For Grace

Cinequest at mid-fest

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QUALITY PROBLEMS at CINEQUEST on Saturday night
QUALITY PROBLEMS at CINEQUEST on Friday night

Cinequest 2017 opened with the Shirley MacLaine comedy The Last Word, which was well-received by the festival audience, as was the adapted-from-best-seller comedy Carrie Pilby. The Australian crime drama Goldstone was another strong entry, leaving the laughably wretched The Ottoman Lieutenant as the only misfire among the Spotlight Films.

By far the most successful of the indies was the world premiere of the dramedy Quality Problems (which reprises in San Jose on Friday night at the Hammer).  The crowd-pleasing For Grace will come to San Jose’s California Theatre on Tuesday night.

World cinema has been particularly strong:

  • The Slovak Iron Curtain drama The Teacher may be the best film in the festival, but it has flown under the radar and will screen only more time: Sunday in Redwood City.
  • The Norwegian drama All the Beauty offers a novel construction and an exploration of female sexuality from a first time woman director. Plays Cinequest again Thursday and Friday in Redwood City.
  • The Hungarian sci-fi thriller Loop is an intellectually provocative – and malevolent – Groundhog’s Day. It plays Cinequest again Thursday night in San Jose.
  • The Norwegian suspense thriller Revenge is another first film from a woman director and plays again Friday at Santa Row and Sunday in Redwood City.
  • The smart Uruguayan dramedy The Moderns has been completely overlooked and plays Cinequest just one more time: Saturday in Redwood City.
  • Other striking world cinema entries include the Swiss thriller Aloys (Tuesay at the Hammer), the Moldovan art film Anishoara (Wednesday in Redwood City), the cinematically brilliant Latvian drama Exiled (Tuesday and Wednesday in Redwood City) and the deadpan comedy King of the Belgians (Sunday at the Hammer).

Among the documentaries, New Chefs on the Block has emerged as popular. The final screening is Saturday morning at the Hammer.   If you want to see my favorite Cinequest doc, you’ll need to chase down The Twinning Reaction in Redwood City today, Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday.

The Virtual Reality segment of the fest is well-organized. Just show up at the California Theatre any time and follow the signs to the VR Theater. You can get a taste of the medium (but I’m not a fan myself).

Best bets to come:

  • MONDAY: Thomas Vinterburg’s The Commune.
  • TUESDAY: The psychological thriller Una, with Rooney Mara.
  • THURSDAY: The period drama The Promise, with Oscar Isaac and Cristian Bale.
  • FRIDAY: The silent classic Flesh and the Devil with the Wurlitzer Organ at the period movie palace California Theatre; the second San Jose appearance of the world premiere indie Quality Problems at the Hammer.
  • SATURDAY: New Chefs on the Block in the morning; celebrity appearance by Jane Lynch in the afternoon, and then what looks like a trashy guilty pleasure in (re)Assignment (to be released soon as The Assignment).
  • SUNDAY: The Sense of an Ending (Jim Broadbent and Charlotte Rampling); the Closing night extravaganza built around The Zookeeper’s Wife, starring Jessica Chastain.

Bookmark my Cinequest 2017 page, with links to all my coverage. Follow me on Twitter for the latest.

Andrew Keatley and Jacob Casselden in FOR GRACE
FOR GRACE

Cinequest: FOR GRACE

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Andrew Keatley and Jacob Casselden in FOR GRACE
Andrew Keatley and Jacob Casselden in FOR GRACE

In the winning British dramedy For Grace, Ben (Andrew Keatley) is a young can-do guy who has started his own successful company. He’s adopted, so when he becomes a dad, it triggers a need for him to track down his biological family. He even hires a documentarian to film his quest. Of course, Ben’s journey doesn’t go as he might expect. Along the way, For Grace explores the kinds of connections to other humans that we need. And what, at its core, is “family”?

Ben is more than a little self-absorbed. After all, who makes a movie about a such personal moment,  assuming that his experience will merit being documented and that others will want to watch it?   Ben also has an odd way of dealing with difficult feelings; he completely withdraws until he has processed his feelings himself.  Until he emerges from self-isolation, he really can’t hear what others have to say.

The hard-charging Ben encounters the laid-back Peter (Jacob Casselden), who seems nothing like Ben. Ben has had every advantage, but he is ever restless; Peter has a disability and grew up as an institutionalized orphan, but he seems sublimely free of resentment.  Both men feel something missing in their lives, but only Ben aspires to fill that void. Peter is sweet and simple, and Peter has protected himself with low expectations.

I hesitate to call For Grace a “mockumentary” because it’s not a straight Best in Show-like comedy. But the pseudo-documentary format is very effective – for the first 15-20 minutes, I kept asking myself whether this was a real documentary that had been mislabeled as a narrative feature.

For Grace maintains a very clear-eyed perspective on human nature, which results in some acidly funny observations of human behavior.  Watch, for example Ben’s reaction when his adoptive parents learn that he is hunting for his biological parents – it doesn’t go AT ALL as he had expected.

For Grace is a an especially promising first feature for director Sebastian Armesto. Keatley wrote the story, and the dialogue was improvised by the cast.   For Grace works because it is essentially character-driven, and Keatley’s and Casselden’s performances are very strong.

And there’s a Big Plot Twist.

For Grace is a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Have a hankie ready for the ending. I’ve seen over twenty films from this year’s Cinequest, and I will be shocked if For Grace fails to win an audience award.