Jonah Napoli’s exclusive look at five films featured at the festival

Buried

The premise of Buried is unique if nothing else. It’s difficult to have one actor in an enclosed space for over 90 minutes and keep your audience’s interest. Bury that actor alive and you’re likely to accomplish it.
Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds, is a convoy driver in Iraq who wakes up buried alive with nothing but a lighter and a cell phone. Left with the insurgents’ demands of obtaining $5 million in ransom money, Paul must face growing panic and dwindling oxygen in one of the most interesting thrillers in recent years.
Director Rodrigo Cortes’ story may not fit into a traditional box, but the manner in which it’s shown does.
While Hitchcockian in nature, the film has difficulty delivering anything more than claustrophobia and jerky camera movements.
Plot points start but never develop, such as the insurgents reciting Paul’s home address. This leaves the viewer wondering where it came from and where it’s going, but unfortunately leaves it at that.
Reynolds does as well as he can with the material, but it’s difficult to find depth to the character that matches the depth you can almost genuinely feel pressing down on his coffin.

 

Please Give

Please Give is a morbidly entertaining film centered on the connection formed by two different families through an unusual means: an apartment.
Kate and Alex are a successful business duo selling antique furniture and living in Manhattan with their daughter Abby. Having purchased the apartment next door to expand their home, the family is unable to do anything until the current tenant, 91-year-old Andra, passes away, and in the meantime they develop relationships with her and her two granddaughters.
Please Give makes humor out of things you wouldn’t traditionally expect to be funny, though it never crosses the line into inappropriate territory. The entire cast provides standout performances, none more so than Catherine Keener as Kate.
The different relationships developed by each character with one another show how well director Nicole Holofcener genuinely knows people.
The film, accidentally or otherwise, shows the various stages of women’s lives, from Abby and her teenage angst to Andra’s two granddaughters, both struggling with relationships in different ways. Kate shows how people want to do more to feel good about their lives but for some reason can never feel quite good enough, and Andra simply demonstrates how in the end, you’d be surprised who’s going to miss you.
 

8: The Mormon Proposition

If there’s any film generating buzz at Sundance this year, it’s definitely Reed Cowan’s documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition.
The documentary takes a closer look at just how involved the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was in the campaigning for Proposition 8 in California. Through a series of interviews with investigators, representatives, elected officials and members of the gay and lesbian community, 8 actually goes beyond the inspection of Proposition 8 and looks into the lives of those it affected most.
While many believe that Cowan may just have an ax to grind, the film itself never blames, attacks or vilifies anyone involved.
As a good documentary director should, Cowan allows both the facts and the people to speak for themselves. In doing so, many new pieces of information come to light, such as roughly how much money the LDS church gave to the campaigning efforts of Proposition 8 and how it made it there.
8: The Mormon Proposition isn’t anything more than an introspective look into a subject that will remain on the table for years to come. As an Official Selection for Sundance 2010, it’s also given itself a strong position in that fight.

 

Boy

Boy has a number of primary plot points, including identity, family, trust, drugs and Michael Jackson.
It’s 1984. Boy is 11 years old and lives with his grandmother, younger brother Rocky and a slew of cousins in New Zealand.
When his father Alamein returns, Boy wants nothing more than to build their relationship. Unfortunately, his father is roughly on the same level as he is emotionally and is only interested in one thing, and it’s not Boy.
Director Taika Waititi, who also played the part of Alamein, has a unique ability to give his child actors more depth than the adults. The only adult prominently featured in the film is Alamein himself, but he’s only an adult by design. Another standout performance is by Te Aho Eketone-Whitu as Boy’s younger brother Rocky, who believes he has magic powers.
Funny and moving, Boy shows the lengths some children are willing to go to appease their parents, even when their parents don’t deserve it.
However, in a surprising twist, it also shows the lengths some parents are willing to go to fix what they’ve messed up, even if it only starts out as baby steps.

 

Obselidia

Obselidia tells the story of George, a humble librarian by day, appreciator of all things obsolete by night. Having decided to make an encyclopedia of obsolete things, George interviews people with a VHS camcorder and types up their interviews on a typewriter.
After interviewing Sophie, a silent movie projectionist, George gets an offer to meet with one of his heroes, a scientist who has predicted the end of the world. Because George doesn’t drive, Sophie offers to take him and the two set out on a strange adventure.
Director Diane Bell structures the movie beautifully, never allowing its subject matter to dampen its spirit.
Michael Piccirilli is spot-on in his portrayal of George: a little neurotic, very factual and seemingly without any sense of humor whatsoever — that is, until he finds an abandoned pogo stick in Death Valley.
Clearly sending a message about humanity causing its own extinction through global warming and the overuse of non-renewable sources, Obselidia does so with a very soft air. The message is there, but it’s covered by an awkward love story.
Still, the whole thing comes full-circle and proves that even that which was thought to be obsolete can be given importance; all it really needs is one person to love it.