Dispatch from the (virtual) Sundance Film Festival

As if the universe was trying to make everyone feel like they were magically transported to Salt Lake City for the annual Sundance Film Festival, virtual viewers in many spots across the country were treated to a fresh blanket of snow. Now that’s an all-encompassing event experience! I didn’t get my act together in time to research and purchase tickets to any of the movie showings, so I’m bringing in an expert! Meet Seen & Heard’s movie correspondent, my brother! He watched four of the buzziest movies from the festival, CODA, How it Ends, Passing and Together Together, and is joining us today to share his thoughts about these films and a preview of the 2020/2021 award season.

This interview has been edited & condensed.

One of the positive elements of in-person events hosted online is they’ve become much more accessible. Tell us about your experience virtually attending Sundance.
I just wish it was in-person… (laughs). What was the question?

Oh my god. Tell me about your experience virtually attending Sundance!
It translated pretty effortlessly. You can still watch the movie just as you normally would and they had the Q&A sessions afterwards, where you could ask questions. If you saw the premiere screening and were waiting for it to start, they had a virtual movie theater where you could walk around as a little character and see other people and talk to them. So it almost brought back the in-person element of being able to talk and say “What are you seeing? Have you seen anything good?” … Because it was virtual, you could really create your own experience because the time in between getting from theater to theater or different buildings now wasn’t an issue. … If you watched the premiere screening, you had a four-hour window to watch it starting at a specific time. If you watched the second screening, you had a 24-hour period two days after the premiere. … If you wanted to, you could watch movies back-to-back-to-back, which many people did. This podcast host I listen to saw 57 films, which if you were physically there, I don’t know if that would be possible. It was also fun because we’ve done virtual film festivals before but this was the most [movies] we’ve seen in one festival. It was fun to do four. Maybe we’ll try five sometime!

How did you decide which films to purchase tickets to?
When the lineup was released, I read an article talking about a couple of them, so I had a gist of some of the hot ones right off the bat. From there, I looked into them a little more and read about ones that weren’t in the article to get a gauge for what I thought I’d be really interested in. The first one I immediately knew I wanted to get tickets to was CODA, because I knew it was about a deaf family with a daughter who is fully hearing and I knew Marlee Matlin was in it, who is from [our high school]. Go Huskies. The second one I knew I wanted to get tickets for was Passing, from Rebecca Hall in her directorial debut. I knew Tessa Thompson was in it. I knew Alexander Skarsgård was in it. And it just seemed like an interesting topic. It’s adapted from a book and it takes place in 1929. It’s shot in black and white. It’s a movie talking about race and people passing as white. Those were the two [tickets] I got. Then a day into Sundance I was online and seeing how much fun everyone was having and then they released more tickets. I knew I wanted to get tickets to Together Together, because Ed Helms was in it and it seemed really fun. Then I took a chance on a movie called How it Ends, which ended up not being a very good movie at all, but it seemed like an interesting topic and there were a lot of celebrities in it. It’s hard. I think with Sundance, or any film festival, it’s about gauging what you think you would like and what people are enjoying.

Let’s talk about CODA, which was acquired by Apple in a deal that broke previous acquisition records and basically won every major award at Sundance. Tell us a bit about the movie and your reaction to it.
It was so surprisingly familiar. It’s funny how you think about a movie about something you haven’t experienced. You feel like maybe you won't relate to it at all, but it was one of the most relatable movies we’ve really seen in quite some time. It’s part coming of age, part family comedy, part drama. It really had a little bit of everything. They really did a great job with the ASL and dialogue. It’s a very emotional ride and it’s incredibly funny. We really, really loved it. We just hoped other people loved it to and to see it win like that was really incredible. We watched the awards ceremony live and it was really great to see it be successful. When it won, I said [to my girlfriend], they need to play this movie at [our old high school], because [the school] has this great deaf and hard of hearing program, which is so rare, and yet we learn nothing about deaf culture or deaf education.

Earlier this year, we watched the movie Sound of Metal, which is about a drummer going deaf and how he’s coping with that and how he becomes involved in the deaf community. Sound of Metal is becoming so successful. It’s getting nominations with Golden Globes, SAG and likely the Oscars as well. There’s a lot of hope for me with the success of Sound of Metal, which uses ASL as well, that it could really help CODA be recognized too. It’s about breaking the boundaries of the accessibility of any language besides the language you speak. It’s about the accessibility of being able to watch a movie with language being used that you might not know but not allowing that to get in the way of you enjoying it.

