Wed
From the moment graphic novelist Will Henry accidentally walks in on his wife, Charlie, with another man, his life officially begins to suck. Not only is he exiled from Brooklyn to a tiny studio apartment in Astoria and forced to see his adorable twin daughters only on weekends, but, according to Charlie, the separation is all his fault. As he muddles through single fathering and teaching college, a defeated Will sits up nights at his drafting table, illustrating his frustrations and loneliness—aptly symbolized by an ever-growing brick wall jammed between him and his family. When a student challenges Will to pursue new people, places, and things, his obsessions—both graphic and real—take new form.
Lead actor Jemaine Clement's special brand of nerdy cluelessness is utterly charming and soulful, as are the supporting performances in this understated comedy that revels in the awkwardness of breakups and pokes fun at an erudite New York where everyone's clumsily trying to create a new happy ending. —C.L.
Don Verdean is a man of faith who has devoted his life to biblical archaeology, scouring the globe in search of artifacts that back up the teachings of Jesus Christ. Now, traveling from town to town, he and his devoted assistant, Carol, spread the gospel by peddling books and DVDs out of his shabby RV, while his Holy Land contacts, Boaz and Shem, do the digging from afar. When evangelical preacher Tony Lazarus offers to bankroll Don’s modest roadside operation, the escalating pressure to find increasingly significant relics leads Don and his team down a less-than-righteous path. With more than just the word of God on the line, Don finds himself in the midst of a spiteful feud between two opposing congregations, leaving him to question what is truly important in life.
With a fantastic ensemble cast in tow, director Jared Hess returns to the Sundance Film Festival with this hilarious and biting satire that explores the thin line between faith and fabrication. —A.M.
On-the-rise New York Times Magazine writer Michael Finkel receives troubling news from his editors that he is accused of falsifying part of an investigative piece on child laborers in Africa. Jobless and disgraced, Michael retreats from the city and falls into a depression. One day, he hears startling news that a fugitive accused of murdering his family was captured in Mexico claiming the identity of "Michael Finkel of The New York Times." Intrigued by the story, he travels to interview the accused, identified as Christian Longo, to help save his name.
Rupert Goold’s shrewd first feature pits Jonah Hill against James Franco in a psychological cat-and-mouse game obscured by many "truths." As the two calculating men share their stories in private, their similarities become clear while their motivations are less so. David Kajganich scripts Finkel’s memoir into a subtle portrait of an unlikely friendship. —C.R.
Thurs
You are very tired. The pillow is soft. It's late at night, and you start to drift off in your bed. Snap—your body locks up, totally frozen. But you are not asleep. You can see and hear everything. That's when the shadow men come.
Following his exploration on the deep effects of cinema in his feature Room 237, director Rodney Ascher now investigates the phenomenon of sleep paralysis. In this documentary-horror film, we experience the terror that a surprisingly large number of people suffer when they find themselves trapped between the sleeping and waking worlds every night. What should be explained by science gets complicated as sufferers from random backgrounds have very similar visions. The Nightmare enhances the stories with eerie dramatizations of what (and who) the subjects see. Ascher, who has also experienced the condition, treats the subject with respect, combining a primal horror movie with an existential terror in the lines between reality and the imagination. —M.P.
In the wake of a disaster that wipes out most of civilization, a young woman who believes she is the last human on Earth meets a dying scientist searching for survivors. Their relationship becomes tenuous when another male survivor appears. As the two men compete for the woman's affection, their primal urges begin to reveal their true nature.
This is director Craig Zobel's third feature to play at the Sundance Film Festival but his first in the U.S. Dramatic Competition. With his prior two films, he showed a commanding ability to find tension in the mundane and humanity in the horrific. In Z for Zachariah, he utilizes his full repertoire as a director, unleashing a forceful drama that searingly explores the nature of man . . . and woman. Boasting an exceptional cast whose impressive talents are on display, Z for Zachariah is a gripping tale that subverts expectations and works on many levels. —T.G.
Fri
Laney is an attractive, intelligent suburban wife and devoted mother of two adorable children. She has the perfect husband who plays basketball with the kids in the driveway, a pristine house, and a shiny SUV for carting the children to their next activity. However, just beneath the façade lie depression and disillusionment that send her careening into a secret world of reckless compulsion. Only very real danger will force her to face the painful root of her destructiveness and its crumbling effect on those she loves.
At the core of I Smile Back's power is an indelible performance. Sarah Silverman reinvents herself as a dramatic actress in the career-defining, intensely layered, and heartbreaking role of Laney. Deftly directed by Adam Salky (Dare, 2009 Sundance Film Festival), I Smile Back is at times darkly humorous but also harrowing and unflinching as an authentic, humanizing portrait that offers no easy resolution for a damaged woman struggling to come to terms with herself. —K.Y.
