Film Awards Talk - 2018

[Kirby Avondale]

Perhaps not but Rebecca certainly is a thing here, so I believe my larger point stands.

I don't feel its pull so much. I get the allusions and all that, but they added more flavor than content for me. I don't see them filling in some hole where dialogue expositing character history is supposed to go or anything, and I'm not convinced we need much more of the latter. We get Alma through Alma, learning about her through her actions, how she pictures herself, what her expectations and delusions are, what she's willing to stomach, where she's willing to go. Anderson doesn't seem as fascinated with a person's history than with in-the-moment illuminations of character, suggestive idiosyncrasies and weird co-dependencies. It's easy to toss some line in where Alma says she fled her home country to escape an abusive father (Gotcha! says our inner Freuds), but not so easy to take a relationship that strains credibility at the level of description and make it feel organic and strangely tenable in action. Pretty good case of show besting tell in that respect.