SXSW Film Fest, Day 2: "Prince Avalanche," "Drinking Buddies," & More

Image via Complex Original

Director: Joe Swanberg
Stars: Olivia Wilde, Jake Johnson, Anna Kendrick, Ron Livingston, Ti West, Jason Sudeikis, Frank V. Ross, Mike Brune
Running time: 90 minutes
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Score: 8/10

Joe Swanberg's first foray into mainstream-accessible filmmaking, Drinking Buddies, couldn't come at a better time for the rom-com genre. Diluted in recent years by a barrage of trite carbon copies, cinematic love stories are in dire straits, which is why Drinking Buddies is such a formidable injection of new blood. Give credit to indie stalwart Swanberg's experience working in the lo-fi movie scene, where his improv-based sensibilities (we're not gonna say mumblecore) have all led to this moment.

With Drinking Buddies (written, directed, and edited by Swanberg), he dabbles in the familiar tropes of the rom-com and then cleverly subverts them, all without making a forced point of it. The film feels as breezy and loose as his previous efforts—only this time, he's working with some big names. Olivia Wilde and Jake Johnson star as a couple of beer-loving pals who work at a Chicago brewery together and, unbeknownst to them, have similar romantic lives: They're each dating someone with whom they're not entirely compatible (played by Ron Livingston and Anna Kendrick, respectively).

A weekend couples' getaway leads to a conflict that, at first, seems telegraphed, as if Swanberg was falling victim to romantic storytelling conventions. But as Drinking Buddies proceeds, with the genuine laughs stacking up and the actors continuing to give naturalistic and charming performances, it becomes clear that Swanberg knows exactly what rom-com haters are expecting, and he keeps zigging where others would be zagging.

Drinking Buddies is the opposite of a Hollywood romance. Which makes it all the more crucial that Hollywood types pay attention.

Director: Hannah Fidell
Stars: Lindsay Burdge, Will Brittain, Jennifer Prediger, Julie Dell Phillips, Jonny Mars, Chris Doubek
Running time: 76 minutes
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Score: 9/10

As the old saying goes—and the prophetic Nasir Jones once turned this into a song title—no idea's original.

When it comes to storytelling, what matters is how one gets to the heart of a narrative, not the narrative itself. Case in point: Hannah Fidell's taut character study A Teacher. It's centered around a familiar concept, that of an attractive high school instructor conducting a secret love affair with one of her male students. Notes on a Scandal, much?

Yet, regardless of her script's surface-level familiarities, Fiddell's devastating knockout of a motion picture (which first caught a strong buzz during January's Sundance Film Festival) never feels rudimentary. Creating a pair of believable, honest characters, she's delivered a controlled and intricately volatile moment in time: the phase of the student/teacher relationship in which one person's sexual interest transforms into infatuation.

Ms. Diana Watts (newcomer Lindsay Burdge in a powerhouse turn) is an Austin, TX, high school English teacher whose obsession with likable hunk Eric (the equally strong Will Brittain) is leaving her in a perpetual state of on-the-verge internal combustion. Fidell takes full advantage of Burge's dynamite face, keeping the camera fastened on Burge's reaction to news of a freshman female's recently discovered, topless camera phone pic (which brings to mind a photo Watts took for Eric). Burge conveys near eruption without so much as blinking.

As A Teacher swiftly moves towards its intelligent and downbeat resolution, Fiddell captures a mood that's reminiscent of Michael Haneke's similarly dour The Piano Teacher—and that's one lofty compliment. Once her film receives its Labor Day release via Oscilloscope Laboratories, you'll appreciate the comparison.

Director: Vincenzo Natali
Stars: Abigail Breslin, Stephen McHattie, Peter Outerbridge, Michelle Nolden, David Hewlett
Running time: 97 minutes
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Score: 8/10

Vincenzo Natali does what every filmmaker should do: He always takes big creative risks. In his 1997 debut, Cube, the American-Canadian director brought a little Franz Kafka into violent science fiction; 12 years later, he reinvented the Frankenstein mythos with the perverse creature feature Splice. For Natali, genre movies provide a platform for rich, intelligent, and ambitious ideas, and he applies that philosophy to his latest film, Haunter (which had its world premiere last night at SXSW). This time, he's left the science behind in favor of a supernatural backdrop: the haunted house.

Written by Brian King, Haunter is a twisty, brain-warping take on domesticated ghosts from the point-of-view of an actual spirit. In that way, it has a lot in common with The Others, except here the viewer knows from the first frame that the protagonist, Lisa (Abigail Breslin, who plays front-and-center terrifically), is already dead, as are her parents and little brother. Thing is, they don't realize that, a la Groundhog Day, they've been endlessly repeating the exact same day—more specifically, the day before Lisa's 16th birthday. There's always macaroni-and-cheese for lunch, meatloaf for dinner, Murder She Wrote to watch before bedtime, and some clarinet practice for Lisa. But then, one day, little details about the routine changes, and as Lisa slowly figures out why, Haunter quickly enters a rabbit hole of nightmarish horror, dreamlike visuals, and time-leaps.

To give anything else about Haunter away would be criminal, since the film will work best for those who know little beyond what I've just described. It's not a spoiler, however, to say that Natali's unnerving film is dealing with some very challenging material, both of the thematic (be warned, little ones die just as graphically as adults) and narrative varieties. King's script demands a great deal from viewers, and those watching Haunter casually will probably feel bewildered as the film enters its no-holds-barred finale, triggered by a standout sequence in which Natali frames the house as a cigarette-burned reel come to life, complete with jerky character motions, as if they're walking on a jumping turntable.

The haunted house movie is one of the horror genre's oldest staples, and it's been done so much to death that Marlon Wayans recently made a spoof about the current wave of ghost-home flicks. Throughout Haunter, though, Natali maintains a palpable sense of far-reaching invention that, most impressive of all, holds up as the film ends and you start piecing everything together that happened in an effort to find any possible holes. This house is built on a sturdy foundation, its bricks comprised of original ideas, repurposed elements from classics like The Shining, and startling imagery.