Elle, a onetime successful poet, abruptly breaks up with Olive, her girlfriend of four months. But before she gets a chance to get overly sentimental, her granddaughter, Sage, unexpectedly shows up with an emergency that requires money. With the clock ticking, the two set out in a vintage Dodge and drop in on Elle’s old friends and flames, asking for help but instead ending up rattling skeletons and digging up secrets. As they kick up a storm all over town, Elle’s tough front reveals she is still reeling over the loss of her longtime partner, Vi, who recently passed away.
Lily Tomlin’s famously impeccable timing and whiplash wit are in delightfully top form here, and complementing the geared-up narrative is super-sharp dialogue. Rising young star Julia Garner keeps up with Tomlin, while Marcia Gay Harden deliciously plays the mother, the only person who can temper Tomlin’s loud mouth. Versatile storyteller writer/director Paul Weitz’s exuberant new comedy is a passionate, edgy, intergenerational story featuring an all-star female trifecta. —C.D.
Sat
Alex, Emily, and their son, RJ, have recently moved to Los Angeles's Eastside from Seattle. Feeling lost in a new city, they are desperate to find their first new friends. After a chance meeting with Kurt at the neighborhood park, they gladly agree to join family pizza night at his home. But as it gets later and the kids go to bed, the family “playdate” becomes increasingly more revealing as the couples begin to open up.
Writer/director Patrick Brice's second feature is a painfully funny take on thirtysomething sexual frustration and parenthood. Featuring memorable lead performances by Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, and Judith Godrèche, each actor nimbly balances the script's sudden emotional turns from surprising honesty to complete embarrassment. —C.R.
A colonial family leaves plantation life and attempts to reap their harvest on a fledgling farm at the edge of an imposing ancient New England forest. Soon, superstition and dread set in as food grows scarce, a family member goes missing, and the children's play takes on a frenzied and menacing undercurrent. As they begin to turn on one another, the malevolent machinations of an ethereal presence from within the woods exacerbate the growing corruption of their own natures.
In his debut feature, writer/director Robert Eggers painstakingly designs an authentic re-creation of New England generations before the 1692 trials in Salem, immersing the audience in a bygone era and evoking the alluring and terrifying power of the witch myth as the timeless terror of this folk tale envelops us. Aided by a creeping camera and ominous score, the stark historical realism of The Witch creates a chilling portrait of a family unraveling within their own fears and anxieties, leaving them prey for an opportunistic evil. —H.Z.
Ewan McGregor is mesmerizing as he takes on two of history’s most complicated and misunderstood characters: Jesus Christ and the Devil.
Director Rodrigo Garcia reimagines Christ’s last days of fasting in the desert as he walks back to civilization. In the midst of the harsh landscape, fatigued and hallucinating, Christ is met by the Devil, who is eager to test and tempt the weary traveler. Their profound ruminations on faith and truth demonstrate Garcia’s power as a screenwriter and McGregor’s determination to portray Jesus in a different light. By focusing on Christ's fallibility and innocence, new dimensions of the prophet and the man create a fascinating character study. But Christ’s real test comes when he befriends a family on his travels and is caught up in a dispute that forces a powerful confrontation with his own fate.
Exquisite cinematography by Emmanuel Lubezki (Gravity, 2013) not only submerges us into a classic cinematic metaphor for confrontation with the self but also transforms the desert into a formidable psychological adversary.
Garcia makes the most of minimalism in this thought-provoking piece that incorporates biblical motifs and iconography to creatively blend fable, drama, and spiritual quest while exploring the nature of enlightenment and perception. —H.C.
Jude—named after a Beatles song by his hippie parents—spends his high school days in small-town Vermont getting high with his best friend, Teddy. Beneath Jude’s mind-numbing activities lurks a desire to reconnect with his estranged father, Les, who abandoned the family when Jude was nine. Desperate to keep her son out of trouble, Jude’s mother sends him to live with Les in New York City. In the roiling and raw East Village, Jude struggles to establish an identity within the cultural upheaval downtown and forms an unlikely surrogate family with Teddy’s straight-edge brother and a troubled, rich uptown girl.
Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini craft a raw and layered film, pulsating with the urgent angst of young Jude, desperately seeking to define his place in the world. Asa Butterfield and Hailee Steinfeld lead a superb ensemble with refreshing vulnerability, plunging us into the frenetic upheaval of adolescence. —T.B.
