So, Sundance 2018 has come and gone, much like the flu that I caught while I was in Park City, and the whole damn industry is left to pick up the leftover tea leaves and try to read them. You never know what will become a big ol' hit and shock the world (what's good, Call Me By Your Name) and what might turn out to be some hot garbage that clutters up multiplex screens come August (we see you Patti Cake$). But that never stops people from trying.
There are a number of films that I’m personally bummed that I missed while I was down there. That’s normally true with any given festival, but especially so this time, given that my illness caused me to leave before I could see stuff like Sorry to Bother You or Tyrel or Hereditary or Eighth Grade (let it be known that I would have stayed longer if I could have walked across a parking lot without feeling like I was going to faint). Thankfully, all of those will be seeing some sort of major release at some point later on this year, and who knows? They might even make an appearance at this year’s IFFBoston if we’re lucky enough.
That said, I’m extraordinarily pleased with what I did manage to see at the festival this year, and I have a weird feeling that at least one of the films featured -- Lynne Ramsay’s astonishing You Were Never Really Here -- will endure its way to my top ten list at the end of the year, give or take some sort of Cannes insanity.
But there are still some small reviews to get out of the way, for some damn solid films and a few mediocre ones, from the ones with the biggest buzz to the small ones that surprised everybody with their quiet power. So that's a wrap on Sundance 2k18, but we'll be feeling the effects of this one for a while.
Blindspotting
Perhaps the most buzzed-about film of the early part of the festival, Blindspotting fucking annihilated when it played opening night, and was just as swell when I saw it a day later. This movie is pretty much what I hoped Bodied would be in style and tone, as it has a lot in common with Joseph Kahn’s festival circuit hit — it’s got a tremendous visual flair and a dark-as-fuck sense of humor — but improves a shitload on the central conceit and adds a fucking awesome sense of setting on top of everything.
A study of Oakland in the midst of gentrification, Blindspotting tells the story of Collin (Daveed Diggs), a dude just three days away from getting out from under his supervised probation and the halfway house, who is desperate to not go back to prison. He works at a moving company with his best friend from childhood, Miles (Rafael Casal), and the two of them have an excellent rapport, even though Collin’s ex-girlfriend Val (Janina Gavankar) looks at them both with disdain. As he’s on his way home on the first night we’re with him, Collin witnesses a police officer (Ethan Embry) shoot a black man in cold blood, and is devastated by what he saw. So begins his countdown to freedom, as his fears about his family, his neighborhood and his life begin to manifest themselves in various ways.
Before I yell about why you should see this movie, I’d just like to quickly say that I don’t think the ending works really at all, and it’s all downhill from a spectacular sequence that comes near the hour mark involving a hipster and a popular cocktail that’s so full of life and energy and humor that the tonal shifts needed for the last 30 minutes to have emotional weight don’t totally work (more on that closer to its release). But Diggs and Casal act the hell out of this movie- which they also both wrote- and they’re just utterly fantastic and magnetic whenever they’re together. It’s probably the best debut screenplay from a pair of actors since Good Will Hunting, and one can only hope that we have Diggs and Casal occupying a place in the cultural consciousness down the line much like Affleck and Damon do now.
Director Carlos Lopez Estrada, a first-time feature director, grounds his movie in its setting in a confident way that other established filmmakers wouldn’t have been able to, and he’s able to confidently stage some pretty fascinating sequences throughout that don’t ever lose their potency. There will be a much larger discussion to have about Blindspotting down the road, but for the love of god, don’t let a bunch of film critics bitching about the third act prevent you from engaging in the cinematic bliss of its first two.
Plus, it’s got Wayne Knight in it for a wonderful moment, so how bad could it be?