Early sighting of talented Canadian writer/director Matt Johnson (of the excellent workplace dramedy BLACKBERRY/’23* and current well-received Portrait of A Chef as a Young Man pic TONY/’26 - not seen here) is worth a look, but has aged rapidly. Pushing thirty at the time, Johnson plays a film nerd high school senior (hyperventilating over classic film like Quentin Tarantino having a celluloid orgasm), alpha-male to a gang of two, himself and BFF Owen Williams, who’s starting to find the act a bit jejune, even creepy. Their class project a film takedown of the school hall bullies needling them, ‘The Dirties.’ Told as a revenge fantasy, Owen worries that Matt (they both use their real names) is leaning into the scenario as if they were plotting a real shooting. Some of this extremely well observed; unusually for these things, the girls, if less active than re-active, at least are allowed independent thought not about boys. But after a while, you notice that the hand-held, slash & dash style of our filmmaking buds covers not only what they shoot, but also how the film shoots them. It begs the Brechtian question, by whom? It’s unavoidable. And it could have worked dramatically if Johnson tied a destabilizing filming style to Matt’s deteriorating mental state. A psychopathic loss of control accelerated as Owen starts pulling away.
DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, BLACKBERRY. (If TONY shows equal growth, it must be all the critics say.) https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2023/07/blackberry-2023.html
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