Scenes From Sundance: The Linguists, Sunshine Cleaning

As January rolls around again, the movie industry takes a first class plane ride to Utah and dons it’s cold weather clothes for the Sundance Film Festival. Our reporter on the scene Audrey Hendrickson will be checking out the most hotly-tipped movies and telling us what we’ll be watching in 6 months:

It's my third year at Sundance, but the first time I've been here for opening weekend.  With good reason:  waaaaaay too many people for one tiny mountain town.  Take my advice and, even if there's really cheap airfare, skip the weekends and come for the week of the festival or you will end up spending more time standing in lines than sitting in the theaters.  Things always slow down come Monday, so I'm hoping for nonstop movies very soon. 

Here's what I managed to see on Saturday and Sunday

The Linguists is a documentary about two ethnography geeks intent on who traveling to places way off the beaten path to record endangered, languages.  The premise is fascinating, but the execution less so.  It's plenty interesting to watch these academics speak to the natives in Bolivia, India, or Siberia, but the film is paced oddly (plenty of time spent on each place in the beginning only to ultimately jump around between locales), and ends abruptly.  Seemingly the filmmakers are exploring the idea that colonization and, later, globalization force the world's poor to give up their language, culture, and identity, but this isn't clearly stated, which is a damn shame. 

Next up was Sunshine Cleaning, starring the two talented up-and-comers (Amy Adams and Emily Blunt) as sisters who break into the lucrative niche industry of crime scene cleanup, and don't you know it, wackiness and personal growth ensues.  The movie is good but not great, though the rest of the audience seemed to like it more than I did.  With a cute kid in tow and Alan Arkin as the ladies' crotchety old dad the film aims for Little Miss Sunshine Cleaning, but it just doesn't have the script to win the pageant.

And then there was Incendiary, featuring a fully formed female lead from the director who made Bridget Jones's Diary (who knew?).  Like Ms. Jones, the Brit in this tale (played with a more than passable accent by Michelle Williams) has to choose between a nice guy (Matthew MacFadyen) and a cad (Ewan McGregor).  But since the story takes place after a terrorist attack in London, this well-written, strongly acted, and strikingly shot film is about sex and grief in a time of tragedy. Now that's what we call a festival film.

Comments

[amanda]

i really want to see "sunshine cleaning"...super bummer to see it's not spectacular, however i think the combo of adams and blunt will be worth a viewing still.

[Kayla]

I saw "The Linguists" and I have to disagree strongly with the review. It is very engaging. The fast pace makes you feel like you are on the adventure with the linguists. I also do not feel it ends abruptly. It shows how these languages are finally recorded so that if they do in fact become extinct, we will have a record. And the film clearly states the effect of boarding schools on languages. The film is shot so beautifully and you are able to get a strong feel for each of the cultures represented. I think this film will appeal to younger audiences. It made a potentially boring subject palatable.