‘The Sweet East’ Review: Talia Ryder Led Picaresque Satire Takes America's East For a Ride | NYFF61
The Sweet East
NR
Runtime: 1 Hour and 44 Minutes
Production Companies: Marathon Street, Base 12
Distributor: Utopia
Director: Sean Price Williams
Writer: Nick Pinkerton
Cast: Talia Ryder, Earl Cave, Simon Rex, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris, Jacob Elordi, Rish Shah
Release Date: December 1, 2023
NYFF 2023 Coverage
On a class trip from South Carolina to D.C., high school senior Lillian (Talia Ryder) breaks off from her peers at a dingy pizza/karaoke joint. A hostage situation occurs while she's in the bathroom, and she escapes with the help of a tatted-up punk anarchist named Caleb (Earl Cave). As a runaway, Lillian eventually disbands from Caleb and his group and embarks on a cross-country trip up north the eastern seaboard. Along the way, she meets a myriad of kooky characters who obstruct her –– a neo-nazi history professor with a Lolita complex (Simon Rex), two animated directors (Jeremy O. Harris and Ayo Edebiri), a hot British Hollywood star (Jacob Elordi), and an incel gaffer (Rish Shah). Through the many ideological personalities she encounters, Lillian inadvertently gets thrown into wacky, vignetted situations that relate to many social cultures in contemporary America.
Sean Price Williams' The Sweet East marks the filmmaker's directorial debut after working as a DP for the Safdie brothers (Good Time), Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell), and Owen Kline (Funny Pages). All those features share a common ground: Williams' specialty in capturing outrageous, chaotic stories from an immersive, realistic super 16 lens that evokes a classic ‘90s indie feel. With how personalized the lenses are to his leads, Williams' camerawork keeps his audience on their toes, questioning what era a film takes place in. The same attributes apply to The Sweet East, in which Williams carries his signature style. The film's first few minutes are perplexing, for his home video camera incorporates a film-grained quality, and nonchalant uses of "retarded" had me assuming the flick took place in the early 2000s. Alas, that's not the case.
Williams’ natural shots and Lillian’s picaresque predicaments form an alternate, bizarro America. However, the film is exceedingly hyperbolized in tone. Across the many environments, Williams captures alluring dreamlike imagery, comparable to the "New Naturalism" movement, in which stories primarily set in exteriors find the protagonists adapting to their various surroundings. It's something Chloe Zhao achieved wonderfully with Nomadland (and prior works). In a way, Sweet East resembles Nomadland if all the occupants in the world were looney.
To his benefit, screenwriter Nick Pinkerton swiftly makes his audience aware of Sweet East's unseriousness. Lillian's adventure starts after a conspiracy theorist takes a pizza joint hostage, claiming the owner is a pedophile with a dungeon. To Lillian's surprise, the dungeon exists in the bathroom, where she has a moment singing an original indie pop tune to her mirror reflection. The tonal absurdity gradually increases with every character actor portraying an exaggerated representative of modern American subculture, especially on the far right side. Pinkerton takes glee in pushing the outlandishness in each scenario. Although the constant libertarian stance of the script is irritating, mocking far-right extremist culture in the late 2000s in the most non-PC way possible, as if it was an episode of South Park, is hilarious nonetheless.
Talia Ryder, who debuted in Eliza Hittman's incredible abortion drama Never Rarely Sometimes Always, heightens her naturalistic acting abilities, carrying the film and all its abnormalities. Ryder smashes the film's nihilistic tone through dry delivery and expressive judgment. She is as non-PC as her surroundings, representing the Southern culture and all the outdated linguistics that comes with her home territory. The central engagement comes not necessarily from Lillian's victimization of circumstance but from how she adapts to every group like a chameleon. As situations get more dire, Ryder upholds her poker face.
Regarding the supporting cast, Simon Rex singlehandedly makes the film peak at the end of its first act due to how he steals the show. As Lawrence, whom Lillian meets upon stumbling into a neo-nazi gathering, Rex epitomizes this nerdy, creepy, white supremacist professor persona—with a Rick Moranis voice. Hollywood wasted his talents on those Scary Movie sequels because that man is a chameleon in every American scumbag role he takes. Through Lawrence, Lillian uses her sexuality and innocence to get what she wants. Every scene between Ryder and Rex is stress-inducing for the reasons you think.
As a teenage runaway, Lillian is versatile but lacks consistency in character. She takes on different identities and personas on her journey without a phone and often expresses how she doesn't want to be on the grid. Then she's thrust into instant superstardom, appearing in magazines and tabloids by becoming an actress. For someone who wants to be “missing” and OFF THE GRID, she does a lousy job at it.
The Sweet East's American picaresque tale is painted with little respect for its occupants, giving a middle finger to its audience for taking it seriously. I was on board with its unhinged zaniness, but it quickly overstays its welcome. The pace spreads far too thin following Lawrence's exit, and the remaining personalities must continue his flame. And the middle-ground stance with the same hollow influence as Childish Gambino's "This is America" doesn't help its case.
Albeit hollow in commentary, The Sweet East is a funny American satire prospering from absurdist humor and naturalistic filmmaking, melded together by an astounding Talia Ryder.
