A SXSW Film Review:

Tara Wray fled Kansas when she was 19. That was the year her mother, Evie Wray, declared herself pregnant with the devil’s baby, and the year she threatened to drive both herself and her daughter off a bridge. After that, they didn’t speak much – until Manhattan, Kansas. The feature-length documentary -- named after the town in which Tara’s life began -- had its world premiere last Friday at the SXSW Film Festival. It is the story of a mother-daughter reconciliation.

What makes Manhattan, Kansas so compelling is, in part, its universality. While most of us don’t know what it’s like to have a severely mentally ill mom, many of us do know what it’s like to have a troubled relationship with a parent or, at the very least, complex love-hate feelings towards them.

Initially, the filmmaker comes across as only mildly troubled by her past, and appears to be thriving in New York: she has a steady job at NYU, holds the lease for an apartment, and lives with a serious boyfriend. But Tara confides in us: she’s tormented by anger. She hates her mother, and the (untreated) mental illness that wreaked havoc on her childhood. None of us like Evie Wray, really. She’s completely nuts.

That’s why, when we follow on Tara’s heels back to Kansas, it's so surprising to meet her; the audience, expecting a demonic psychopath, is actually delivered a seemingly loving, hippy-dippy artist-type. She’s clearly delighted by her daughter’s presence, and has a wonderful sense of humor. On one occasion, for example, she declares gleefully that she has sold her first $25,000 painting – for thirty cents, that is. On another, she jokes about John Malkovich, musing that his surname might actually be “Mightybitch.” This earned many LOLs.

Evie’s on-screen charisma is, however, a double-edged sword: while it makes for a highly watchable film, it also magnifies Tara’s frustration that the truth of her anguished past is not wholly evident in the present.