Story. It’s what people are talking about. In fact, it may be all they’re talking about. As in, “Tell me your story.” or “We have to be true to the story.” Or, as is so often heard in this unsettling political climate,”What’s the real story here?” Even I, in realizing it’s been some months since my last entry, wondered, “What story to tell about why I’ve been away so long?” It feels like “story” is everywhere. Case in point – just last week New York Times reporter Patricia Cohen interviewed actor Sarah Jessica Parker – of Sex and the City fame – about her new HBO series, Divorce. During the talk, SJP spoke of her characters’ unconventional, sometimes unlikeable, life choices and noted that “that is what makes story interesting and real. That is when story draws in people…because it’s human.” See the full interview here:
Needless to say in filmmaking, as in television, there’s no less emphasis on story. On drawing people in and reflecting back something that touches them or resembles their life experiences or evidences our universal humanity. And “story” was on full display at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival. It showed up guns blazing and ready for action. And of the 300+ stories told, there were two that really knocked my socks off and reminded me, again, of the power and poetry of cinema.
The first – Barry Jenkins’ feature film, Moonlight, based on Tarell Alvin McCraney’s play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue. Told in three acts, Moonlight is the coming-of-age story of Chiron, a boy growing up in gritty, urban, impoverished Liberty City whose sole blood relation is a mother steadily becoming more and more addicted to crack cocaine during the height of Miami’s cocaine epidemic. Chiron is left largely alone to navigate the mean city streets and grapple with some of life’s biggest questions – “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?”. Under the loving gaze of Juan and his girlfriend Teresa, a young couple who take Chiron in and provide much needed constancy and stability, he begins to examine notions of identity and sexuality in a milieu where there exists far more questions than answers. And in Jenkins’ ever-so-capable hands with aid from cinematographer James Laxton and a stellar cast, Chiron’s story unfolds in ways that are nothing short of transcendent – intimately, lovingly, and beautifully told with a glorious hue that washes over everything, viewer included. Moonlight is, quite simply, a masterpiece. Filmmaking at its very, very best.
Next, Blue Jay, a film directed by Alex Lehmann and exec. produced by Mark and Jay Duplass. Blue Jay tells the tale of former high-school sweethearts Jim and Amanda who run into each other back in their hometown after 20 years apart. They chat for a while, decide to catch up more over coffee and beers, followed by dinner at Jim’s childhood home. They flirt, they reminisce, they talk about their lives and loves. We learn that Amanda has married, but Jim has not. We learn that each is at a crossroads. We begin to wonder what would have happened if Jim and Amanda had stayed together. They wonder it, too. And there it is – the story, the source, the root of everything – what would your life look like if you’d made different choices? Quit your job, left your marriage, followed your passion? Would you be more happy or less? Fulfilled or not? I’m such a fan of this movie, in part, because of the universal question it asks us all to consider – what if we’d traveled “the road not taken?” How would our lives look? Shot in black and white, which floods the film with familiar feelings of nostalgia and melancholy, and masterfully acted by Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass, Blue Jay is one that reaches down to the core and resonates deeply. A must-see.