This is an extended version of a review I'm doing for Filmspotlight. It's rare that I find a movie to be this special, so I just want to plug it as much as possible.
It may sound prejudiced, but after reviewing many micro-budget and local films, I feel a great sense of release in writing this triumphal sentence: this movie is very, very good. I know that just because a picture is low-budget and local doesn’t mean it’s somehow more incredible that it’s good, but my mind automatically associates that fluid digital frame-rate with over-the-top directing and performances that I want to give the benefit of the doubt, but just can’t bring myself to enjoy. IN MEMORIAM is one of those rare experiences that reminds me that all films are created equal. For those familiar with local and independent film circles, this is may sound obvious, but audiences (myself included) who bask too long in the lights of Hollywood productions and internationally recognized actors forget that film goodness does not just live on that magical west coast. Excellent storytellers and first-rate talent is everywhere, even--as IN MEMORIUM proves for us Chicago residents--in our own backyard. The spit-shine of expensive post-production can patch up a poor film’s rough bits, clothing it in a specious sheen of ‘quality,’ but it is only an illusion. IN MEMORIAM is naked brilliance. Enjoyable, entertaining, funny, sad and true.
My only, very small nitpick, though I entirely concur with Kamaria’s gushing over the performances, is the one or two odd moments where the dialogue is a touch too smart for its own good. The last scene in particular left me missing the subtext of Cone’s clever dialogue, but these moments are few and may even contribute to the film’s already robust rewatchability (and if that’s not a verb, IN MEMORIAM proves that it should be), as I found myself wanting to rewind and try again to ‘get the joke’. Judging by the state of film these days, ‘too smart’ is a good problem to have. It helps that absolutely every performance in this film is good. Some are truly excellent. Jen Spyra and Sadie Rogers come to mind, as well as Sue Redman’s teary monologue in the dead center of the film, a steady-cam display of a natural acting grace.
In my opinion, the greatest strength of this film is its thematic value. Our hero has a real conflict with the values of our vacuous internet age. Cone isn’t even above using the improv stage, with which he is surely intimately familiar, for an effective moment of sly self-deprecation. It’s so hard to express this sort of abstracted malcontent without falling into the pitfalls of navel-gazing and an intentional obscurity that says to the audience “if you don’t understand the problem, you’re not on my level”. Cone realizes interior drama like a master puppeteer, making plain internal moral and existential struggles that are, by definition, not obvious. There isn’t a line of narration, or even any peculiarly omniscient characters spoon-feeding the film’s theme to the audience. Jonathan grapples with the painful reality that somewhere along the line, our world has turned into a stage of improvisational comedy (Improv Everywhere, anyone?) and he must prove himself honest, true and hard-working to do battle with generational cynicism that ferments in complacency, wasted time and the shadowy netherworld of the internet.
Too many great films, directors and actors are lost between the vastly divergent poles of big budget ‘Hollywood’ productions and obscure ‘underground’ films. Stephen Cone is not an underground filmmaker pulling together some coarse bid to be ‘discovered’ by the Hollywood powers that be, he is an excellent filmmaker making excellent films right where he is. IN MEMORIUM is now one of my favorite films of the year and I hope that everyone in America will get the chance to fall as hard for its simple pleasures as I have.
My only, very small nitpick, though I entirely concur with Kamaria’s gushing over the performances, is the one or two odd moments where the dialogue is a touch too smart for its own good. The last scene in particular left me missing the subtext of Cone’s clever dialogue, but these moments are few and may even contribute to the film’s already robust rewatchability (and if that’s not a verb, IN MEMORIAM proves that it should be), as I found myself wanting to rewind and try again to ‘get the joke’. Judging by the state of film these days, ‘too smart’ is a good problem to have. It helps that absolutely every performance in this film is good. Some are truly excellent. Jen Spyra and Sadie Rogers come to mind, as well as Sue Redman’s teary monologue in the dead center of the film, a steady-cam display of a natural acting grace.
In my opinion, the greatest strength of this film is its thematic value. Our hero has a real conflict with the values of our vacuous internet age. Cone isn’t even above using the improv stage, with which he is surely intimately familiar, for an effective moment of sly self-deprecation. It’s so hard to express this sort of abstracted malcontent without falling into the pitfalls of navel-gazing and an intentional obscurity that says to the audience “if you don’t understand the problem, you’re not on my level”. Cone realizes interior drama like a master puppeteer, making plain internal moral and existential struggles that are, by definition, not obvious. There isn’t a line of narration, or even any peculiarly omniscient characters spoon-feeding the film’s theme to the audience. Jonathan grapples with the painful reality that somewhere along the line, our world has turned into a stage of improvisational comedy (Improv Everywhere, anyone?) and he must prove himself honest, true and hard-working to do battle with generational cynicism that ferments in complacency, wasted time and the shadowy netherworld of the internet.
Too many great films, directors and actors are lost between the vastly divergent poles of big budget ‘Hollywood’ productions and obscure ‘underground’ films. Stephen Cone is not an underground filmmaker pulling together some coarse bid to be ‘discovered’ by the Hollywood powers that be, he is an excellent filmmaker making excellent films right where he is. IN MEMORIUM is now one of my favorite films of the year and I hope that everyone in America will get the chance to fall as hard for its simple pleasures as I have.
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