Seaside

Victim or villain?

(2018) Suspense (Gravitas Ventures) Ariana DeBose, Matt Shingledecker, Steffanie Leigh, Sharon Washington, Jana Lee Hamblin, Haley Talbot, Bob Olin, Brandt Leeds, Victoria Blake, Jennie Vaughn, Jennifer Mekanas. Directed by Sam Zalutsky

 

The thing about soap operas is that they aren’t very subtle. They are lots of other things – outrageous, sometimes cheesy, sometimes erotic, often implausible but they generally aren’t boring. Those things work well in the soap opera oeuvre; outside of it, they can be deadly.

Daphne (DeBose) is leading a double life. She lives with her mother Angela (Washington) who is on the cusp of losing their home. Angela is disabled and somewhat broken. Daphne also has a boyfriend, Roger (Shingledecker) who is fabulously wealthy but whose father would disinherit him in a heartbeat if he knew that Roger was dating the daughter of his ex-nanny. Oh, didn’t I mention that Angela used to work for Roger’s dad?

In any case, Daddy dearest soon passes away and Roger isn’t exactly in mourning. Gleeful might be more accurate. He’s virtually rubbing his hands in anticipation of the millions he’s about to inherit and that’s when his dad plays one last cruel prank on his son; he leaves him a beach house on the remote Oregon coast and leaves the cash to any heirs Roger might sire legitimately.

So Daphne and Roger move to the beach house which Daphne keeps secret from Angela. In fact, she kept Roger secret from her mom. But no time for that now – Roger is ready to settle down and tie the knot. Only Daphne is beginning to see some disturbing signs; Roger is drinking more and more heavily and getting more verbally abusive by the day. Susanna (Leigh) shows up and it turns out that she and Roger used to be an item until Susanna got pregnant at which point Roger dropped her off at the local abortion clinic and high-tailed it out of town.

So with Daphne beginning to get more and more unsettled about Roger’s past and more importantly, her own future, Daphne soon begins to show that she’s not so helpless as she led Roger to believe.

This is quite the potboiler and maybe the world needs more of those. Cinematographer Philip A. Anderson tends to keep things in muted colors and the sky looks like there’s always a storm on the way but it never quite arrives. What the movie lacks is dramatic tension; there are plenty of twists and turns as you would expect from a decent thriller, but some strain the boundaries of incredulity and most are of the evil twin variety.

The cast here mainly have stage experience and little in front of the camera and it shows. The acting tends to be pretty broad and overdone. Good film acting requires more subtlety. DeBose shows some real potential as a lead actress, although she is given a fairly thankless role. The more we see of her with feckless Roger who oozes entitlement from every pore, the more we wonder what the hell she sees in him in any case.

I have to admit that there were some moments that worked well in the film but overall it doesn’t have that edge-of-the-seat feel that a good suspense movie generates. I can give it a mild recommendation and it isn’t too hard to find on a variety of streaming choices, but I can’t really say it’s worth the effort to track it down.

REASONS TO SEE: Blanche gives a solid performance.
REASONS TO AVOID: Has a bit of a soap opera feel to it.
FAMILY VALUES: There’s profanity, drug use and some sexual situations here.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: DeBose ws nominated for a Tony Award for her performance in Summer: The Donna Summer Musical and has been cast as Anita in the upcoming Steven Spielberg remake of West Side Story.
BEYOND THE THEATER: Amazon, iTunes, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 8/30/19: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet: Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Long Lost
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: The Heiresses

Don’t Tell (La bestia nel cuore)

The three women of "Don't Tell" ponder their inner demons.

(Lionsgate) Giovanna Mezzogiorno, Luigi Lo Cascio, Alessio Boni, Stefania Rocca, Angela Finocchiaro, Giuseppe Battiston, Valerio Binasco, Lucy Akhurst. Directed by Cristina Comencini

We all bear some sort of painful secret from our past that haunts us in one way or another. Sometimes we are consciously aware of that pain, other times it hides in our inner psyche, buried deeply only to be released unexpectedly and unwanted.

Sabina (Mezzogiorno) has a pretty nice life. She works as a voice-over actress, dubbing Hollywood movies. Her boyfriend Franco (Boni) is a handsome, well-regarded stage actor who has taken a role as a doctor in a soap opera that, while beneath his talents, will settle their financial issues for many years to come. Sabina is also pregnant, which she is trying to figure out the right way to break to her boyfriend.

However, she is beset by nightmares that torture her night after night. She realizes that this has something to do with her past but she can’t figure out what for the life of her. Determined to find out why these demons are tormenting her, she is determined to visit her brother Daniele (Lo Cascio) who lives in America, a professor of Italian literature at the University of Virginia.

Before she leaves, she needs to see to her friend Emelia (Rocca), who lost her sight at 20 and has been depressed ever since. Sabina visits her regularly and Emelia has developed a romantic attachment to her. Sabina however is quite straight and arranges for Emelia to be visited and assisted by Sabina’s director, Maria (Finocchiaro) who is also going through a difficult time – her husband has just left her for her daughter’s college friend.

The movie is mostly about Sabina’s journey and the truth behind her nightmares which I won’t reveal here – the movie will present a far more powerful impact if you don’t know what it is. Comencini adapted her own novel, which was inspired by a newspaper article of an adult brother and sister coming to terms with a childhood trauma.

Mezzogiorno does a terrific job here, playing a woman alternately confused, frustrated and eventually angry at the things that she can’t figure out, until the moment she does realize what happened to her in her past. It’s a compelling screen moment, one of the best in recent years.

If there’s a quibble here, it has to do with the two subplots that occur during the movie, one involving the budding relationship between Emelia and Maria and the other involving the boyfriend being chased by a seductive ingénue on the set of his soap opera. To my mind they were distracting, unnecessary and at times confusing. I can understand why they are there, however; the main story is wrenching and requires some relieve for the audience.

This wound up losing the Oscar to Tsotsi which is justified I think; that movie is a superior movie and one of the best of the decade. However, when you consider that this had to compete with Paradise Now and The Final Days of Sophie Scholl, you realize what a remarkable crop of movies came out from places other than Hollywood that year.

This isn’t always an easy movie to watch and those who are sensitive to child endangerment and to sexual situations are advised to give it a wide berth. However, this is one of the finest examinations of the female psyche and the effects of devastating trauma upon it that I have ever seen. From that standpoint alone, this is a movie worth seeking out although methinks it will be difficult to find at the average video store; an online rental service such as Netflix (where I rented it from) and Amazon might be your best bets.

WHY RENT THIS: A very difficult subject is handled with sensitivity but without pulling any punches. Mezzogiorno, Lo Cascio and Boni all deliver outstanding performances.

WHY RENT SOMETHING ELSE: Some of the subplots seem to unnecessarily derail the main thrust of the film.

FAMILY VALUES: There is some very mature sexual content as well as nudity here, as well as a scene of shocking violence. There is also plenty of foul language throughout. This is most definitely for mature audiences only.

TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Don’t Tell won the prestigious Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival and was a nominee for Best Foreign Film Oscar in 2006..

NOTABLE DVD EXTRAS: None listed.

FINAL RATING: 7/10

TOMORROW: Exit Through the Gift Shop