🎬 #181 Familial Spaces.
Two films this week, both about families caught in a current they can’t swim against - one modern, one from decades back.
Happy choosing, happy viewing,
Bry
FILM ONE: WAVES
2019 Dir Trey Edward Shults
2 hrs 15 mins
Shults drops us into the restless, glowing world of a Florida high school wrestler whose life unravels in real time. The first half is a pressure cooker - swirling colours, pounding music, choices piling up like storm clouds - all leading to anxiety inducing camera moves. Then, halfway through, the film flips perspective, letting the second half breathe in a way that feels like surfacing after nearly drowning.
The sound design is just as important as the visuals. The songs fade in and out like they’re drifting from a car stereo across the street. Every cut, every lens flare, feels intentional. The films cinematic language puts us in a dream-like state, watching the emotions pour out onto the celluloid, imprinting its own image as it goes.
*Available for a small rental fee on Apple and Amazon in the US and UK.
Fact: The script Trey Edward Shults sent to Sterling K. Brown was a PDF with embedded music cues, varying font sizes and colours, and notes about aspect ratio changes.
FILM TWO: ORDINARY PEOPLE
1980 Dir. Robert Redford
2 hrs 4 mins
Different era, different style, but the same kind of inevitable feel. This is about a well-off suburban family after the accidental death of one son, and the suicide attempt of the other. Redford directs with a restraint that makes the emotional moments hit harder, like unexpected swells rising in calm water.
Donald Sutherland’s quiet warmth, Mary Tyler Moore’s icy precision, Timothy Hutton’s raw fragility, it’s an ensemble that feels like an actual family you might know, or be part of.
*Available for a small rental fee on Apple and Amazon in the US and UK.
Fact: Hutton was just 20 when he won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, the youngest ever to win in that category.