SUNDANCE 2015: Capone gets all kinds of sexy with Patrick Brice's THE OVERNIGHT and Sean Baker's TANGERINE!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Park City, Utah at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Here are a few things I’ve seen recently on this particular festival circuit…

THE OVERNIGHT
One of the most thoroughly enjoyable experiences in my first couple of days at Sundance was the new film from writer-director Patrick Brice, who previous film, CREEP, premiered at Sundance last year (I saw it at SXSW), and is still waiting a release and two more chapter to be made as part of an eventual trilogy. CREEP is a fairly effective two-character thriller, and I went into THE OVERNIGHT based solely on the strength that film, so much so that I didn’t even read the plot synopsis. But the fact that the film premiered in a midnight slot led me to assume it was another horror-type film, which is not even close to the case.

THE OVERNIGHT follows new L.A. implants Emily and Alex (Taylor Schilling of “Orange Is the New Black,” and Adam Scott), who have moved there with their young son for Emily’s work. On their first venture out to a nearby park, the meet Kurt (Jason Schwartzman), who is there with his similarly aged son, and the kids seem to hit it off as do the parents. After talking about the pluses of the neighborhood, Kurt invites the couple to join him and his wife Charlotte (French actress Judith Godrèche) for their weekly pizza night.

On the surface, the film is about two very different couples, whose ideas about living life are both positive in nature but take wildly different forms. Both seem like happy couples, but after countless drinks and a bit of weed, the intricacies of both relationships begin to reveal themselves in both very funny and somewhat serious ways. And while it appears Kurt and Charlotte are steering the encounter toward some sort of group sex or spouse-swapping scenario, things are not always what they seem.

The real surprise in THE OVERNIGHT is Schwartzman, who is often the best part of any film he’s a part of. But his Kurt is far from the neurotic or antagonistic types he’s played in the past; Kurt is a confident man with very clear ideas about the work he does (he’s an part-time artist, architect, and maker of short films that need to be seen to be appreciated). The way Kurt pushes things with Emily and Alex just enough to make them uneasy, but not so much so that they get uncomfortable enough to leave. Everyone is having a great time, but there’s an underlying tension throughout most of the film because we’re certain Kurt and Charlotte have ulterior motives. The mistake is believing they have the same motive.

I’m not trying to make THE OVERNIGHT seem like a thriller. It’s a pure adult comedy, complete with frank sex talk, a great deal of nudity (even by the men, sort of). What begins as a playdate for the kids turns into one that is far more geared toward the adults, and all four performers are quite good, playing people who are a various stages of being okay where all roads seem to be leading. Adam Scott’s Max has the great actual story arc as a man with major body issues that he gets wasted enough to attempt to deal with. In the course of just the one day in which the film takes place, Max has the most revelations and awakenings in his body and mind. His attitudes shift just enough to cause a mild panic in Emily

Filmmaker Brice does a beautiful job of keeping the proceedings sexy and loose, light and funny, with a touch of mystery enveloping the whole affair. Above all else, THE OVERNIGHT is about knowing laughs, recognizing certain insecurities that we might share with these characters and finding ways to deal with them—not always in the most logical manner. At various points in the film, you’ll find reasons to like and want to hang out with each of the characters, and that’s the point. By never letting us settle into an opinion about any one of these four people, we’re open to finding each of them fascinating at various point in the story. And it’s good to know that filmmaker who cut his death on horror is able to expand into a deeper character study like this. I’m genuinely excited for people to see this film and experience the director’s vision of being socially awkward but wanting to be expressive on all topics. It’s great fun.


TANGERINE
For all of its vulgarity and sexually explicit aspects, director and co-writer Sean Baker’s (STARLET) latest TANGERINE is a little crowd-pleasing slice of heaven set in the very authentic world of transgender prostitutes on Christmas Eve in downtown L.A. We meet Alexandra (Mya Taylor) on the street when her best friend Sin-Dee (Kiki Kitana Rodgriguez) is back home from being in a jail for a short time. Sin-Dee suspects her pimp/boyfriend Chester (James Ransome) has been cheating on her while she was inside, and she in on a rampage looking for him—bouncing from convenient stores, to various eating establishments to sleazy locations in a short time, causing chaos and destruction wherever she goes.

I’m going to assume that the two lead actresses haven ever acted prior to this film experience, and I don’t mean that they can’t act; they absolutely can are are fantastic to watch. They are both attractive as women who talk at a million mph and run around town without a moment’s notice. Also on the town this fine day is and Armenian-born married cab driver Razmik (Karren Karagulian) who has a young for young men dressed as women. At one point in the film, Razmik picks up a hooker walking a street normally occupied by the transectual types. When he get her alone and discovers vagina instead of a penis, a storm of rage from the driver.

Eventually the two stories intersect in a donut shop, where Sin-Dee confronts the boyfriend and the alleged hooker he slept with (Mickey O’Hagan). But everything that gets us to that point alternates from hilarious and terrifying to explicit and tragic. This isn’t an examination into the lives of these prostitutes; there’s no backstory or even a real sense of where they are in life outside of this one day. But just because director Baker (who wrote the screenplay with Chris Bergoch) doesn’t draw a traditional character study doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about these people. He clearly does and his affection for them is contagious.

TANGERINE is probably best known as being the film at Sundance that was shot on an Apple iPhone 5s camera with an anamorphic adapter, and you notice things right away, like how the camera can be literally inserted into a conversation or argument between two characters. The camera practically zips in between the actors during a scene, and it adds a level of intimacy that is unique to many films of this nature.

The locations are gritty and sometimes disgusting, the cast of characters that dip in and out of their lives are, at times, fascinating and troubling. Nearly every scene feel authentic. The prostitutes seem to have a language of their own that takes a while to really decipher, but the more you understand, the funny things get. I have a great deal of affection for TANGERINE, and as flat-out nasty as some of these fine ladies can get from time to time, I think they’ll be a big hit with audiences who take the time to view them as something more than just curiosities.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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