Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone was the big winner this year at the Sundance Film Festival, taking home both the dramatic competition grand jury prize and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award. It was also picked up for distribution by Roadside Attractions, and will hit theaters later this year. The film tells the bleak, gripping story of a young girl, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who sets out to find her father in the dreary, time-forgotten wilderness of the Ozarks. Granik and Anne Rosellini wrote the screenplay, which is adapted from Daniel Woodrell’s novel. The win marks Granik's second at the festival—in 2004, her film Down to the Bone earned her a dramatic directing award.
A year after living with the Second Platoon, fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, directors Sebastian Junger (A Perfect Storm) and Tim Hetherington made Restrepo, a glimpse of life in the combat zone. The film breathes new life into the war-film genre, and critics have been swooning. So were audiences at Sundance, where it was awarded the U.S. documentary grand jury prize. In Variety, John Anderson wrote: "Blood shed and blood shared are the twin barrels of Restrepo, an often electrifying verité trip into combat and the hearts of men."
Tim Hetherington
Made for less than $1 million, this DIY documentary was this year’s sleeper hit at Sundance, generating the first wave of major buzz. Co-directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost, the film features Shulman’s 25-year-old brother, Nev, as he tries to unravel an online mystery that begins when he’s sent a painting of one of his photographs by an 8-year-old girl. As The Daily Beast wrote, the film “is ultimately about the strange, wonderful, and scary power of the Internet and the questions of identity raised by social-media outlets such as Facebook.”
If the Great Recession has not had a face so far, thanks to writer-director John Wells, it now does: Tommy Lee Jones. In The Company Men, Jones plays Gene McClary, a high-ranking CEO who gets the axe by his even higher-ranking best friend at a corporation called GTX. All of the humiliation and noble attempts to maintain his dignity are painfully evident in the craggy lines of Jones’ face, and his mournful eyes. Wells’ film is the first to show the human side of corporate America during this economic disaster, and the result is a sobering, and masterful movie. Joining Jones in an A-list cast that delivers, are Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner, and Maria Bello.
Sundance finally got into full swing with Lisa Cholodenko’s family dramedy The Kids Are All Right, which immediately sparked a bidding war among studio executives after its premiere last week. In the end, Focus Features won the battle, forking over $5 million—the biggest sale at Sundance this year. The film stars Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a lesbian couple dealing with the complications of raising kids; Mark Ruffalo plays the couple’s sperm donor. In Screen Daily, Tim Grierson wrote that The Kids Are All Right “is such a consistently amusing delight, one could almost miss director Lisa Cholodenko’s serious intentions beneath….[the film] is cleverly peppered with laughs in its examination of the modern ‘untraditional’ family.”
Suzanne Tenner
Directed by Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg, A Piece of Work, as the Daily Beast wrote, “is much more than 84 minutes of Borscht Belt humor, which is what Rivers’ shtick is sometimes accused of resembling. Rather, it is an unsparingly honest examination of a pioneer—besides being a foul-mouthed female, Rivers was the first comic to touch on taboo issues such as abortion—who is nonetheless mostly alone in the world, and who still feels like an unaccepted outsider.” The film was warmly received at Sundance, as was Rivers, who showed up for Q&A’s in a long, fur coat, and proceeded to delight the crowd with zingers.
The sale of Davis Guggenheim’s ( An Inconvenient Truth) documentary about the dire state of America’s public education system officially kicked off Sundance this year, when it was scooped up by Paramount. A week later, the film took home the festival’s audience documentary award. Bill Gates, whom Guggenheim interviewed for the movie, was on hand at the premiere party in Park City, and even Tweeted about it: “an amazing reception for ‘Waiting for Superman’ here at Sundance. not a dry eye in the hous [sic].” In Variety, John Anderson called Waiting for Superman “exhilarating, heartbreaking, and righteous” as well as a “high-minded thriller” that is “a bucket of ice water in the face of politically motivated complacency.”
Blue Valentine was one of the few films that went into Sundance with high expectations and actually lived up to them. ( Hesher, starring Natalie Portman, was not so lucky.) Accordingly, Harvey Weinstein swooped in and acquired it. Directed by Derek Cianfrance, Blue Valentine stars indie darlings Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as a married couple who deal with their troubled relationship by re-enacting the earlier stages of their romance. In Variety, Todd McCarthy wrote that Gosling and Williams “dive into the deep end of commitment to their roles as young working-class parents and bring them fully alive.” He called the film “an intensely acted, minutely observed attempt to convey the arc of a romantic involvement.”
