SFIFF: Everyday People.

Not as perfect as his Our Song, but almost as emotionally engaging, Jim McKay's Everyday People is an occasionally affected but ultimately rewarding drama set in a Brooklyn restaurant, a neighborhood institution threatened with extinction by impending development. The story takes place over the course of 24 emotional hours, following the lives of people affected by the restaurant's fate. The opening act is a bit clunky, more didactic and over-earnest than McKay's past work. Perhaps a victim of the film's origins - it was developed through a workshop process and inspired by a collection of real life American race-related stories - the first section merely serves to set up the character logistics; if you can forgive the occasionally preachy dialogue and afterschool special-ish feel, Everyday People will soon work its magic on you. This is Barbara Ehrenreich's America, a nation of people struggling to stay above the poverty line, the America you rarely see in film or television.

Like fellow indie auteur John Sayles, McKay has a gift for weaving in multiple character storylines with a sincere political agenda and a naturalistic style that makes one forgiving of its flaws. He gets the most out of his cast of relative unknowns, with especially memorable performances from Billoah Greene, charismatic and moving as a young man leaving for Howard University, and Bridget Barkan, achingly real as Joleen, the cashier and single mom who keeps alive the McKay tradition of offering portraits of young women with amazing depth and humanity. Less successful (although he, too, grew on me) are Jordan Gelber, about as exciting as potato salad in a key role as Ira, the owner who plans to sell the restaurant to upscale developers, and Stephen Axelrod as Sol, the ex-con dishwasher who's seen it all - he's probably "real" but I still found him grating. But in an ensemble piece like this, it's how well all the parts ultimately fit together that matters and here the actors' compassion for their characters comes through. Wrapped around a fine, urban-folksy score by Marc Anthony Thompson (who appears in the film himself), it all harkens back to early 70s-era Altman.

Shot by Russell Lee Fine (McKay's Girls Town and numerous other indie features) with a startlingly clear, composed eye, the film's loveliest scene may be its quietest, in which the young poetess (Sydnee Stewart) sits on a subway train observing the people around her; it's an almost transcendental moment. Everyday People is a warm, rich mosaic of a film that will just make you want to give it a big hug at the end. Made for HBO Films, it will premiere nationwide on HBO June 26.

Posted by dwhudson at April 16, 2004 9:05 AM