By Benjamin Angrisano
@bangrisano
In the modern twenties dating scene, a new slang term emerged within the last decade known as “cuffing season”. This is the time of year between October and March when the idea of a companion for young singles suddenly becomes much more attractive and they attempt to seek a suitable partner for riding out the cold winter months. This tends to culminate in Valentine’s Day with the subsequent Springtime giving way to a fresh start and new beginnings for at least one of them and often, but not always, their paths will tend to deviate from there. In the new film, Breakup Season, the first feature from writer/director H. Nelson Tracey, we are tossed into the middle of a fresh couple’s burgeoning cuffing season, but at that pivotal moment all successful cuffing seasons hinge upon; the holidays. The film itself provides the statistic that the most common day of the year to break up with someone is December 11th, two weeks before Christmas.
The film, which premiered in Texas (for the first time) the third night of the Waco Independent Film Festival, stars Chandler Riggs in his first adult leading role as Ben. He is best known as the child actor who portrayed Carl Grimes, the main protagonist’s son on AMC’s The Walking Dead (TWD). While Carl is no longer a player in TWD universe, after seeing his work in Breakup Season, Riggs should be grateful that his adult persona will not be associated with TWD’s intellectual property. It is interesting to compare his career to that of his AMC contemporaries from the network’s golden age, Kiernan Shipka (Sally Draper on Mad Men) and R.J. Mitte (Walt Jr. On Breaking Bad).
While Shipka had small roles in two major motion pictures last month, Longlegs and Twisters, we have not yet seen a major attempt from Mitte or Riggs to pivot to the silver screen until now. What a blessing it turned out to be that Chandler was written off that show! As anyone could tell you, it has not been up to its original standards in quite some time and his abilities are much better suited to sharper nuanced scripts such as the one presented to him here by Tracey. His co-star, Samantha Isler (Molly’s Game, Captain Fantastic), who has more experience with roles like the ones they are tackling here, stands out as perhaps the most authentic member of the cast; although Ben’s parents and siblings also all perform their roles pitch perfectly.
Ben’s sister Liz, portrayed in her feature film debut by Carly Stewart (Fragile.com, Uncradled), is an almost annoyingly optimistic Gen Z vlogger, who is supportive of the relationship if for no other reason than it will boost the plot of her viral blog.
While Jacob Wysocki (Unfriended, Pitch Perfect) makes a brass entrance as Ben’s older brother Gordon. Gordon is very verbally aggressive towards Ben’s girlfriend, Cassie, in the first dinner scene and nobody in the family stops him. Ben is politely weak and does not defend her as Gordon rather abrasively trivializes and mocks her life choices over family dinner. He stays silent and acts like it is a normal conversation. However later, his fear is very palpable when she confronts him about it as they are getting ready for bed.
He pivots to one of his Christmas presents for her, a pair of Santa Claus briefs that he’s wearing, and attempts to initiate sex by going down on her. She eventually closes her legs to him in rejection. His confusion about how he thought it would lighten the mood also demonstrates his lack of emotional intelligence. The notion that not being assertive enough to defend your girlfriend when your family disrespects her is solved by giving her submissive sexual favors demonstrates that he can only provide solutions that would work for him, without further consideration of how others think and feel.
He’s immature ultimately, and women often mature emotionally faster than men. So, we start to see the house through her eyes instead of Ben’s, and the POV softly shifts because our empathy is now wrapped up in her situation. The next morning when the family tries to help her book a flight home to be with her own family instead, they realize all flights are grounded due to inclement weather. This is where it starts to feel more like Jordan Peele’s Get Out because she’s trapped with them now. We’re trapped with them.
The writing in the film is what stands out the most and brings something distinct to the table. While many versions of Look Who’s Coming to Dinner or Dan in Real Life exist, and the set-up of bringing a girlfriend home to meet the whole family is not an inherently new idea, the most unique angle this film provides is its unflinchingly hyper-realistic view into what the situation would truly look like. Which I won’t lie, makes it a slightly harder film for me to write about because it’s a difficult movie to dwell on in some areas. Breakup Season shares a lot of DNA with Todd Field’s 2001 Best Picture nominee In the Bedroom, another unflinching family drama that does not go in the direction you’d expect.
It is a very internal experience watching Ben’s frustration and powerlessness in these situations with his entire immediate family bearing witness to his relational failures. At one point his father portrayed by James Urbaniak (Oppenheimer, The Fablemans) brings him out to a train track and tells him to yell what he’s been keeping inside as the train goes by to vent his frustration and his feelings about his life and his girlfriend. This is another example of the excellent fresh scenarios that come out in Tracey’s writing.
From this point on it morphs into what appears to be a seemingly well-written Hallmark movie. The family starts to gel more with Cassie, and she begins to enjoy her time with them and Ben as they share the holidays. The rest of the family begins to shine in this section as their dimensions slowly unpeel and we realize their flaws and strengths. Jacob Wysocki’s character has an excellent reveal and a tension-loosening scene where the mother demonstrates her aptitude for axe throwing was a highlight for me. Ultimately it ends rather untraditionally and makes a deeper point about family without falling into any overly saccharine sentimentality.
Attending my first film festival in Waco, TX was quite the treat. On the first night of my attendance there was a fun lively screening of Nightmare on Elm Street and on the second day there were quite a few short film genre panels. The times were all conflicting, so I chose to attend the short crime films. Of the short films I saw, the two that stuck with me long afterward were Cages as well as Caramel Productions’ World’s Shortest War. Cages, which tells the story of a woman who is driven to desperate measures to save her pet shop from foreclosure, was an entry from the UK that stood out due to the maturity of the actor’s performances. World’s Shortest War, the story of three young men who scramble to recover from a failed house robbery by doubling down and further robbing a pizza joint after doing drugs, is a riveting ride that channels the frenetic ephemeral energy of the Safdie Brothers.
While it did not receive as much award recognition due most likely to its rather abrupt and seemingly unfinished ending, the performances from the film’s writer Julian Enriquez, who wrote the true story about his father, as well as Skylar Okerstrom-Lang stand out as two young men to keep an eye out for much bigger things in the future. As with most of the shorts, they are a proof of concept, and I look forward to seeing the more complete projects of these promising stories come to fruition.
At the end of the festival, I was crowded near a table of winners including both Tracey and Riggs for Best Feature and Best Actor respectively. Seated next to them were a group of ladies from LA with their short film, Deliberate, written and directed by Marta Roncada, who won Best Drama Short.
I was graciously allowed a screener of Deliberate, which is also quite excellent and shares the undaunting realism of Breakup Season, but it struck me as bizarre that the leads in both Deliberate and Breakup Season are also my name, Benjamin, and Ben for short. While this coincidence is hopefully not indicative of my personal relationship dynamics, I found it to be another level of synchronicity that added to my overall experience at the Waco Film Festival. It was by some accounts I heard, both privately and during the acceptance speeches, the best festival people had seen.
I believe that a resurgence of this festival in the coming years is imminent and rightly so. The walkable nature of the fest as well as Waco’s welcoming Texas atmosphere contributes to the energy film festivals should aspire to make their attendants feel as they leave. Although we all had to breakup for a season, I for one cannot wait to return. #wacoindie
