Personal trauma is well-handled with sensitivity and dark humor in Eva Victor’s impressive directorial debut. It has a compelling and complicated screenplay alluding to a traumatic personal experience, written by the Northwestern graduate who also stars in the film. Victor won awards at the Sundance and Cannes film festivals. It is organized in 5 chapters taking place over 5 years. That structure gave Victor the ability to show Agnes in different modes. The first is called, “The Year of the Baby.”
Agnes is elated with a visit from her bestie, Lydie (Naomi Ackie). They had a very close relationship as grad students and seem to know what each other is thinking before they even say it. Lydie is now married and pregnant. But they are still close as ever.
Watch our interview with Eva Victor at the Chicago Critics Film Festival where she told us that she wrote it with playing Agnes in mind, laughing as writing it. Victor talks about fine line between creating comedy and drama.
Agnes (Eva Victor) is an intelligent, deadpan and droll professor on track to be tenured under the tutelage of Professor Preston Decker (Louis Cancelmi) who everybody seems to respect and admire at their New England University. He is smart and very well-versed in writing and literature.
Agnes is working hard to be a good teacher for the students, while yearning for promotion to a full professorship. A lot of humor in their interaction in the script comes from terse, direct retorts, especially from her rival, Natasha (Kelly McCormack) who wants to stay on track for tenure as much as Agnes does. Natasha is bluntly jealous and their swipes create comedy.
The one entitled “The Year With the Bad Thing” shows Agnes’ most difficult situation she has ever dealt with. It is a shattering emotional experience. Victor chooses to handle the traumatic episode by letting the audience see Agnes’ nervous tension meeting with the professor at his home, right up to the moment when the devastating assault happens, without showing it. When the respect you have for a person or a situation you revered is shattered, it can make you and your outlook on life, tenuous and vulnerable.
Lydie is there for her. And comedy and empathy return when she strikes up a friendship with her awkward neighbor, Gavin. Victor makes clear how Agnes is affected by what happened to her when she has a panic attack pulling over in a store parking lot later in the film. Fortunately, a guy named Pete (John Carroll Lynch) sees Agnes having a problem, comes over and gets her to just sits down with him talking over a sandwich to calm her down. It’s a beautiful scene and it’s Carroll Lynch at his best playing a down-to-Earth Guardian Angel. And the film ends on a feline hopeful note.
Victor told us “This film is for those who survive every day quietly.” The writing, directing, and acting are quite well-crafted expressing the gamut of emotions after devastating trauma. It all straddles the line successfully between comedy and tragedy finding a way cope and go on. We consider Victor’s film a major victory.
A24 1 hour 45 minutes. R
