‘The Sweet East’ is an American fantasia on the Eastern seaboard- written by a critic
Plus, 'The Eight Mountains,' 'The Plains,' 'Only in Theaters,' 'Desperate Souls, Dark City'… and other gems from the bottom of the screener pile.
It’s the last week of 2023, and therefore time to explore some of the movies I’ve seen leading up to the very end of the year. These will all be things that I saw too late for inclusion in the “808 Lines About 404 Films” countdown, but that I felt warranted mention nonetheless.
And the most notable of those films, without a doubt, is The Sweet East. It’s a film that traveled under the radar on the festival circuit all year long, but in recent weeks I’ve started to hear whispers about it- and in some cases more than whispers; my Splice Today colleague Nicky Otis Smith calls it “one of the movies of my life.”
So when the Philadelphia Film Society held a screening of the film this week with director Sean Price Williams and writer Nick Pinkerton — the latter an accomplished film critic — in the house, I had to go, even if it meant checking out Rebel Moon on Netflix instead of the theater (I don’t think I’ll regret it.)
It’s hard to describe exactly what The Sweet East is without spoiling its surprises, but I can say it involves a high school student from South Carolina named Lillian (Talia Ryder) on a class trip to Washington, who eventually slips away from her classmates and engages in a multi-part odyssey that sends her up through the Northeast (although no, not straight up I-95.) “Picaresque,” is the word that’s been in every review so far.
The Sweet East is hilarious. It is provocative. It takes shots at a wide variety of targets, from Antifa anarchists to neo-Nazis to radical Muslims who are also both gay and into EDM. The one consistent thing is that everywhere Lillian goes, people (usually men) are drawn to her, and those same people (also usually men) can’t resist the urge to pontificate to her.
It’s also a great-looking picture, shot by Williams, best known previously as a cinematographer who worked with the Safdies and Alex Ross Perry. It’s a film attuned to the particularities of different parts of the country. At the Q&A, Williams said for the film’s brief Philly shoot, he asked around to find the specific block where a squat would be located.
But this is not, I can’t emphasize enough, the usual “pox on all your houses”-type political satire that Hollywood mostly does these days, nor is it nihilistic in the manner of latter-day South Park. There are even pizzagate jokes- and they’re funny.
Ryder, who played the friend in Never Rarely Sometimes Always, delivers a star-making turn, in a part that’s much more calculating than it first appears. The cast includes an eclectic group of people well-known for various reasons, including hot young stars like Jacob Elordi and Ayo Edebiri, playwright Jeremy O. Harris, and also the likes of Butthole Surfers frontman Gibby Haynes and yesteryear MTV comic Andy Milonakis. Simon Rex, last seen in Red Rocket, plays another guy with a thing for an underaged girl, although this time he’s a Nazi instead of a porn star.
There have been some whispers of edgelord influence on the film since a former employee of Peter Thiel is the executive producer and some people from the Dimes Square/Red Scare orbit are in it briefly. Plus, Lillian says “retarded” all the time, in the manner of Anna and Dasha.
However, you can tell it’s not truly a right-wing project because it depicts the members of Antifa not as a dangerous menace in the Fox News tradition, but rather as ineffectual buffoons. (Plus, the director said in an interview that “Peter Thiel has no idea that this film exists at all unless he is interested in contemporary movies and reads thoroughly about Cannes.”)
The Sweet East, which drew a full house Tuesday night, has “future cult film” written all over it. It’s in theaters now and is set to land on VOD on February 27.
The Eight Mountains
This epic drama, directed by Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch, tells the decades-spanning tale of the friendship between two men.
At some point in the film, I realized something: While it’s about men instead of women, set in the Italian Alps rather than the U.S. and the tone is different in almost every way, The Eight Mountains has almost an identical plot structure to Beaches.
The Eight Mountains is streaming on Mubi.
The Plains
What if I told you one of the most interesting films I’ve seen in recent weeks was a three-hour Australian pseudo-documentary consisting almost entirely of two guys in a car talking?
Written and directed by David Easteal, The Plains is kind of hypnotizing, as the two men talk about life. There are various plot lines, but it’s mostly about the atmosphere overall. And the film is much more than just a gimmick.
The Plains is streaming on Mubi.
Desperate Souls, Dark City, and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy could NEVER be made today. Not because of wokeness or whatever, but because it’s a movie that could never be made at any point other than exactly when it was.
Desperate Souls, Dark City, directed by Nancy Buirski (who sadly passed away earlier this year), is a documentary about the making and cultural influence of the 1969 film. It came out in theaters in June but I had no idea it even existed until it popped up on a screener list. But it’s great, featuring an immersive look at the film and its themes, of both the countercultural and queer varieties.
Plus, you get to hear that great Harry Nilsson song quite a lot.
Director John Schlesinger and writer Waldo Salt are both long dead and Dustin Hoffman did not participate. But we do hear from Salt’s daughter, the New Hollywood figure Jennifer Salt, and Jon Voight. Most of the 84-year-old Voight’s TV appearances these days have him spewing Trumpist invective, so it’s sort of jarring to see him share sharp insights about a countercultural touchstone he made more than 50 years ago in which he played a gay street hustler.
Also, I was suddenly reminded of the time Jim Carrey presented at the Oscars and did an impromptu puppet show with Buzz Lightyear and Woody as Ratso Rizzo and Joe Buck:
Apolonia, Apolonia
The Midnight Cowboy doc was shortlisted for the Academy Awards’ Best Documentary Feature award, and so was this stunning documentary, from filmmaker Lea Glob, about the French artist Apolonia Sokol.
This remains under embargo, so I can’t say much, except that this is one of the year’s most astonishing docs, shot over more than a decade and sometimes turning the camera on the filmmaker, a la another art world doc classic, Exit Through the Gift Shop.
Only in Theaters
This is a documentary about the Laemmle family, descendants of one of the original Hollywood moguls, who now operate independent movie theaters in Los Angeles. Taking place over several years, it shows them struggling and contemplating how to carry their business into the future- and then COVID happened.
Directed by Raphael Sbarge, the film will have you rooting for them to succeed. But since I watched the movie on VOD, and not in theaters, I guess I’m part of the problem.