All the Light in the Sky

I always found acting performances about normal people far more impressive than ones about someone insane. Normal people have worries, memories, and flaws. Those are infinitely harder to embody than craziness, which so often acts as a substitute for actual personality. Marie (Jane Adams), the aging actress living on the shores of Malibu, feels natural, feels real. The people feel so organic that when two characters kiss, it's uncomfortable, like I was invading their privacy or something. What might turn some people off is the fact that nothing concrete actually happens. At first glance it just seems like an actress and her niece doing things around their house. But under the surface it's quite a thoughtful story about the prospect of aging, loneliness, and love, about how most doors close in life -- quietly and unknown to us.

Had I known that Jane Adams had done a film with the guy who wrote and directed Drinking Buddies and Win it All, I would've been on this way sooner. Jane Adams as like a little hidden gem of an actress for me. Even though I'd love for her to break out with bigger and better roles. She just seems to exude a certain realness that's often hard to transfer onto the screen. Even seeing her nude in this was the cutest non-sexual scene I've come across in a while. It's like watching real life.

But the end scene where her character Marie is cozying up with her neighbor Rusty on the couch was so damn sweet and authentic that it kinda blew me away. Their expressions, their gestures and how they talked to each other was as real as it gets. I felt like a voyeur watching these people and the intimacy they enjoyed in each other as friends.

Unfortunately, none of the other actors appealed to me in any way, but I could easily watch more of Marie and Rusty.

NetFlix has decided well to give Swanberg a series of short stories. Although much better done, this movie reminds me of the usual European Art movie.

There is the story of the main character. Which goes nowhere. It's a sketch. 30 minutes would have been way too much for it. Yet it is blown to some 45 minutes.

Than there is the story of the younger character. Which is not a younger main character. It is a different story entirely with different issues.

Than there is some mandatory preaching about ecology. Or high tech as perceived by someone with an education in Humanities. And those are from another movie altogether.

And if the larger story goes nowhere, it would have been unfair to have any of the shorter stories go anywhere either, somehow like the second daughter can't get married till the first born daughter is given to some male.

The acting is good. The scenes are so natural and well felt. The light is not unpleasant like in most Mumblecore movies.

And why the often change in backdrop? Yes, it can be there to show how a woman goes out of her zone of comfort to have sex at the partner's home. But all these stories could have happened in the same place: the upstairs home and the downstairs beach linked not by a staircase, but by sand.

Pretty boring. An actress not getting the roles any more due to getting older now has her niece come and stay who is an aspiring actress. There is a couple of rather odd, unnecessary and awkward nude scenes between the aunt and niece where they playfully interact while nude and laugh like its normal. It seemed a little gratuitous and felt quite obviously forced, especially the scene with the hose and taking the pictures. Like, is this common?

The key characters have the expected emotional journey, but its hard to say that journey takes the movie anywhere interesting. You get the feeling of where they hope it will go, but it just doesn't get there, or even close.

Also some bonus global warming/climate issues rolled in there for effect.

It's all pretty mid tbh.

You can also see this on Kanopy if you have access to this streaming service. It's where I found it.