I Review Something

Sundance 2012 – Day Five

6:00 pm
The End of Love
at SLC Library in Salt Lake
My Score – 91

Have you ever had a film hit all the right notes for you, maybe not because it was the most well-executed or scripted, but simply because of the synchronicity between you and the filmmaker? That happened for me tonight at The End of Love, a film that simply drips with a father’s love for his child.

In a rather impressive feat, the writer, director, and star of the film Mark Webber improvised scenes with his own son Isaac, an hour at a time, to create the story of a single father in Hollywood, trying to get work while mourning the death of his wife. With that kind of a premise, there would be plenty of room for the usual Sundance gloomy take on life. Instead, Webber creates these beautiful, authentic scenes that are steeped in the feelings of fatherhood, the desire to connect, to teach, to help an emerging life grow. It isn’t the mostly quickly paced film, instead becoming an exploration of the feelings of want, the panic of economic realities, and eventually dealing with issues of life and death. I cannot say enough about how deeply this film affected me, not only as a father, but as a child who lost a parent. Every scene rang true to me, both from the perspective of the adult and from that of the child. Given that his stated intent was to create an emotional reality between the father and son characters, Webber’s film couldn’t be any more successful.

9:00 pm
Room 237
at Broadway Cinema VI in Salt Lake
My Score – 83

Movies seen thus far: 15
Today’s Favorite: The End of Love
Festival Favorite: Indie Game