The story of fear and missed opportunities, shown a & nbsp; not told. Indie films can be loved at least for the fact that in them authors and artists use non-trivial methods of storytelling. This is what I think this picture is about.
So Yong Kim, the director of which is clearly not alien to the topic of understatement in relations between people who have long known each other, was able in this film to convey these emotions and experiences not through the mouth of the main characters and verbal interactions, but through nervous hands, views full of desire and doubt, through subtle emotions that show us what the main characters feel to each other. .
Watching this film, there is no sense of obsession with ordinary melodrama where, as usual, everything is presented to us chewed on a plate, according to a template in which the main characters tell each other about everything that is on their minds and souls, and thus solve their problems and move on to the plot. Here the main character is nonverbal signals, subtle glances where longing and doubt can be replaced by a mask of a smile that should hide vague experiences.
Two girls, one young mother, with her husband who is constantly on business trips and occasionally communicates with his wife via Skype ( Riley Keo performed Sarah), the second impulsive and easy, a girl from New York, best friend, since college, the first ( Jenna Malone performed Mindy).
Arriving in the small town where Sarah and her daughter live for a weekend, Mindy finds Sarah depressed due to her husband’s constant absence and accumulated feelings of despair from uncertainty, and the burden of routine and loneliness.
The girls are going on a small trip where they have fun, go to the rodeo, drink and remember the old days and at these very moments you can notice the understatement that is present between the two heroines, which through conversations and revelations of the past, grows into tension and flows into what all this time led to their relationship. New aspects of this relationship are revealed, new feelings appear that transcend the boundaries of friendship, but these feelings are never discussed aloud.
There is a place to be fun and carefree, and at the same time this picture is about the long dance of a relationship long in a year, the main message of which is the unrealized and not fully realized love between the two heroines.
The story itself is rather trivial, but nevertheless, the way it is presented, and the skill with which So Yong Kim directs his actresses in the right direction and sets the right moods so that the actresses (Riley and Jenna) can convey the entire palette of subtle emotions and experiences on camera is admirable. Much is conveyed through eyes and glances seeking answers to questions about what was not said but felt.
Malone and Kyo are perfectly matched for this picture and perfectly synchronized as two people who are destined to be lovers but who may never be, and this makes the sadness and tragedy of this picture so beautiful and attractive.
9 out of 10