André Is an Idiot
Marking the feature directing debut from Tony Benna, André Is an Idiot tells the creative, funny and sometimes wildly inappropriate true story of André Ricciardi, whom we meet shortly after being diagnosed with Stage 4 rectal cancer. He fully blames this diagnosis on his not getting a colonoscopy a year earlier, when his best friend jokingly (but also seriously) suggested they both get them on the same day—kind of a like a spa day, but consisting only of side-by-side colonoscopies. For his friend, it was something they could do to take the fear out of the process, but André hates doctors and put it off. He now knows that if he’d done it then, his cancer might have been less advanced and highly treatable. Instead, André goes through chemo and eventually radiation and adds years to his life expectancy, all the while joking through the process with his wife, Janice, and two teen daughters, Tallula and Delilah.
The film dives into André history, especially with his wife, a Canadian bartender who needed to get married to stay in the country decades earlier; she picked him because he volunteered for what he believed would be a two-year commitment. But then something unexpected happened: they got along, even winning The Dating Game, which was all the immigration folks needed to know to clear her for citizenship. They won a trip to Mexico, and fell for each other. Their story is inspiring and hilarious, something all couples hope for. She is the rock, the organizer, the one André believes is the reason he’s still alive, but it’s sometimes strange to watch André with his children, who say they are fine not hugging or saying “I love you” with him because they just don’t do that. But as the film goes on, those things start to show up in their lives anyway, and it’s heartbreaking.
The film really shines when André gets creative with his diagnosis, and he recruits his friends in advertising to come up with wild PSA encouraging people to get colonoscopies. The campaigns are wild, sometimes vulgar, and always hilarious. His main objective on this earth is to make people laugh and try things that are memorable for him and those he cares about. And somehow, as the cancer gets worse, his jokes get funnier—he’s sees this as essential. The film remains full of laughs, until the moment when it simply can’t sustain them any longer; but it’s this defiant humor that differentiates André Is an Idiot from so many other disease-oriented docs. The destination truly isn’t the point of this passionate journey, and that makes this film unforgettable. (Steve Prokopy)
Bubble & Squeak
Throughout writer/director Evan Twohy's quirky (and admittedly overly twee) Bubble & Squeak, I kept asking myself, Why does this movie exist? and Who is ever going to pay money to see this? Those two questions aren't entirely an indictment; in fact, I ultimately found this original indie quite charming, if essentially unneccessary. But then, it's that the definition of art? Nevertheless, the dryness of the dialogue and the silliness of the premise overall might not be enough to win it box office attention in an already crowded marketplace where known IP and tabloid docu-dramas are what get the most eyeballs.
Himesh Patel (Yesterday, Greedy People) and Sarah Goldberg (Barry) star as Declan and Delores, two American newlyweds who are honeymooning in an unnamed, fictional country with an interesting past: following a great war where citizens were forced to eat nothing but cabbage as resources dwindled, the country has such a hatred for the produce that it is now banned entirely. Of course, anything banned is instantly valuable, and a cabbage smuggling industry has popped up that the country's authorities, including Shazbor (Matt Berry in Werner Herzog mode) are hell-bent on squashing.
Divided into distinct chapters, the film begins as the happy couple have just arrived for their trip and are waiting in a customs office where an officer (a brief cameo by Steven Yeun) informs them that the authorities are aware an American couple has smuggled cabbages into the country in their pants. The two feign shock and ignorance, until we see Delores's overly-stuffed, lumpy khakis just bursting with the things. They escape out the window and the chase (and absurdity) is on as they run into a forest still hiding traps from that great war that the authorities are counting on to stop the criminals. The couple encounter various characters on their journey, including Dave Franco as an American fully ensconced in the cabbage black market (and a bear suit).
Though far from a laugh per minute, Bubble & Squeak (which apparently takes its name from a cabbage and potato dish?) has it's moments of comedy, but what really saves it is the evolving relationship between Declan and Delores, two people who discover over the course of their unexpected journey that they may be more different than alike, a dangerous revelation for any marriage. Though not a crowning achievement for the Sundance programmers by any stretch of the imagination, Twohy's debut feature film is nevertheless a wholly original effort with enough promise to have me interested in seeing what he does next. (Lisa Trifone)
It’s Never Over, Jeff Buckley
Can a compelling documentary be made about a musician who technically only released one album by the time of his death? If you’re filmmaker Amy Berg (West of Memphis, Janis: Little Girl Blue, Phoenix Rising) and your subject is the great singer/songwriter Jeff Buckley, the answer is “most definitely,” especially when you’re armed with rare/never-before-seen live footage and home movies, extensive voice messages, journal entries, and interviews with the people closest to Buckley during his short life (he died in 1997 at the age of 30).
