A Love Song (2022) – Movie Review

A Love Track, 2022.

Written and Directed by Max Walker-Silverman.
Starring Dale Dickey, Wes Studi, Michelle Wilson, Benja Okay. Thomas, John Means, and Marty Grace Dennis.

SYNOPSIS:

At a campground within the rural West, a lady waits alone for an previous flame from her previous to reach, unsure of his intentions whereas bashful about her personal.

There’s an early scene throughout author and director Max Walker-Silverman’s A Love Story the place the seven years-widowed Faye (underappreciated character actor Dale Dickey) has a uncommon second of socialization inside her campsite nomad life. She enjoys a stunning dinner with two girls (Michelle Wilson and Benja Okay. Thomas), one in every of which desires to get married whereas the opposite is nervous about that degree of dedication, even when it’s throughout her face that she is equally in love. At this second, Faye doesn’t have a lot recommendation when requested for enter.

Contemplating Faye wakes up each morning along with her arm wrapped round nothingness, it’s protected to say that she continues to be grieving. It could be even fairer to query if she is pondering whether or not this love was value it if it meant being left alone and brokenhearted for the remainder of her days. Dale Dickey wears these feelings fantastically and expressively over her physique language, because the quiet movie usually focuses on her day by day routine.

This entails catching and boiling seafood, coping with some strangers (primarily a younger woman talking on their behalf) that would love her to maneuver her cellular dwelling off of this specific campsite as they wish to dig up their relative and strikes the physique as a result of the view is not nice. The latter is the quirkiness anticipated from a Sundance film, however it doesn’t essentially match right here. And that’s not simply because the beautiful pictures from Alfonso Herrera Salcedo exquisitely captures these huge landscapes and mountains within the distance, successfully rendering their request muddled, however as a result of A Love Story doesn’t do a lot connecting these tales of the lifeless and remembrance. Even the lesbian couple doesn’t make one other look till the ending.

Faye is on the campsite to reunite with a childhood pal she has not seen in 4 many years. They’ve been exchanging letters for a while now; he’s additionally widowed and has given visible cues about how she’s going to know it’s him if he visits (he drives a silver automobile and has a giant black canine). Enhancing and scene transitions are one other spotlight of A Love Story, as we see a smash minimize to Faye woken up by that canine licking her face. Wes Studi’s (one other outstanding underrated actor) Lito is right here, with each performers convincingly promoting the awkwardness and uncertainty of what to say after 40 years of estrangement.

Slowly however certainly, Faye and Lito begin reminiscing about their childhood and romances (a lot of it left a imprecise as Lito was seemingly pleased to go distant from this place) and discussing their present lives, all whereas aiding each other by way of the grieving course of. A Love Story has some poetically shifting sequences involving a musical act, however the small, brief dialogues pierce deeper. It’s a passive story of reconnection with two usually supporting gamers on the high of their video games carrying a lyrically highly effective performing duet. To not point out, there are some unforgettably hanging pictures the place characters and natures optically turn into one.

A Love Story might lack depth in its bookends, however its center stretch of reunited buddies processing grief and love after love is soulful and heartrending. Not that anybody ought to have wanted proof, however it additionally cements Dale Dickey and Wes Studi as dependable, commanding leads masterful within the artwork of physique language and debut filmmaker Max Walker-Silverman as somebody to placed on the grid.

Flickering Fable Ranking – Movie: ★ ★ ★  / Film: ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Movie Critics Affiliation and the Critics Alternative Affiliation. He’s additionally the Flickering Fable Opinions Editor. Verify right here for brand new critiques, comply with my Twitter or Letterboxd, or e mail me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com

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