Sundance Film Review: 'Certain Women'
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lifestyle TUESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2016 MUSIC & MOVIES Transgender men find their style, themselves in ‘Suited’ doc Actor James Jordan, from left, actress Sara Rodier, actor Jared Harris, actor James LeGros, actress Kristen Stewart, director and writer Kelly Reichardt and actress Lily Gladstone pose at the premiere of ‘Certain Women’ during the 2016 Sundance Film Festival. — AP Sundance film review: ‘Certain Women’ Director Jason Benjamin, center, poses with pro- ducers, Jenni Konner, left, and Lena Dunham for a ew contemporary filmmakers can do intricate braiding of the three stories in tity lends passive emotional complexity to a heartland, Gina’s story is the most coolly portrait to promote the film, ‘Suited,’ at the Toyota quite as much with quiet as Kelly question. Revelation-concerned narrative later section. Focus shifts to a legal case that oblique of the three; what follows is the Mirai Music Lodge during the Sundance Film FReichardt. Superficially empty sound- splicing has become such a familiar feature has become something of a thorn in her most bittersweetly open-hearted, as a Festival. — AP scapes are layered so intricately with the of the US independent filmmaking scene side, as construction laborer Fuller (Jared nameless Native American horse rancher erek needed a suit for his wedding. Aiden rustle of nature, the brooding of weather that it’s positively bracing to see Reichardt- Harris, devastatingly ragged) obstinately (Lily Gladstone) aimlessly seeks a personal needed something for his bar mitzvah. and the breathing of preoccupied people also acting, with graceful discernment, as pursues an injury claim that a legal techni- connection at an adult education center. DEverett wanted a sharp interview outfit. All that her films come to seem positively noisy her own editor-unfold her mini-dramas one cality prevents him from winning. Taking lit- Stumbling by chance into a class on educa- three found their fit at Bindle & Keep, a custom cloth- to a sympathetic ear. So it is in the mar- at a time, letting the sometimes faint con- tle heed of her counsel-because she’s a tional law for teachers, she develops an ier that specializes in dressing people across the gen- velous “Certain Women,” where the story- nections between them emerge with little woman, Laura concludes with the weari- intense but innocent fascination with its der spectrum. The New York-based company and its telling has a similarly latent impact. fanfare, revisiting their principal characters ness of experience-he implicates her in a young tutor, Beth (Stewart), a socially awk- clients are the subject of “Suited,” a documentary pre- Separating the spare narratives of several only in the final reels. If Paul Haggis’s “Crash” more violent course of action. ward law graduate who lives many towns miered yesterday at the Sundance Film Festival. disparate Montana women-a morally literalized the idea of storytelling as auto- over. The two develop a mutually bemused The film introduces viewers to people rarely seen stressed lawyer, a nest-building mother, a motive collision, “Certain Women” prefers to Vintage sandstone rapport over post-class diner meals, though onscreen - transgender men - and shows how find- lonely ranch hand-waiting indefinitely for let its vehicles pass each other with an Cut to Gina (Williams), discontentedly when Beth abruptly quits the job, the terms ing a suit that highlights their masculinity profoundly their worlds to fall into place, it’s a peculiarly acknowledging wave-apt enough for a film wrapping up a rural camping weekend with of their new, ambiguously platonic friend- affects how they feel and see themselves. Lena riveting examination of the lives lived when in which human contact doesn’t come easi- her husband, Ryan (James Le Gros), and ship become harder to parse. Dunham and Jenni Konner produced the film, the even their owners aren’t looking. There are no tidily concrete thematic third documentary from their Casual Romance pro- Crafted with Reichardt’s customary cali- ties to be found between these slender, duction company. It is directed by Jason Benjamin, co-textured beauty and expertly performed piquant slices of life, though all touch on who also works as the boom-mike operator on by such hand-picked ensemble players as the generalities of human alienation and Dunham’s HBO show, “Girls.” Kristen Stewart, Michelle Williams and Laura solitude for which E.M. Forster issued the Benjamin was inspired by a newspaper article Dern, this unapologetically open-ended poetic prescription to “only connect.” As about the suit-makers, expecting the moment some- slow burn probably won’t convert many with Reichardt’s more streamlined minia- one put on a perfectly fitted suit for the first time viewers to Reichardt’s softly-softly sensibili- tures, regional detail accounts