Ham on Rye

Original, thoughtful, beautiful, intelligent. The film takes significant moments we all confront during our coming of age years, and concentrates them into loosely connected symbolic vignettes, exploring issues around identity and the roles we're assigned in life, willingly or not. It utilises a tone of suburban isolationism and being lost in the meaningless unknown to keep us off balance and wandering through uncertainty. While the narrative structure does not present a palatable or traditional plot or any form of character development, nor does the presentation guide us on what we're supposed to think or feel about anything, there is an opportunity to see the world through the lens of melancholic but unthreatening nihilism. If you can sit with slow burn, abstract narratives then you might be into this.

A very nice film, I enjoyed the pace and tone of this movie and it's just what I expected from first viewing! I don't know why it's got all the low scores but it made me think about how weird growing up is... and the absurdity of leaving your hometown or being left there while everyone else moved on. I loved the jaggered lynch tone and just the feel of the movie, would watch again.

Oak Cliff Film Festival 2019 Greetings again from the darkness. Should I stay or should I go? Only it's not really your choice. Some bizarre ritual, or rite of passage (or no passage), is held to determine whether one is selected to venture into the world, or instead resigned to remaining a local forever.

We first see the teens clumped in their cliques, nervous energy palpable on the screen. Anxiety is prevalent but we aren't exactly sure why. Slowly each of the young folks makes their way to Monty's Deli - only, contrary to the title, it's not for the ham on rye. The typical awkward teenage social event is underway, only there is more at stake here than who will dance with who.

Director and writer Tyler Taormina and co-writer Eric Berger have delivered a scathing commentary not just on the suburbs, but of the realities faced by high schoolers all over. In every home town, some kids head off to college or off into the world in some other manner, while another group gets "left behind". What follows is a gap or void between those who leave and those who remain. In the film, the void even exists within families.

The film opens and closes with sequences in the community park. Young kids are quite normal - running, jumping and laughing. The older adults seem to be merely existing. There is an almost supernatural approach here by the filmmaker, but it does beg the question ... how much control do we have over our fate at that age, and are we accepting of our lot? Pretty interesting fodder for discussion.

I loved the half that looks and feels like a Richard Linklater film, but the David Lynch half got a bit annoying and was a bit tiresome. That must be so due to the fact that I adore Linklater while Lynch never really worked for me. All in all, by the end it started to hurt.

The first 20 minutes teens are pretty much just walking on the street. Very little dialogue. Sets the tone for a move where...not much happens.