..,.Gary Dretzka
..,.Leonard Klady
...David Poland
...Doug Pratt
...Ray Pride

JANUARY 20, 2007

Is It Already Over?

Who is the happiest group at Sundance '07?

P-Ricey, NUtley & Slammin' Stevie G, the senior staff of Fox Searchlight, which has the best liked film at the festival so far, The Savages, and also grabbed a surprising PGA award from across state lines on Saturday night. It's enough to make you positively giddy.

Everyone else is asking the musical question, "Is this the worst Sundance ever?"

And it looks like the answer may be, "yes."

The David Gordon Green film has garnered a few supporters. And Dan Klores' Crazy Love seems to have as many extreme supporters as it does people who compare it to a Jerry Springer episode. One of my faves, Delirious, seems to have some fans, but many critics are turned off big time. The Catherine Keener starrer, An American Crime, got the death penalty. ("It almost killed that guy!" could be heard ringing in the street today.) Teeth bit. Chicago 10 has its greatest support amongst people who don't know the story and truth hatred from many who do. The Night Buffalo hasn't found love. The Ten looked hopeful, but more than one distributor came out calling it, "The Three," as only three of the ten segments were worth the time. Chicks dig Broken English, lovers of the Irish dig Once, and the only digging around Weapons is people digging it a grave.

We're two days into the festival and the buyers are ready to go home.

But at least we are getting a lot of good-but-not-great, whether it be Hounddog or Grace Is Gone or Rocket Science or Expired.

Sundance seems intent on pushing the "it's a festival, not a market" angle this year and sure enough, it isn't much of a market. But it isn't much of a festival so far either.

Grace Is Gone is typical of this year's product. John Cusack is getting savaged by critics and buyers for his portrayal of a man whose wife has gone to serve in Iraq, leaving him behind with his dead-end job and their two daughters. When news comes that she is dead, the film unfolds out of his inability to express his pain or explain to his daughters. I think Cusack is pretty perfect in the role, which calls for him to be a bit of a loser. The daughters outshine him, but that is because the script is written that way. The film is very, very indie, from the look to the music to the lingering visual beats. But is it more than derivative? Yes. But just barely. The politics of the Iraq War hang over the film. But they don't transform it.

It's fine. And it has some lovely moments in the third act. But...

It would be a shame to give up hope on the festival this year after just two full days. But as the evidence comes in, The Dance will have a lot of 'splainin' to do if it is to turn itself around. It's happened before. So here's keeping my fingers crossed.