AFF Preview: Narrative Features

We're gonna come right out and say it: We're total crybabies. No seriously, we may be the most empathetic people in the entire world. Anytime that we see someone in pain, someone suffering injustice, or even something sappy and overly romantic, like a first love, it's Niagara Falls, Frankie Baby. When you see a bunch of puffy-eyed, slobbery messes walking around downtown for next week, you can blame these films. And yeah, we're fine, we've just got something in both of our eyes.

On the Doll | Dir. Thomas Mignone
Friday, October 12th, 7:30pm, Dobie Theater
Monday, October 15th, 9:30pm, Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek

There is a special place in hell for child abusers, but unfortunately, most victimizers will have long lives before they ever reach that threshold, whereas the victims immediately enter the gates of purgatory upon the moment of that first abuse. On the Doll, a gorgeously shot film that deals with some of the ugliest subject matter in human history, focuses on the lives of the survivors of child abuse and those who still prey on their adolescent weakness.

Using the now familiar interwoven-fate story structure (see: Crash, Babel, etc.) first-time screenwriter and acclaimed music video director Thomas Mignone tells the story of Jaron (Josh Janowicz), an adult ad editor who was abused by his uncle, and who enlists the help of Balery (Brittany Snow), a call girl out for revenge, to rescue his friend Tara (Angela Sarafyan), who is trapped working in a peep show. Add to that the stories of two misguided girls who get involved with their creepy-disgusting math teacher (played slimefully by Eddie Jemison) and a young couple who are just trying to make it with their art, but are forced to find "creative" ways to make ends meet on the side, and you have an entire encyclopedia of sexual dysfunction and depravity. And, of course, a cataclysmic ending. On the Doll is difficult to watch and even harder to accept as reality, even though we know that this film is probably a tame rendition of what really happens.

[AFF Bside Page]
[Official Website]

Superheroes | Dir. Alan Brown
Friday, October 12th, 7:30pm, Hideout Theater
Wednesday, October 17th, 8:00pm, Dobie Theater

Army Reserves Soldier Ben Patchett (Dash Mihok) was six weeks away from finishing his service when he was shipped off to Iraq, unprepared to deal with real combat. He should have been in support personnel, but instead was commissioned to drive a tank, which happened to hit an I.E.D., leaving him with five pounds of shrapnel floating in his body, an unrecognizable life and the omnipresent crushing weight of regret and fear. Nick Jones (Spencer Treat Clark) is a floundering filmmaker, living with his ex-girlfriend in Brooklyn when he discovers Ben at the V.A. while taping therapy sessions for veterans. Nick does not look at Ben with pity or morbid curiosity, but rather with fear and reverence for what he has experienced, which leads to the two forming a solemn bond as Nick begins to document Ben's life.

We haven't been this surprised by a performance is quite awhile. Mihok is wounded and vulnerable and frightening and fearsome all at once. With a single breath he becomes trapped inside his head with gruesome memories of war, and in the next he is back with us, sweaty and panting and crumbling like a young boy at the hands of a bully. Mihok and Clark play really well off of each other, and there is such a tenderness in their understanding of the other's suffering that we just wanted both of them to curl up next to us and allow us to care for them. At the end we were horrified to think of the hundreds of thousands of soldiers who are still over there that will come home the same way.

[AFF Bside Page]
[Official Website]

The Cake Eaters | Dir. Mary Stuart Masterson
Sunday, October 14th, 7:00pm, Bob Bullock Theater
Wednesday, October 17th, 9:15pm, Bob Bullock Theater

There are lots of films out there that use a disability to advance the plot. This is not one of them. In Mary Stuart Masterson's directorial debut, she firmly establishes that Georgia (Kristen Stewart) and her Friedreich's Ataxia are not going to be the main story line. Instead, we become acquainted with a small upstate New York town and two families dealing with their closeted skeletons &mdash death, aspirations for fame, betrayal and forbidden love. Beagle (Aaron Stanford), a sad underachiever first meets Georgia at the flea market, where he and his father Easy (Bruce Dern) are selling off his mother's old clothing. Beagle notices Georgia's "different" way of walking and that she speaks with an slight alcoholic slur, but his curiosity is not about her condition, but about her heart.

Stewart is incredibly subtle in her portrayal of "not a girl, not yet a woman"-ness, and her struggle to break free of her overbearing mother's grip, as well as the limitations of what people "think" she is capable of. She wants to experience life outside the confines of her disease and Beagle is the person she has chosen to show her the ropes. There is an interesting side-story between Beagle and Georgia's grandmother that lends tension and passion to the story, as well as Beagle's deadbeat rockstar wannabe brother Guy (Jayce Bartok, also the screenwriter for The Cake Eaters), who skipped town when their mother got cancer, and returns prodigal son style to mixed reactions.

Quiet, tender performances are what make this movie so watchable, as Stanford leaves more unsaid than said, and we see his struggle to live inside the unstable mind of someone who has lost their touchstone. Stewart, in stark contrast to her love, is brassy and ballsy, asserting herself at every turn. She should get some awards buzz, and her treatment of the character is so convincing that she may even avoid the "Sean Penn" backlash.

[AFF Bside Page]