Like the swallows to Capistrano, cinema returned to Park City, Utah for the annual Sundance film festival. Beneath high-end outerwear the hearts of industry types from Los Angeles, New York and perhaps other cities beat rapidly, and not just because of the treacherous altitude. Sundance is the starting gun for the year in serious movie-going, and while it may not top Cannes for worldly quality or Toronto for Oscar buzz, the indie spirit is still alive and well atop this icy mountain.
Last year was major, with both Whiplash and Boyhood making their debut, still picking up awards a full year later, with the latter on course for best picture glory. There were no such striking stand-outs this year, but still many lessons to be learned.
Teens behaving badly still get studios opening their wallets
Three of the big titles were films about teenagers. Sony Pictures Classics shelled out $2m for Diary of a Teenage Girl, a 1970s-set coming-of-age tale based on a graphic novel starring Bel Powley, in which she sleeps with her mother’s boyfriend (Kristen Wiig and Alexander Skarsgard, respectively.) Dope, a lighthearted high school crime story set in a black Los Angeles neighbourhood, was purchased by Open Road Films (US) and Sony (International) for a combined $7m. Then there was Me and Earl and the Dying Girl and its record-breaking $12m sale to Fox Searchlight. Based on a young adult novel, this teen weepie about misfit movie buffs and cancer patients won over both mainstream crowds and the snobs. It took home both the jury prize and the audience award, as did last year’s Whiplash.
Adults, too, especially if they’re in bed
Want to get your movie into Sundance? Get creative in the sack. A number of entrants all boasted unusual scenes in flagrante delicto. Lame comedy The Bronze only netted one laugh: a robust depiction of young gymnasts in heat. The Overnight, another film that ultimately came up short, has a startling amount of male nudity. Indeed, the elephantine nature of Jason Schwartzman’s lower regions is a major plot point. (Alas, prosthetics are involved.) Also there’s The D Train, in which snivelling loser Jack Black and libertine James Marsden allow a night of carousing to lead to a played-for-laughs amorous end.
Tye Sheridan – remember this name
Best known for previous festival films like Mud and The Tree of Life, Tye Sheridan, recently cast as Cyclops in the forthcoming X-Men: Apocalypse, appeared in three pictures this Sundance. In Entertainment, Rick Alverson’s weird follow-up to The Comedy, he is a travelling mime whose scatological performances delight prison inmates and bar patrons. In The Stanford Prison Experiment he is one of a number of duped college students undergoing a potentially dangerous exercise in depersonalisation. Most impressively, however, is his turn opposite Ewan McGregor in Last Days in the Desert as a boy in the Judean wild who interacts with a certain Nazarene rabbi prior to his journey to Jerusalem.
And learn how to spell Saoirse Ronan
We knew she had it in her. Saoirse Ronan has had her share of great kid and teen roles, but with Brooklyn, a charming story of an Irish-American immigrant in the early 1950s, she’s planted her flag as a grown woman with tremendous talent. The whole world is going to fall in love with her for real with this one.
Sociology, major
Two of the most famous (and controversial) social psychology experiments got their close-up at this year’s fest. The Stanford Prison Experiment is a tense and fascinating look at Philip Zimbardo’s 1971 investigation into power and institutions. The Experimenter stars Peter Sarsgaard as Stanley Milgram, whose investigation into obedience to malevolent authority sought to answer troubling questions about Nazism. The former is a straightforward thriller, the latter (from director Michael Almereyda) is, perhaps fittingly, more experimental.
Jupiter Ascending might be best kept a secret
Fantastic Fest has been holding successful secret screenings for years. Recently the New York film festival got in the act. It didn’t translate to the mountains, though. For reasons that still confound, Warner Bros decided to bring their giant space opera Jupiter Ascending to this celebration of independent cinema. Moreover, they made it impossible to get in. Reports were the theatre had loads of empty rows, and those that did attend said the movie was awful.
No camera is no problem
In 1993 Sundance famously debuted El Mariachi, shot for a well-publicised $7000. This year director Sean Baker’s Tangerine, a high-energy tale of Los Angeles transgender prostitutes, was shot on an iPhone and without permits. It was a choice born from economic necessity, but the urgency and exuberance are well captured.
The Duplass brothers make their money count
They’ve gone all-in on using their clout to support independent films. Three titles had their names in the credits, plus a short. Additionally, they were spotted staying in the same scummy condos as the film critics. That’s dedication.
People flock to the arthouse of horrors
Last year Sundance debuted The Babadook, one of the sharpest horror films in some time. Continuing the tradition of unusual horror was the well received The Witch, a richly worded, gorgeously shot supernatural drama set in 1600s New England. Other creepers came from documentaries. Rodney Ascher (Room 237) returned to the festival with The Nightmare, an unnerving look at the very real phenomenon of sleep paralysis. Lastly, the much-discussed The Wolfpack. If this fascinating look at a family of maladjusted New Yorkers who almost never leave their tiny apartment isn’t a horror film of some kind I don’t know what it is.
Everyone is Sci-curious
Each screening at Sundance holds some seats for last minute bigwig arrivals with “red badges.” At the premiere of Alex Gibney’s expose on Scientology, Going Clear, there was bedlam as a crush of industry types nearly broke the system. Despite the movie being available to HBO subscribers in just a few weeks, the interest level on this one was wider than the sea. Draw your own conclusions.
