Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. I had a weird double feature at SXSW that somehow provided the best possible up and down rollercoaster ride of emotion. I saw the most uplifting feel good movie of the fest and then the tough, heart-breaking documentary about the most vile school shooting in American history.
Let's start with the good times, shall we?
Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a delight. I know that sounds like I'm angling for a trailer quote, but I honestly sat here for about two minutes trying to think of a better word and nothing came to me.
It helps that I'm an easy mark for anything New Zealand-feeling and Wilderpeople is so thoroughly Kiwi I started feeling a little homesick, bru. But even my deep love of anything New Zealand wouldn't have made me fall so hard for this movie if the performances weren't so outstanding and the tone so perfectly light and fun.
Julian Dennison is force of nature here. The young man plays Ricky Baker, a troubled city kid being shuffled through New Zealand's foster system until he ends up at the rural “house” of Bella and Hec. I used quotation marks around house because it's more of a couple of tin sheds surrounded by wild Kiwi bush.
You'd think this is a set up for a slow burn story about the troubled city kid butting heads with the country folk adoptive parental figures all the while steadily coming to respect and love them by the end of the movie, but this isn't that story.
It doesn't take more than 5 minutes before Ricky figures out that these country folk are both kind and weird as hell. Bella in particular is loveably eccentric. His relationship with her grows pretty quickly and Rima Te Wiata's performance makes it easy to see why. She's a ball of energy that is so excited to have a little boy to look after that you just can't help but feel happy for her.
Ricky's relationship with Hec (Sam Neill) is a little different. You can tell Hec loves Bella and loves what Ricky's bringing out in her, but he doesn't really give a shit about having a kid. All Hec wants to do is make his wife happy and go hunt in the bush.
Naturally, events conspire to put both Hec and Ricky together out in the wilderness where they have to survive the elements together when neither particularly likes each other.
Now, this set up could read as standard indie drama fare, but the tone is much lighter than that. It's almost Waititi doing his take on Wes Anderson. It never gets as quirky as Anderson's flicks, but Waititi paints a distinct world filled with colorful characters including a wild bushman named Psycho Sam (played by the great Rhys Darby) and the almost T-800 style dedicated Child Service Agent (Rachel House).
It's one of those exaggerated worlds that is just grounded enough to not seem ridiculous, but crazy enough to make every moment fun because you don't know exactly what to expect.
This is the best role Sam Neill has had in a long time and he knocks it out of the park, reminding us that he's one of those movie stars that exudes personality with a single look. In the right role he's magic on screen and this is one of those roles. His chemistry with Dennison is the kind of palpable that instantly tells you what you're watching is what every filmmaker is trying to get at when they cast their films.
Hunt For The Wilderpeople is a great audience movie. You'll want a shared experience with this, so make sure to catch it when it hits theaters.
The other movie of this double feature is also a memorable audience experience, too, but for different reasons...
As you'd expect, Newtown is a tough watch. You know that going in and I have to admit I almost skipped it because I didn't want to put myself through the emotions I knew it was going to pull out of me. I'm glad I didn't, though, and I urge you to psych yourself up and give it a view whenever you have the chance because it's an important document that puts faces on a faceless (for most of us) tragedy.
Newtown is not graphic. We don't see any bloody footage of dead children or bullet holes in walls. It's not about the deaths of those poor children who were murdered by a madman with a gun. It's about who a few of the children were and how their families deal with the grief of them being ripped away.
And it's still tough. Meeting these children through pictures and video knowing they came to violent ends requires something of you as an audience member that most features and docs don't, but it also gives you a deeper empathy for those affected by this tragedy that I think is important.
This empathy is the path towards making any kind of gun control change. Don't worry, my right wing 2nd Amendment loving friends. Newtown isn't an advocacy documentary. We see a little bit of some of the parents trying to push for some background check legislation, but even that small ask isn't the focus of the doc. It's how those particular parents deal with the tragedy.
I hope that anti-gun control people see the movie so they can personally see the devastation that can be brought by a sick person with a gun. The small ask I mentioned isn't “Let's take away everybody's guns” but simply closing loopholes and requiring background checks on every person who buys a gun, whether it's at a gun show or on the internet. Why that's controversial I don't understand and I don't think most legal gun owners do either.
Anyway, I got off topic and have officially made a bigger deal about gun control needs than the movie does.
We were talking about empathy. I always hated hearing from friends who were parents that would say the rest of us don't understand things the way those with children do. I've always been very conscious of other people's feelings, sometimes to a fault and resented being told I didn't feel things as deeply as some parents do when it comes to hearing both good and bad things about children, but I'm starting to understand what they means.
I currently find myself in some weird middle ground area of being a male role model for my nephews, but not yet a father. I realize that connection is not something I can fully understand yet, but I'm beginning to get what my friends with kids mean.
As hard as I tried, I couldn't help but picture my nephews when watching parents and paramedics and cops were tearfully discussing what went down at Sandy Hook. It doesn't help that my nephews are around that same age right now. I didn't want that imagery in my head, but the doc made me ask myself what I'd do if I heard there was a shooting at their school. I could imagine the agony of not knowing if they were safe and the terror of hearing bad news conflicting with need to know anything.
I wouldn't say that I gained new empathy, but I definitely felt it in a different way and I can't imagine how much more it'd hit me if I was a father.
When you feel something that personally you know that the documentarian did their job. Kim Snyder's approach to the tragedy is perfect. Her doc manages to be respectful and emotional and non-political, which is kind of a miracle considering what she was documenting.
If you care at all, you owe it to yourself and the lives lost to pull up the box of Kleenex and tough out a watch. Snyder said afterwards that PBS will be airing it nationwide, but I don't know when.
One of the parents was at the screening. Nicole Hockley is one of the parents that are trying enact some reasonable gun legislation. She and her late son, Dylan, are a big part of the documentary. I saw her and a little guy I assume is her son afterwards heading to the Alamo Drafthouse lobby. I wanted to hug her and thank her for all that she does, not just politically, but for other people who have lost loved ones, but I thought it'd be weird, especially in front of her son who was happily pointing out the weird Six-Sheet posters for old horror movies that decorate the Drafthouse hallways.
Maybe somehow she'll read this review and will know some stranger out there thinks she's doing important, selfless work. That seems a better way for that to happen, but I can guarantee that when you see the doc you'll understand why I had the urge to let her know how much what she does means.
So, yeah. That was a rollercoaster of a day and definitely my favorite one-two punch of movies so far at SXSW this year.
I just got out of a documentary on Steve Gleason, a football player who was diagnosed with ALS and decides to leave video diaries for his unborn child, so I'm still on a roll when it comes to documentaries that make me cry. Will review that one soon, so keep an eye out for it.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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