SUNDANCE 2017: Capone reviews the female-focused midnight movies BITCH and XX!!!

Hey everyone. Capone in Park City, Utah for the Sundance Film Festival, taking a look at two highly anticipated, female-centric midnight offerings. Enjoy…


BITCH



I’ll admit, stepping into a film titled BITCH—even one directed by a woman—was an experience I entered into with more than a little trepidation. All I knew about it going in was that at some point a woman takes on the qualities of a dog after being subjected to her husband taking her for granted and offering her no help with any portion of their life together. Would the film feel like exploitation or degradation on some level? Would it be an exercise in man hating (which I would have been fine with)? But it turns out my fears were utterly unwarranted. In fact, not only is BITCH none of those things, but it turns out to be the most thought-provoking, intelligent, and purely feminist films I’ve seen in ages, with a powerhouse lead performance by writer-director Marianna Palka (GOOD DICK).

The word “fearless” is too often tossed around about actors, but I can’t think of a better example of fearless than Palka’s turn as Jill, who opens the film with a barely failed suicide attempt, letting us know right from the beginning that we are dealing with someone who feels she has nothing to lose. She’s the mother of four young children who never stop screaming or moving, and is wife to Bill (Jason Ritter), who maneuvers around his house like Jill and the kids are objects to be avoided rather than acknowledged. Bill is also cheating on his wife with a co-worker and barely cares if Jill finds out. But almost worse, he’s completely lost any compassion for the never-ending work that Jill puts in with the kids or around the home. At one point, she asks him to provide some relief, and she’s so overwhelmed that she can barely get the words out.

There’s a recurring element to the beginning of the film of dogs howling at night around the house, and one particular dog who stands outside the house staring in as if waiting for something. There’s the distinct possibility that only Jill hears or sees these animals, but it has a lasting impact on her psyche, and when she finally snaps, she turns into something beyond feral. Just for clarification’s sake, Jill does not turn into a dog—she does’t grow fur and a tail and sharp teeth. Nor does she take on the qualities of a family pet, for the simple reason that a pet is something that people love and care for, and Jill is not feeling loved at this moment. Instead she becomes a naked, filthy, growling, snapping animal that takes up residence in the family basement, where she proceeds to piss and shit all over the floor, walls, and herself, while acting aggressive toward anything that enters her domain.

Before anyone discovers her in this state, Bill believes his wife has simply run away, and being so completely self-centered, his reaction on this day and many days after is “Why is she doing this to me?” Bill is forced to get the kids to school for the first time in his life and deal with the care of the household, which he is utterly unqualified to do. When Bill has his own breakdown once the complete depth of Jill’s state of mind is understood, he looks like an infant throwing a fit. Jill’s sister (Jaime King), who has had mixed feelings about Bill from the beginning, shows up to help and actually takes a reasoned approach to her aide by supporting everyone for the betterment of her sister. She understands that Bill needs to discover his inner caretaker and supportive husband for any of this to work.

The most radical thing about BITCH might be that it’s actually Bill’s story. He has the most expansive and interesting arc, and Ritter fleshes out the character in ways that are unexpected and quite moving. Easily the best work in his career, Ritter’s doesn’t allow Bill to simply turn into a nice guy when the occasion calls for it. He resists with every fiber of his being, hoping Jill will simply snap out of her psychosis and pick things up where she left them. But while he’s waiting for this to happen, he ends his affair, gets to know his kids, and rediscovers his love for Jill and the partnership that they once had. Bill’s mission isn’t to “fix” Jill; it’s to change the question from “Why is she doing this to me?” to “What have I done to make this happen to her?” It’s a tough transition for him to make, but Ritter captures the struggle and makes it feel authentic.

I don’t pretend to be an expert on feminist filmmaking, but the idea that a husband must rediscover the time in a marriage when he and his wife were equals and deeply in love as a result seems like a wonderfully shocking, eye-opening, and absolutely essential message right now. That being said, BITCH isn’t a message film; it’s a deeply personal, intimate piece of storytelling that holds within it dark, uncomfortable humor and pain, all of which is accentuated with a staggered, rhythmic (mostly drum-centric) score by Morgan Z. Whirledge that attempts to re-create both the chaotic sounds of the household and the inside of Jill’s frenzied head.

There are a lot of ways the final section of the film could have played out, none of which is particularly better than another. That being said, there’s a sequence in a dog park with Ritter and Palka that had me and everyone around me choked up or flat-out bawling. At first, it feels like an exercise straight out of Day 1 of a high school acting class, but Ritter so completely commits to the moment that he sells the emotional rawness and floored me with its effectiveness. The remaining minutes that follow that scene are almost unnecessary, but not in a way that lessens the impact of the film as a whole. By not attempting to make BITCH an overtly political or message-focused film, Palka has crafted something all-the-more powerful, beautiful, and extraordinary.