How it Ends very intentionally filmed actors from a distance during COVID and is centered on an end of the world theme. What were your thoughts on the movie and how it tackles this?
It truly was one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. How it Ends, I think, will only really be remembered for attempting to make a movie very safely and distantly, and I don’t know what else it’ll be remembered for. It was so puzzling and so quirky.

Do you think the reason it didn’t land was the screenplay?
Yes. The whole movie was just a collection of vague conversations. They talked so much about things that happened in the past but didn't want to say anything specific! It was frustrating. It was a bunch of little bits attempting to be one movie and then trying to be deep. … Its only redeemable quality was that sometimes it was funny.

It has such a good cast.
But they’re not in it enough. Fred Armisen and Olivia Wilde were the best parts of that movie and there needed to be more of them. Nick Kroll was good as well. Olivia Wilde was just so good and she was in it for three minutes, maybe.

One of the films, I’ve been most interested in is Passing, which just closed a distribution deal with Netflix. What did you think?
Passing was a really beautifully crafted film. It’s a very complex story that really is executed in such a delicate and careful way. … To have a main character have so much of her acting just be silent and through thoughts and looks -- it was clearly so well thought out. They often did not need dialogue to tell you exactly what everyone in the room was thinking. It was done with such care. And the sound design is – it’s never silent. You’re hearing clinking of plates and glasses and someone play the trumpet outside. You’re just hearing things constantly, just like you would in a city. The book Passing is up to interpretation about what a lot of it is about and what it’s saying and what the characters are feeling. Rebecca Hall really had to make some choices, because now it’s visual. But she still kept us a little bit like, it’s up to you to decide what this character is actually feeling. It was done in such a beautiful way. ... It's shot in black and white and with a 4:3 aspect ratio, so it feels like an old movie but also so different and complex.

Reading the synopsis for Together Together (a single man decides to have a child on his own via a surrogate), I feel like the film could go into either a Judd Apatow direction or more of an indie comedy route. Where did it land with you?
From the synopsis, 100 percent I would agree with that. It was definitely an indie comedy. It didn’t feel like Apatow at all, whether that’s positive or negative for somebody. It was a really touching story. It’s very different from a lot of movies that would normally have captured this story by ending with and then the two of them get together, whereas this was a completely non-romantic relationship. … This is a deep, deep friendship, and it’s incredibly funny and touching.

I’m excited to see so many female-identifying directors showcased at this year’s festival. What do you think this means for the movie landscape?
Of the five directors nominated this year for Golden Globes, the majority in the category are women. It’s crazy that it took this long for that to happen. I don’t think they’ve even had two women in the category before! It’s great and it’s exciting. A lot of female actors are directing now too. Halle Berry is directing and starring in a movie that’s coming out later this year called Bruised. The three really successful [female directed] new releases right now are Nomadland, Promising Young Woman and One Night in Miami. Is there a fourth?

Justice for Emma!
Emma’s in there too. Emma is going to get into a bunch of design categories at the Oscars. It could win costumes! … Chloé Zhao directed Nomadland and wrote the screenplay, edited it and is [one of the] executive producers, so she could get nominated for four Oscars. She’s been winning almost every critics circle award for directing. She’s the one to beat for best director at the Oscars this year and that’s incredible. [Editors Note: Kathryn Bigelow is still the only woman to win an Oscar for directing. She won in 2009 for The Hurt Locker.]

Continuing on the 2020/2021 movie season theme, obviously this year has really changed how we consume entertainment but especially movies. Do you think this will impact which movies are recognized during the current award season?
Definitely. There are two things that have changed. One -- I feel like the Oscars, in the past, were trying to accept Netflix and streaming services but still shun them a little bit. Now almost everything and [movies] still developing are switching to streaming services or coming out in theaters and on streaming services. I think it’s good, because I don’t think how a movie is released should factor into judging a film. Some films just want to be released on streaming services because they recognize the accessibility that will give the film and there shouldn’t be anything wrong with that. … The second thing that’s changed is so many of these big studio films decided to postpone until they can be released in theaters, postpone indefinitely or postpone to the later months of 2021. Because of all these postponements, many independent films that would not have been recognized as much are getting their moment in the spotlight. I’m loving everything about that. There needed to be a year where independent films really dominated to help completely break through the future of treating them the same as big studio movies. A lot of our favorites have been independent films this year.

Anything else you’d like to add?
I think attending film festivals virtually have been a lot of fun. … This was the fifth virtual film festival we’ve done and we have a pass for a sixth. … The price for a single movie is often not bad – I think the cheapest one, Minari at the Heartland International Film Festival, was seven dollars, and that’s cheaper than a movie ticket nowadays. It’s fun to be able to experience these movies before they come out from the comfort of our own home and for cheaper than it might be in a movie theater.