SFIFF Dispatch. 4.

Miles Matthew Montalbano wrote and directed this earnest debut feature, a low-budget indie with provocative aspirations - ultimately, though, Revolution Summer [site] is not consistent or energetic enough to carry us through to some place new. The film is essentially about the main characters' search for meaning, which is frankly an indie film's code phrase for "there is no actual plot here." They go to parties, they wander around morosely, there are Jonathan Richman songs on the soundtrack (which are hard to complain about), they hurt each other's feelings, and wander around morosely some more.

Mackenzie Firgens, showing real growth as an actress since Groove and Quality of Life, makes for an appealing lead as Hope, a good-hearted, passionate young woman with no real sense of direction. The problem with the film overall is that the characters feel more like philosophizing mouthpieces than three-dimensional beings. Hope's friend Francine (Lauren Fox, who starred in the underrated indie horror film Noon Blue Apples) is an egregious example of this, a poorly drawn character who drinks heavily (out of a paper bag even, in case we didn't get that she had a drinking problem) while espousing her nihilistic viewpoint on her friends. Samuel Child is appealing enough as Frankie, a mixed-up pseudo-revolutionary Hope meets at a bar with anarchistic aspirations and commitment problems, but the character never really gels consistently. Frankie also gets involved in a tacked-on crime subplot which feels like it belongs in another film, though it does provide us with one of the film's genuinely amusing moments, a bizarro turn by local singer-songwriter Chuck Prophet as a drug dealer. In fact, the film could use more of this kind of ironic sense of humor about itself, and about its characters' pretensions.

Our era's political disillusionment and general post-9/11 angst is not an easy topic to handle in a novel way. Revolution Summer earns props for trying, and its heart lies in the right place and aims for something deeper, but, given the lack of any real center or interesting characters, it is ultimately hard to care. On the plus side, the photography by Christian Bruno and KC Smith is nicely naturalistic (after a literally shaky beginning) that fittingly reflects the restlessness. There's some good local flavor, as the film was shot both in Oakland and San Francisco, a few nice touches (like a recurring bit with a running toilet, an Oakland street preacher) adding some depth of field. But whatever its good intentions, the script feels like it needed a few more drafts before the shooting started. Revolution? Bummer.

Posted by dwhudson at May 5, 2007 4:01 AM