XX



The mission here is simple. In an effort to capitalize on the current wave of female-directed horror breakthroughs—such as Karyn Kusama’s THE INVITATION, Ana Lily Amirpour’s A GIRL WALKS HOME ALONE AT NIGHT, Jennifer Kent’s THE BABADOOK, and even another Sundance highlight, Julia Ducournau’s RAW—the makers of XX wanted to assemble the first-ever horror anthology (like the recent ABCs OF DEATH and V/H/S films) with all components directed entirely by women directors. Assembling such filmmakers as Kusama; Roxanne Benjamin (who directed a section of another anthology, SOUTHBOUND, and also produced the first two V/H/S movies); producer Jovanka Vuckovic (who directed the short THE CAPTURED BIRD); and first-time director Annie Clark (better known by most as the musician St. Vincent), XX also features truly creepy interstitial stop-motion animated work from Mexican filmmaker Sofia Carrillo.

And like most horror anthologies, it’s tough to judge as a single piece, especially since the four main shorts weren’t made to fit together or even with knowledge by the other filmmakers of what the subjects or horror styles would be. That being said, something interesting similarities and contrasts jump out. Three of the four films are about family, in particular mothers who attempt to protect their children from great harm (the fourth story is a straight-up monster movie). But each of the mother-child entries takes such deeply different approach to its material that they don’t really resemble each other at all.

First up is Vuckovic’s “The Box,” based on the Jack Ketchum story of a neglectful father, only Vuckovic has switched the gender of her lead character, making Natalie (“The Strain”) Brown’s Susan a working mother the one who fails to protect her kids, especially on a subway ride home where her son gets a peak inside a strange, gift-wrapped box held by a stranger that immediately makes him lose his appetite from that day forward. Each night at dinner becomes more and more of a struggle, and when the boy then tells his sister what was in the box, she refuses to eat as well, with the parents helpless to protect their children from withering away. The point of this tense episode is the expose Susan’s guilt for not loving motherhood and to watch her pristine life crumble around her, culminating in a particularly horrific Christmas morning feast. “The Box” is probably my favorite segment of XX, and I’m especially excited to see what Vuckovic does in a feature setting because her ability to build tension and generally creep us out is exceptional and shows a tremendous confidence.

Clark’s “The Birthday Party” is just barely horror. Instead, she’s constructed a colorful, darkly whimsical piece with a distinctly ’60s European quality. Melanie Lynskey plays Mary, who is scurrying to ready her home for her daughter’s 7th birthday party. Just before she’s ready to throw open the doors to visitors, she finds her husband dead in his office. Rather than cancel the party and ruin her spoiled daughter’s day, she attempt to hide the body, which proves difficult given the busy-bodies around her home, especially her housekeeper (Sheila Vand) and neighbor (Lindsay Burdge). Not unlike “The Box,” the real fear generated in the story is that inside Mary, whose anxiety comes from wanting to appear to be the perfect parent to those in attendance. Naturally, all goes to hell in an explosion of mental and actual disaster. Again, it’s not especially scary, but it is fun to look at. And if all else fails for you, there’s a score by St. Vincent to keep you happy.

Weirdly, the least effective work as a short, Benjamin’s “Don’t Fall” (the aforementioned monster movie), is the one segment I’d like to see expanded into a feature, because I think it would work better at around 80 minutes, with stock characters of four college student gone camping more fleshed out and human. The campers find strange etchings in the rocks they’re climbing, and before you can say “Boo!”, they are being terrorized by a nasty, toothy creature that has a habit of jumping out of the darkness. It ain’t original, but it made me jump a whole bunch of times.

I loved that Kusama's “Her Only Living Son” dives head first into the Son of Satan motif, wondering aloud what would a mother (Christina Kirk) do when such a child turned 18. It’s easy to imagine this being a continuation of sorts to THE OMEN or ROESMARY’S BABY, as Cora is on the verge of full-blown panic as the signs are all around her that her son Andy (Kyle Allen) is about to realize his full demonic potential and be taken from her. There are protective agents of evil all around Andy, but none of them stand a chance against a mother’s protective intuition. Kusama mines the mother-son angle for all its worth, and it genuinely works. Again, it’s not especially scary, but it’s an interesting take on a familiar sub-genre in horror films.

Most of the chapters in XX are too short to give its characters the kind of attention they deserve, but these directors find ways of engaging us nevertheless. And with Carillo’s Brothers Quay-inspired animation holding it all together, this is an admirable, mostly enjoyable success that I hope inspires additional editions a the franchise. I believe the film is set to open on February 17.

-- Steve Prokopy
"Capone"
capone@aintitcool.com
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