(Toby Jones, USA, 2024, 78 minutes)
ANNA COMES HOME
For me, Familiar Touch really hit home, because my mom was diagnosed with dementia in 2019, and the following year she moved to an assisted living facility, just as Kathleen's Ruth does in the film, but it's an impressive achievement beyond any personal resonances, bolstered by an elegant screenplay, authentic locations, sensitive direction, and Gabe's intimate cinematography.
Fargo filmmaker and animator Toby Jones directs a straight-faced gentleman named AJ Thompson (a real-life IT guy) in the absurdist story of a regular schmo with a perfect life who faces the sudden loss of that perfection.
First, it's the dog park, which the mayor (Crystal Cossette Knight) turns into a blog park, even though everybody know blogging isn't really a thing anymore–except for me and the bloggers in the film.
Then, his best friends, a married couple, move away, and it's just AJ and his dad (Greg Carlson), who is also his boss, and chihuahuas Diddy and Biff, who no longer have a dog park in which to run around and do their business, so this complacent fellow has to get creative, and so he does, as does the filmmaker.
As producer Ben Hanson said at the second screening, the funny business, which involves literal-minded wordplay and goofy props, moves so quickly that if one gag doesn't make you laugh, the next should do the trick.
I met both gentlemen the following evening, and we chatted about the closing sequence, which involved shooting in 40°F weather. That's unreal to me, and I grew up in Alaska. Fun film, nice guys, and the audience had a blast with their loopy tale of an ordinary guy who fights City Hall--and wins.
(Amber Suzor, USA, 2024, 95 minutes)
I was on the screening panel for Cucalorus this year, and Anna Came Home was one of the films I ranked the highest. I was thrilled when it made the cut, because this is a five-day festival, and they can't program everything.
When Alex, the programming director, asked if I would like to moderate any of the films, I requested those that I had already seen and recommended, and that's how I ended up chatting with producers Jennifer Downes and Frederic Winkler at the screening. I wish writer/director Amber Suzor could have been there, but Jennifer answered my questions in detail.
Amber, 26, wasn't able to make it, because she recently had a baby with actor Mason Webber, now her husband, who plays the easygoing Louie in the film.
Anna is a remarkably assured debut, set in leafy Marin County, about a Berkeley student going through an early-life crisis (I'm not familiar with Marin, but my dad worked at Berkeley, so that part resonated with me).
If it isn't a cringe comedy, there are moments of intense cringe, which Jennifer said were inspired by things Amber, 24 when she made the film, experienced in her younger years--the audience gasped at one particularly humiliating moment.
Isabella Newman, who Amber met at NYU, is perfection in the tricky title role, and Bella's own parents play Anna's parents--Amber's father, Olivier, also has a small role–which adds to the verisimilitude.
DUINO
(Juan Pablo Di Pace, Andrés Pepe Estrada, Argentina, 2024, 107 minutes)
I have mixed feelings about this film, though I enjoyed it for the most part. It's a gay love story in which no one ever says the word gay, and one character never even acknowledges an attraction to men.
It's an open question, however, whether the film is too coy for it's own good, whether it's meant to reflect Argentina's discomfort with homosexuality, or whether it's simply intended to depict a very particular kind of relationship involving a high-strung Swiss teenager and a low-key Argentinian who meet at an international arts school on Italy's Adriatic Coast and fall in love, except there's no sex, and not even a kiss.
Matias (Santiago Madrussan, very good) is mad about Alexander (Oscar Morgan), who is prone to dark moods, and might even be bipolar.
The feelings are mutual, except the upper-class Alex either isn't gay or hasn't acknowledged it to himself the way closeted, middle-class Matias has.
The framing story, in which the Argentinian makes a film about the relationship, isn't as compelling as the more emotionally-involving sequences that take place in 1997, but it's also necessary, since the project allows Matias to let go of the feelings of frustration and regret that have haunted him ever since.
Di Pace, who co-directed and appears as the older Matias, never definitely answers the question of Alex's sexual orientation, and if you accept the film on its narratively ambiguous terms, he doesn't have to, because the film is more about Matias' development than his.
FAMILIAR TOUCH
(Sarah Friedland, USA, 2024,
90 minutes)
Choreographer and filmmaker Sarah Friedland's directorial debut is among the three Cucalorus films I saw twice, along with Anna Comes Home and Rowdy Friends; first at home on the small screen as part of the screening process and then on the big screen with the filmmakers in attendance.
All three, which don't have much in common–though Anna Comes Home also takes place in California–played like gangbusters the second time around, and that's always a good sign in terms of their future prospects.
That said, Familiar Touch may be a harder sell. It shouldn't be, not least since it's a brilliant film and the audience--including Color Book filmmaker David Fortune--responded with enthusiasm, but some people won't want to see a film about an octogenarian with Alzheimer's disease, no matter how rapturous the praise. I'm not suggesting that it won't continue to attract admirers as it appears on more screens, though, because it definitely will.
I spoke with cinematographer Gabe Elder, both on and off the stage, and he hopes that Kathleen Chalfant, an award-winning theater actress (Angels in America, Wit), gets all the credit she deserves for her delicately-shaded performance. He found her a joy to work with. When I mentioned her husband, photographer and Style Wars filmmaker Henry Chalfant, Gabe had praise for him, too, saying that Henry was brought to tears by his wife's performance both of the times he saw it at the Venice Film Festival.
It's also absolutely not depressing, but nor does it offer any false uplift. No one ever recovers from Alzheimer's, but writer/director Sarah Friedland, in concert with Kathleen Chalfant and the excellent supporting cast, finds moments of humor and tenderness where you least expect them.
As David Milch writes in his memoir, Life's Work, "There's nothing to be done. The disease must simply progress. The reverend has to live through the changes. Everyone around him has to live into their inability to do anything to change the outcome." Ironically, Milch was writing about a character on Deadwood with an inoperable brain tumor, Ray McKinnon's Rev. Smith, but in 2019, Milch would also be diagnosed with dementia.
Familiar Touch may be the finest film I've seen on the subject, and there's been a lot of competition as Americans are living longer and cognitive decline among seniors has become more prevalent. In its avoidance of melodrama and heavy-handedness, it bears comparison with Sarah Polley's 2006 Alice Munro adaptation Away From Her and Natalie Erika James' uniquely touching 2020 horror film The Relic–and that's a pretty high bar.
Gabe wasn't able to go into much detail since nothing has been announced yet, but at the screening he mentioned that the film secured distribution prior to the festival and will be more widely available in the coming months.
I saw other films at Cucalorus, including Ick, It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This, Operation Taco Gary's, Universal Language, Welcome to Jay, and the nine animated "Bluepoint Shorts" films, but ran out of time to write about them all. I'll update this post as the features make their way to Seattle.
Beyond the films and filmmakers, Cucalorus is about the town of Wilmington, so shout-out to filmgoers Pat, Fran, and John O'Callahan, a restoration specialist who lucked into a part on The Righteous Gemstones, which films in Charleston, thanks to Tallulah, his 19-year old daughter, who submitted a head shot on his behalf.
I enjoyed chatting with all three before and after screenings. The gracious Rocky Horror Picture Show enthusiast working the counter at Mexican diner Capricho was also a firm favorite. Nothing unites East and West, South and North quite like Tim Curry.
12/9/2024: Music Box Films will be releasing Familiar Touch in 2025.
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