for much of would be a happy one. “In reality,” he said, “it turned ty, but it’s among her richest, most refined the film’s lingering resonance, as her char- out to be a much more complex moment that had works. Like a number of Reichardt’s previ- acters are molded by (and, in some cases, happiness folded into it.” That’s what makes “Suited” so ous films, “Certain Women” has its roots in rail against) the landscape they inhabit. much more than a movie about clothes. It’s really a the short-story format-one naturally con- “Certain Women” is the director’s fifth film story about people, image and gender identity. ducive to her flair for teasing larger lives to be set against the pregnant skies and Benjamin follows his subjects beyond the tailor’s office and deeper longings out of passing every- cornbread-colored grasslands of and into the world, exploring the challenges they face day incidents. Her literary inspiration this America’s Northwest-painted with misty as they try to get married, grow up or get jobs. time is Montana-based author Maile Meloy, iridescence on 16mm by Reichardt’s reli- Being fitted for a suit is an intimate process - espe- with Reichardt’s elegantly apportioned ably brilliant cinematographer cially when one is trying to minimize features that don’t script drawn from her stories “Tome,” “Native Christopher Blauvelt-and there’s a not- fit their self-image. Derek wanted to be sure he would Sandstone” and “Travis B.” wholly-rueful sense here of indigenous blend in with the other men at his wedding. Everett, an tradition and etiquette passing into histo- attorney, needed a suit that wouldn’t prompt his col- Gentle joke ry. All the women here, however put- leagues to question his gender. Aiden, only 13, was The director’s chosen title, however, is at upon, are independent in ways that defy accompanied by his grandmother, who wanted him to once calculatedly vague and mournfully their staid surroundings. feel confident at his bar mitzvah. Dunham said she was moved by the men and their families. ironic. Read one way, “Certain Women” Actress Kristen Stewart is interviewed at the premiere of “Certain Women”. Though this is arguably the most illus- implies a kind of unnamed randomness to trious ensemble Reichardt has ever had to “This movie breaks down certain stereotypes of Reichardt’s chosen female subjects, as if any ly to the yearning, inward-looking women perma-sullen teenage daughter Guthrie hand, the pic’s performance style is as how a family might react to a person being trans,” she number of adjacent women’s lives might at its center. (Sara Rodier). Fatigued by tetchy family life, casually organic and democratic as in any said. “It really shows examples of people loving their have been equally worthy of the film’s To describe the film’s individual seg- she pours her efforts into constructing a of her more scrappily cast early projects. children, not just in spite of their being trans but attention. Read another, it’s perhaps a gen- ments on paper is not to do them many symbol of idealized domestic unity: a There’s complete onscreen parity, for because of who they are and because of their brav- tle joke at the expense of characters for favors, even when they include such woodland weekend cottage that she example, between a relative newcomer ery.” “Suited” is set to air in June on HBO. — AP whom certainty is in achingly short supply: notionally hefty events as an armed intends to build, with preciously modish like Gladstone and a megawatt star like It’s hardly a spoiler to say that none of the hostage situation-as staged by Reichardt, integrity, entirely from repurposed native Stewart-both unobtrusively superb-while pic’s delicate strands hinges on anything returning to her trademark tender human- materials. Yet this ostensibly noble goal Williams, in her third collaboration with like a drastic dramatic decision. ism after the icy genre stylings of “Night entails a degree of selfish manipulation, as Reichardt, underplays with terse modesty. Viewers accustomed to the knotty “Short Moves,” surely the lowest-key such standoff she and Ryan press on doddery family Playing most recognizably to a star per- Cuts” school of multiple short-story adapta- in cinematic history. The first story centers friend (Albert) to sell them the reserve of sona is Dern, if only because said persona tion may take a while to acclimatize to the on small-town lawyer Laura (Dern), intro- vintage sandstone on his property. has been built on the kind of creased, film’s patient, clean-edged structure, which duced in the postcoital stages of an after- Drily satirizing the opportunistic empathetic decency that makes her a opts neither for explicit chaptering nor for noon tryst with a married man-whose iden- exploitation of tradition in the American Reichardt natural. — Reuters Spike Lee’s Michael Jackson doc a tribute to his music s a young artist, Michael Jackson knew he wanted to be legendary.