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Fans of wordless, rain-soaked montages, preferably scored to melancholy guitar strums, uniting a web of characters linked by a common tragedy, take note: Australian director Sarah Watt’s debut feature doles out the depression in generous proportions. But there’s also a refreshing lack of manipulation about her plunge into unhappiness; anyone seeking a good cry isn’t going to resent the way Watt wrings it out.
At the center of Look Both Ways is a man killed by a train while trying to save his dog, with repercussions emanating outwards to the witnesses, responding officers, and reporters on the scene, and to their families and co-workers — all with their own private wounds, be it domestic misery, an unwanted pregnancy, professional discontent, etc. Watt overreaches with the redemptive arcs of her ten or so principals, but coaxes thankfully guileless performances out of them.
Most prominently featured in the grab-bag of grief is the tentative romance developing between Nick (William McInnes), a newspaper photographer who covered the accident, and Meryl (Justine Clarke), a painter who witnessed it. (Additionally, both are coping with the death of a parent, and Nick is reeling from his own cancer diagnosis.)
Watt’s most eloquent conceit is her subjective filtering of Nick and Meryl’s moments of morbid panic. He’s plagued by rapid-fire slideshows of accelerating agonies, while her worst fears appear as initially picturesque watercolor animations devolving into creative torment. Personalized thus, their anxieties are almost comically dire, but also render their pervasive dread vividly. Between Watt’s relentless efforts to pierce through dark clouds of her own making and McInnes and Clarke’s awkward chemisty, the film is, on all levels, grasping towards a catharsis that feels earned for its earnestness.
Opens April 14 at Angelika Film Center
At the center of Look Both Ways is a man killed by a train while trying to save his dog, with repercussions emanating outwards to the witnesses, responding officers, and reporters on the scene, and to their families and co-workers — all with their own private wounds, be it domestic misery, an unwanted pregnancy, professional discontent, etc. Watt overreaches with the redemptive arcs of her ten or so principals, but coaxes thankfully guileless performances out of them.
Most prominently featured in the grab-bag of grief is the tentative romance developing between Nick (William McInnes), a newspaper photographer who covered the accident, and Meryl (Justine Clarke), a painter who witnessed it. (Additionally, both are coping with the death of a parent, and Nick is reeling from his own cancer diagnosis.)
Watt’s most eloquent conceit is her subjective filtering of Nick and Meryl’s moments of morbid panic. He’s plagued by rapid-fire slideshows of accelerating agonies, while her worst fears appear as initially picturesque watercolor animations devolving into creative torment. Personalized thus, their anxieties are almost comically dire, but also render their pervasive dread vividly. Between Watt’s relentless efforts to pierce through dark clouds of her own making and McInnes and Clarke’s awkward chemisty, the film is, on all levels, grasping towards a catharsis that feels earned for its earnestness.
Opens April 14 at Angelika Film Center
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