With this claustrophobic horror film, director Rodrigo Cortés has very likely hit upon the latest Hollywood movie formula: an actor and a box. In this case, the actor is Ryan Reynolds, and the box, crude and coffin-like, is where Reynolds, who plays a U.S. truck driver who’s kidnapped and held for ransom, remains throughout the duration of Buried. The film was a crowd favorite at Sundance and was snatched up by Lionsgate for $3.2 million. Creepy, chilling, and surprisingly melodramatic, this film may well be the studio’s next Saw.
Lionsgate
The tragic story of the NFL star Pat Tillman who gave up his career to serve in Iraq in the armed forces in 2002 is as riveting as it is painful: Tillman’s death in 2004 was co-opted for war propaganda, until it was revealed that he was the victim of friendly fire in Afghanistan. Narrated by Josh Brolin and directed by Amir Bar-Lev, the documentary was originally titled “I’m Pat Tillman,” the soldier’s last words as he attempted to identify himself as on the same side of those shooting at him. The film was acquired by the Weinstein Company.
Written and directed by How I Met Your Mother’s Josh Radnor, HappyThankYouMorePlease centers in on six New Yorkers about to enter adulthood while managing love and friendship. After pleasing Sundance crowds, the film sold to Myriad Pictures and went on to win the festival’s dramatic audience award. Boosted by an ensemble cast including Watchmen’s Malin Akerman, Arrested Development’s Tony Hale, and Radnor himself, the story follows struggling writer Sam Wexler (Radnor) as he enacts a de facto adoption of a young boy separated from his family on the subway (played by newcomer Michael Algieri).
Tilda Swinton shines in Luca Guadagnino’s I Am Love, the Italian tale of a mother of two who begins an affair with a young Milanese chef. The film’s visual appeal is immense, from Swinton’s Jil Sander costumes to the Italian landscapes and beautiful interior sets. Director Gaudagnino has been praised for his technical skill, and I Am Love drips with careful directorial decisions as he lets the complex story unfold through a fine combination of dialogue and score. Swinton’s controlled performance has been hailed as elegant as her costumes throughout the film. Magnolia Pictures snagged North American distribution rights.
This mock-horror film staring Alan Tudyk ( Firefly, Serenity), Tyler Labine ( Zack and Miri Make a Porno), and 30 Rock siren Katrina Bowden, was written and directed by self-described failed actor and first-time director Eli Craig. The movie focuses on two hillbillies—Tucker and Dale—who are mistaken for serial killers by college students camping nearby. It’s Deliverance meets Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and Sundance crowds, particularly those at the festival’s raucous midnight screenings, loved it.
Dan Power
In this ode to 1970’s rock ‘n’ roll, Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning play, respectively, Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, members of the iconic, all-girl band The Runaways. The film features both young actresses evolving beyond their roles as mainstream Hollywood darlings: snorting cocaine, locking lips, and grunting and grinding on stage. Despite being the broody face of the
Twilight franchise, Stewart has starred in many independent productions, making her performances in
The Runaways and Jake Scott’s
Welcome to the Rileys (which also showed at the festival) a return to normal for the actress.
The Runaways was directed by Floria Sigismondi, and played well to the full house at Sundance (with Jett and Currie in the audience). Apparition will bring it to theaters in March.
Xtra Insight:
The Daily Beast’s Nicole LaPorte on Kristen Stewart’s stardom.
Sci-fi-horror-thriller Splice is directed by Vincenzo Natali and stars Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley as scientists mixing human and animal DNA to create a new creature. This “modern day horror film” comments upon the consequences of a world in which science is rapidly catching up with the filmic world’s most imaginative creations. Splice has already won over horror fans and sci-fi die-hards. On Bloody-Disgusting.com, one blogger wrote of the film’s finale: “In the annals of bad movie history, the batshit crazy, Jeepers-Creepers-via-Flowers-in-the-Attic ending of Splice will always be remembered. If not fondly.”