Buckley’s Grace was a seminal 1990s album that didn’t sell well in its initial release, but it was one of those works of art that other musicians found inspiration in for its quality and elegance, both in the songwriting and Buckley’s octave-defying voice. The film traces his complicated relationship with his musician father Tim Buckley, whom he essentially had no contact with but was constantly compared to. His legendary shows at the cafe known as Sin-é are well documented and dramatically filmed in black and white. The battles that went on over signing him and the process of writing, recording and touring the Grace album combine to show the exhaustive process a new artist must endure to appear successful in the eyes of his record company. But Buckley was also a ladies man, and It’s Never Over features revealing interviews with former partners, as well as singer Aimee Mann, whom Buckley hit on relentlessly when they were out one night. Her advice to him, “You don’t need sex, you need love,” rings resoundingly true by the end of the film.
Filmmaker Berg wisely allows Buckley’s music and musical tastes to shine through. His early live shows consisted of covers of songs by or made popular by Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Van Morrison, and even Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, all of whom informed his original songs like “Last Goodbye,” “Grace,” and his haunting, for-the-ages cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” Wisely, the film doesn’t attempt to solve the mystery of Buckley’s death from drowning in a Memphis river; instead, Berg presents ample arguments for his death being an accident and just as many for it being a suicide. In the end, it doesn’t matter. But a final voicemail left with his mother feels like a farewell message, whether it was intended to be or not, and it underscores the loss or an artist whose contributions to the world of music were both small and mighty. The film sometimes feels like a dream or cloudy memories, but that seems to perfectly fit the life it’s profiling. (Steve Prokopy)
The Perfect Neighbor
I've often said that it's hard to surprise me in documentary filmmaking. I've been doing this long enough and seen enough documentaries to know that formulas abound for a reason and in a nonfiction genre like this, tinkering with the delivery of a factual message can spell danger for any filmmaker. Which is what makes Geeta Gandbhir's approach to The Perfect Neighbor such an astounding and impressive accomplishment as she harnesses police body-cam footage to create an undeniably powerful film recounting a conflict between neighbors that ended in, as the film's synopsis aptly puts it, an avoidable tragedy.
The film revolves around the June, 2023 murder of Ajike Owens, a mother of four renting a small home in Florida across the street from an undeveloped lot situated between two other rental homes. The owner of the lot, living on one side, has no issue with the neighborhood children playing there; Susan Lorincz, renting the home on the other side, find them to be at best an annoyance, at worst, a menace. Gandbhir takes audiences back years before the 2023 incident to recount via bodycam footage the multiple times police were called to mediate Lorincz's escalating complaints and Owens and their neighbors' growing frustrations with her.
At the outset, Gandbhir clarifies that the majority of the footage is bodycam footage; as events progress, she does use police station footage—primarily what's recorded inside an interrogation room as detectives question Lorincz—and eventually news clips and trial footage. It all creates an immediate sense of urgency, even in the film's quieter moments, like when the officers are simply chatting with Owens and her neighbors about how to de-escalate Lorincz's unreasonable anger. Owens' story could have been told in a more traditional way, all talking heads and whatnot, but the filmmaker's smart decision to go directly to the source and let the literal evidence speak for itself makes the film a riveting and essential chronicle of an all-too-common occurrence in America. The Perfect Neighbor will absolutely break your heart as it simultaneously infuriates and galvanizes, a commendable feat and one that reminds us what film is capable of. (Lisa Trifone)
Twinless
There have been more than a few films over the years centering on the phenomenon of twins and the unique bond they share, but I can’t recall one quite like writer/director/co-star James (Straight Up) Sweeney’s Twinless. The film concers two young men—Dylan O’Brien’s Roman and Sweeney’s Dennis—who meet at a bereavement support group specifically for people who have lost their twin. The meet-up occurs shortly after Roman loses brother Rocky (also played by O’Brien in flashbacks), who is hit by a car, and the two find comfort in simply hanging out and talking about their respective loses. Roman is a simple, straight guy, while Dennis is gay (as was Rocky); the two seem to find bits of their lost siblings in each other, forming a bizarre but sweet bond over the course of several weeks.
But as the film progresses, we get the sense that there is more to both men than we initially realize, perhaps even hints of being mildly dangerous. Roman has anger issues that sometimes result in violent outbursts, something his grieving mother (Lauren Graham) urges him to get help with. The film’s structure reveals Dennis’s secrets early on, but holds back on exactly what his endgame might be with this bromance. Aisling Franciosi plays Marcie, Dennis's co-worker who meets Roman at a party, and the two instantly hit it off—much to Dennis’s chagrin. But more importantly, because she knows both men, she could potentially blow up the deception that brought them together in the first place.
Twinless isn’t meant to be a thriller by any definition of the word, but there are moments of legitimate dramatic tension, even in scenes in which Roman isn’t aware there is any; the best tension is reserved for the audience to endure. But at it’s heart, and thanks to the truly wonderful performances at its center, the movie succeeds as a tale of trauma bonding leading to a tender friendship. An exercise in how to reveal plot points at exactly the right moment, Sweeney’s screenplay, combined with O’Brien’s impressive dual performance, anchors the film in ways I wasn’t expecting and leaves us with an array of (mostly hopeful) emotions as things wrap up. My first genuine surprise of this year’s Sundance Film Festival. (Steve Prokopy)
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