"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Friday, April 10, 2020

Fast Color (2018, PG-13)


Today, I’m staying home for manufacturing workers in critical industries.

Very cool movie. I heard about it a while back, when it was first getting distribution, but I didn’t have a chance to see it until recently. Some of my favorite parts about superhero movies/shows are always the ways that the heroes’ powers are woven into their everyday lives, and this film, an intimate kitchen-sink drama set amid superpowers, is totally my jam.

Ruth, on the run by government scientists who want to study her powerful, uncontrollable abilities, returns to the home she abandoned years ago, where she reunites with her mother Bo, who’s been raising Ruth’s daughter Lila in her absence. The three generations of the family come together again as Ruth seeks a way to get a handle on her abilities and reforge relationships long since splintered.

Not so much a “superhero” movie as a movie about people with superpowers. Bo, Ruth, and Lila all have inherited abilities passed down the matrilineal line. While Bo and Lila can unstitch matter, unraveling it into fragments and then putting it back together again, Ruth’s abilities are much more destructive for unknown reasons. Her nightly “seizures” cause earthquakes, and she’s spent years running from the damage and danger her powers can wreak, shying away from those she might hurt unintentionally and hiding from those who would treat her like a lab experiment.

Bo and Lila have spent their lives on the family farm, with Lila dreaming of seeing what’s out there. Ruth’s arrival throws everything out of whack. Aside from the threat of the government scientists chasing her, her presence sends shockwaves through the family dynamic. Bo, as much as she cares for her daughter, is still angry with her for running away and doesn’t want Ruth to put Lila in any danger. Lila is floored by revelations about her family history that was kept from her, and while Bo holds up Ruth as a cautionary tale about the importance of staying in hiding, Lila longs to break out of the generations-long isolation as her mother did. And for Ruth, her issues with her powers are all wrapped up in her relationships with both Bo and Lila, and in repairing those, she just might find a way to start repairing herself as well.

It’s an excellent story, deeply personal and female-focused in a way that imbues the film with that fact without calling attention to it. The relationships remain the focus, and the incredible powers (Bo and Lila’s are gorgeously rendered, by the way) are a vehicle through which to explore this young woman, her mother, and her daughter. It sucked me in all the way, and the emotions of the piece definitely swept me away at times, especially in and around the affecting climax.

I don’t recall if the trailer had any reference to the movie’s setting, a middle-America ravaged by a years-long drought. It’s the kind of light sci-fi-ish/dytopian-ish backdrop that, rather than reframes the world the characters inhabit, nudges it just slightly askew from the one we know. I like the little notes and nods we get, like an old journal entry about young Ruth standing at the edge of a dry lake, notices put up about the penalties of wasting water, and a stray comment about no longer remembering what a proper cup of coffee tastes like. While these details are a bit secondary to the main story, they add a little extra interest to the proceedings.

The cast is fantastic. Gugu Mbatha-Raw, who I’ll always remember as Martha’s sister Tish on Doctor Who but who I’ll always adore as Dido in Belle, takes the lead as Ruth. She’s damaged and guarded, she tries to eschew responsibility even as she’s hounded by guilt, and she fears the power inside of her without recognizing her true potential. Lorraine Toussant’s Bo is a salt-of-the-earth woman who’s had powers so long they no longer feel remarkable to her, and her driving need to protect her family can sometimes get in the way of her relationships with them. Saniyya Sidney capably brings Lila to life, whip-smart and good with her hands, proud of what she can do and chafing under the constraints that Bo has placed on her. All three play beautifully off of each other, and they’re joined by David Strathairn in a smaller role, playing the local sheriff on Ruth’s trail.

Warnings

Violence, language, and smoking/drug references.

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