Kerry Brown
We revealed batch one of our Sundance superheroes yesterday, and now fresh from the fire comes batch No. 2. You may already be acquainted with some of the talents below, but from this day forward, make sure to lock down those Google Alerts. We expect a lot of chatter around these writers, directors, and performers in the months to come.
Saoirse Ronan (above)
In its absurdly premature Oscar-handicapping post about the Sundance Film Festival, Variety spotlighted the week’s biggest financial fish, Brooklyn, saying it was anchored by a “career-best performance” from Saoirse Ronan. We’re not saying she won’t be nominated for an Academy Award—for a second time—but we will say she’s been doing equally great work since her first Oscar nod back in 2008. This time, she just had a script on par with her talents. Ronan has always been ahead of her time and just left of the mainstream. She’s been a super hero (Hanna), a vampire (Byzantium) and a post-apocalyptic survivor (How I Live Now), all without safety nets like the Marvel universe or a massive YA franchise. She’s worked under the direction of Peter Jackson, Wes Anderson, and Edgar Wright. And she’s almost 21. Ronan had two features at Sundance this year—the aforementioned Brooklyn plus Stockholm, Pennsylvania—and she brought us to our knees in both. The Irish immigrant Ellis Lacey and the abduction survivor Leia couldn’t have had more different lives, but Ronan imbued both with such heart and authenticity, each felt as real as the person sitting next to us. In a festival filled with great movies built around tremendous performances, Ronan walks away as our Festival Best Actress award without question.
David Robert Mitchell
David Robert Mitchell
It’s really easy to get carried away with superlatives when you’re describing a movie you absolutely loved. Cinematic taste is incredibly subjective, especially with horror movies. The question of “What scares you?” begets a very personal answer. The Shining may be a legit better movie, but if someone has a hangup about demonic invasion, The Possession of Michael King may very well be the more ruinous viewing experience. It takes all kinds, guys! So we’re not going to sit here and say It Follows is one of the best contemporary horror movies you could possibly hope to watch. Instead, we will refer you to the Bloody Disgusting review in which they call it a “classical horror masterpiece” … then we won’t disagree. And it’s all thanks to the movie’s captain, David Robert Mitchell, who directed It Follows with such deftness and intelligence it’s like he was born for this specific purpose. The concept, the visual restraint, the sound editing, the application of a nerve-tearing score by Disasterpeace, the casting—if we hadn’t been screaming it’s almost as if we would have heard Mitchell willing his editing team to be patient to affect maximum dread: “Wait. Wait. Not now. Let them feel it … OK, now DESTROY THEM!” We can’t wait to see what’s next from Mitchell, but if he decided to hang up his hat right now, we’d just be grateful for It Follows.
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