In an attempt to do more homework for my upcoming film class at the Sarasota Art Museum, I caught up with a very indie film that played at the Sarasota Film Festival, There There which stars Lili Taylor who was one of the primo women in Mystic Pizza.
The film also stars another one of my favorites, Jason Schwartzman.
The film has a great premise: that we’re all a little nutty and most of us, try incrementally to be better. Lily wants to be smarter and more careful as a former alcoholic. Jason wants to repair his marriage and care less about earning money as a lawyer. The restaurant manager character played by Lennie James wants to treat women with more respect.
The only characters who should be trying to evolve, but are just vile are the sponsor woman of Lily Taylor who hijacks a school teacher, and the teacher herself, who gets drunk and can not seem to be kind to anyone, even if they are throwing out a life preserver.
I appreciated the art of the film and the attempts at symmetry (musical interludes between scenes and the annoying distractions we have in life with phones ringing, alarms going off, etc.
The performances were excellent. My only complaint is a more cohesive story.
