Freestyle Digital Media
I think there’s a sort of off weirdness when siblings work together on the same movie, in a way that you’re breaching the real world with the fictional one. Doesn’t mean it’ll fail, I mean the Gyllenhaal siblings have co-starred in movies, as have the Affleck and Wilson brothers. And some of those films are pretty good. But it’s a bit weird, like you’re watching something intimate and private.
Untogether comes from first time writer/director Emma Forrest, who’s worked professionally as a writer for both novels and magazines. She’s Jewish, British-American (dual citizenship), and was married to and divorced fron actor Ben Mendelsohn. But it’s quite an impressive film for a first timer, if a bit wooly. And it’s filled with connections to her real life.
The movie stars Jemima Kirke and her sister Lola Kirke as sisters Andrea and Tara, who are, like the actors and the director, British-American. Andrea has a sort of weird relationship with famous doctor and author Nick (Jamie Dornan), whom she hooked up with once but is still in a fuzzy place with. Nick is famous for his own book about his work in Syria which included a mysterious doomed romance, but his time back in the States is muddled and confusing and he doesn’t know his next direction.
Andrea is similarly unmoored, recently off drugs and a great writer without any discipline. She clashes with her more straitlaced but also confused sister Tara, who has been dating her older boyfriend Martin (Ben Mendelsohn, who isn’t that much older than Emma Forrest) for years but is mainly with him still out of guilt that he gave up a career as a successful rock musician in Australia to move to the US with her.
Tara is Jewish but not learned in anything and disconnected from her faith, which changes when she (as a cosmetics and massage specialist) works with an older Rabbi (Billy Crystal) who she immediately connects to due to his warmth, intelligence, and real passion for social justice. Tara, like her sister, is trying to find herself in a world where they don’t really know who they are.
The movie is not consistent in quality, with much of the storylines at first a bit confused with the relationships and Nick, although it all eventually falls into focus. There are some extraneous subplots that don’t really add much or go anywhere, but the key pieces of note are the performances of Jemima and Lola Kirke, playing entirely different characters in a way that seems quite true to form. It’s also kind of fun to see Ben Mendelsohn with his actual accent.
I was actually surprised by how low key and complex Billy Crystal was playing it here too; I really liked his performance as a genuine, sincere faith leader with high aspiration and hopes for humanity, more than we deserve. I actually think some of the scenes are quite well done for a new director, leaving with a quasi-romance and a movie that ultimately ends up saying that people do have the innate capacity to be happy.
Overall, it stands out from a lot of the indie films out there, feeling fresher and more interesting than a lot of the similar stuff, even if it is likely to be forgotten soon. It isn’t unique enough to really cross over into the mainstream, but it’s a movie that rewards watching.
Untogether has a run time of 1 hour 38 minutes and is rated R for sexual content, language and brief graphic nudity.
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