Film News: 2022 Sundance Film Festival & Living is Easy?

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CHICAGO – The 2022 Sundance Film Festival heads into Day Five after the Opening Weekend Offerings reflecting Life in Our Times. Like last year, the festival is virtual and online, meaning anyone/anywhere with a ticket or a pass (link) can indulge in the film offerings throughout the festival, which runs until January 30th.

One of the elements that cinema does best is to reflect back from the screen, as a mirror to our era. That’s the type of films that Sundance presents best, finding voices who will reflect back to us in inclusiveness, subject matter and storytelling. Films also create empathy, as Roger Ebert once observed, and it is these reflective films that increases understanding in our current circumstances.

LucySunFF
Lucy and Desi
Photo credit: Sundance Film Festival

The Sundance Film Festival is an annual event organized by the Sundance Institute – an organization founded by actor Robert Redford in 1980 – and dedicated to the growth of independent artists. It usually takes place each January in Park City, Utah, and other locations, and is the largest independent film festival in the United States. It includes competitive categories in documentary and dramatic films, both feature length and short works, as well as out-of-competition categories for showcasing new films.

StarFILMS OF SUNDANCE: Capsule Reviews

“2nd Chance” – The modern day bulletproof vest inventor is the subject of this documentary by Ramin Bahrani, but underneath this entrepreneur is a chilling story of hubris, the gun culture and the cult of personality. Richard Davis is the inventor, a delusional soul who invented as much a legend of the invention as the invention itself, through his odd marketing. He meticulously would note every police officer he “saved” with the vest as well, absorbing that outlier culture along the way. His blanket accusation of the perpetrators in crime is a wrongheaded assessment based on crackpot evolutionary theories, and his ways of making up an atmosphere of his product … he would do fictional film re-creations of officer encounters … of course is what led to his decline. However, there is hope in the film, which resonates emotionally through the human element, willing to forgive rather than attack. Another lesson in how wealth creates shared attitudes that can reap destruction on the heart and soul of humanity.

“Lucy and Desi” – Right on the heels of the narrative film “Being the Ricardos” is this documentary treatment, the directorial debut of comic actor Amy Poehler. It’s a love letter to Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the creators of the seminal “I Love Lucy” sitcom, and the business model pioneers of the producer/artist in television. Ball remains a fascinating human, driven to success by her Depression-era poverty roots, and having in common with Desi – the love of her life, despite the divorce – the motivation to support her whole immediate family. Poehler creates a crisply alive history, with many enlightening emotions and facts about the couple, punctuated by many social and entertainment insights. I walked into it not expecting any earth shattering revelations (I’m simply a show biz history nerd), and got much more than I expected. It takes the soul of a comic actor to interpret the souls of her common fellow travelers.

“Summering” – The latest and possibly the most romantic film from filmmaker James Ponsoldt (“The Spectacular Now”). It’s a quasi reimagine of “Stand By Me,” featuring a modern day quartet of about-to-go-into-middle-school girls who discover a dead body near their suburban housing tract. Instead of going to the authorities, they decide to investigate on their own, leading to the last adventure of their summer and a transition into whatever is coming next. This was in the “Kids” category at Sundance, and is pretty mild in presenting the girls’ story, a combination of archetypes who are dealing with modern issues at home … almost too conveniently for the story. Where it soars is in the flights of fancy (literally) and darker elements of their journey together. There is also a wistful nature to the film, familiar to anyone who has felt the summer sun on their face during the mysterious time of childhood.

“Happening” – In the rawest and most salient film of the festival so far, “Happening” is an adaptation of a notable French memoir about the author trying desperately to find an abortion provider in the illegal era of 1963 France (they’ll throw both the seeker and the provider in jail). Anamaria Vartolomei is Anne, a young, whipsmart and ambitious working class woman who seeks a different world beyond her roots. When she becomes pregnant through a temporary encounter, she desperately seeks the procedure to make sure her circumstance remains with her. The story never blinks through her week-by-week, step-by-step path towards perpetuating her choice. Part of the emphasis, as it was in the American film at Sundance “Call Jane,” was the men making the decisions for woman, a patriarchy that had no skin-in-the-situation toward empathy or protection for the rights of women. Vartolomei as Anne is a revelation, she bravely and succinctly creates a character that represents as well as experiences. A must see for all, but especially for men.

Trailer for “Happening,” due in theaters on May 6th, 2022 …

Patrick McDonald of HollywoodChicago.com will be providing coverage of the Sundance Film Festival 2022 throughout the duration of the festival.

The virtual 2022 Sundance Film Festival will take place January 20th through January 30th. For tickets, schedule and all information click on Festival.Sundance.org

HollywoodChicago.com senior staff writer Patrick McDonald

By PATRICK McDONALD
Editor, Film Writer
HollywoodChicago.com
pat@hollywoodchicago.com

© 2021 Patrick McDonald, HollywoodChicago.com

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