to get their hands on a copy. WPITW made its official USA debut here at Sundance and it was a movie that I had built up a somewhat unfair amount of anticipation and excitement for.
I won’t dance around it. This was one of the best movies I have seen in a long, long time. It not only lived up to its impressive reputation but far, far exceeded it. The third film in Trier’s OSLO TRILOGY, THE WORST PERSON IN THE WORLD follows the life of a woman named Julie, the choices she makes, and the ramifications those choices have on both her and the world around her. Renate Reinsve is a revelation in this movie. She is funny, smart, sexy, disarming, and at times, a complete idiot. She is in almost every single second of this movie and she carries it with grace and humor and a delicate touch that stayed with me for days after the credits rolled. It reminded me (in feeling, not content) of seeing PARASITE for the first time in 2019. It’s special.
This film is playing in theaters in NY and LA starting February 4th and should hopefully reach broader audiences sometime soon after. I cannot recommend this movie enough. Please seek it out.
Title: 892
Director: Abi Damaris Corbin
Starring: John Boyega, Nicole Beharie, Selenis Leyva, Michael Kenneth Williams.
Based on a true story and article ‘They didn’t have to kill him”: The death of Lance Corporal Brian Easley, 892 is a heist thriller-drama that recounts the day that Brian Easly walked into a Wells Fargo branch in Atlanta, GA armed with a bomb and held it hostage. What did he want? Simply for the Department of Veteran Affairs to pay him the money he was owed for his disability payments and to fix their mistake. It is an incredibly affecting movie with one of my favorite John Boyega performances to date. I’ve been a fan of Boyega’s since ATTACK THE BLOCK and had to watch him waste away for the majority of his time as Finn in the most recent STAR WARS trilogy, where he was criminally underwritten and underutilized.
I hesitate to do the whole comparison thing, but the entire time I was watching the movie, I couldn’t help but feel that Boyega was channeling Denzel Washington. It had flashes of JOHN Q (with the obvious hostage situation set up) but Boyega channels a nervous energy that feels in line with early Denzel performances in the aforementioned JOHN Q, COURAGE UNDER FIRE, and TRAINING DAY. The supporting cast is small but mighty and features the last on-screen appearance by the late (and great) Michael K. Williams. I’m already a mark (no pun intended) for a heist, but this one carries some additional weight concerning the men and women that serve our country and come home to find that country has nothing to offer them in return. It’s powerful stuff.
Title: When You Finish Saving The World
Director: Jesse Eisenberg
Starring: Julianne Moore, Finn Wolfhard, Alisha Boe, Billy Bryk
I must confess that I am a card-carrying member of the Jesse Eisenberg Hive.™️ He’s in one of my favorite films of all time (THE SOCIAL NETWORK), I’m a sucker for his brand of stoner nihilism/action film (ADVENTURELAND, AMERICAN ULTRA, ZOMBIELAND), his turn in THE ART OF SELF DEFENSE is one of my favorite performances of the last 5 years, and when I’m high there’s nothing more than I like than putting on NOW YOU SEE ME. I wish I was joking, but dear reader I am not.
So as you can imagine, I was pretty excited to see Eisenberg’s first turn behind the camera as a director. Based on his audio drama of the same name, WHEN YOU FINISH SAVING THE WORLD primarily tells the story of Evelyn (Moore), a social worker at a local domestic abuse shelter, and her oblivious son Ziggy(Wolfhard), who earns money by singing folk songs to adoring fans online. To say his mom doesn’t get it is an understatement.
One of the things that I like about Eisenberg is that he often portrays characters who are either smarmy and unlikeable (SOCIAL NETWORK, NYSM) or are kind of pathetic (THE ART OF SELF DEFENCE). This is definitely the case with the characters he’s written in Evelyn and Ziggy. Evelyn is a bad mom, who casts her dead aspirations for her son onto shelter resident Kyle (a standout Billy Bryk) and Ziggy is extremely self-absorbed, clueless in the way that only teenagers can be. He doesn’t believe in anything besides his ability to make money online and simply regurgitates ideas he hears back to the people when thinks want to hear them, like the socialist girl in his chem class, Lila, on who he has developed a major crush. Been there, king.
Strong performances from both Moore and Wolfhard (who I have been iffy on in the past. He coasts on Stranger Things sometimes) make this movie a little more than where it appears to be heading, with plenty of dark humor to tighten the screws along the way.
I know it’s frustrating to hear about movies with no solid info about when you can see them and for that, I do apologize. My motto is “let people see your movies”, so I hope these find their way to you shortly and in ways that are conducive to you actually being able to see them.
Thanks for reading, as always! Working Title will be back soon with our Most Anticipated Movies of 2022 list.