Bound, 2025.
Directed by Isaac Hirotsu Woofter.
Starring Alexandra Faye Sadeghian, Jessica Pimentel, Ramin Karimloo, Pooya Mohseni, Aaron Dalla Villa, Bryant Carroll, Jaye Alexander and Alok Tewari.
SYNOPSIS
In order to escape her drug-dealing, abusive stepfather, a young introvert flees to NYC. After successfully reinventing herself, she realizes she must confront her dark past to truly be free.
Navigating the indie film market can be tough. Finding the money and then finding suitable distribution in the hope of finding the right kind of audience is an uphill battle. With the best will in the world, you may want to make the next Paris, Texas, but face a market that really just wants the next low-budget horror based on a public domain property. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Despite the rising popularity of A24, Neon, Black Bear and others of that ilk, seeking to make auteur-driven pictures, the direct-to-streaming arena has not had many distributors step forth to make smaller scale equivilants. However, occasionally, a film slips through the net.
Bound, from writer and director Isaac Hirotsu Woofter, is one such (all too disappointingly rare anomaly). The film is intense and intimately character-driven, as the introverted Bella, fed up of witnessing her mother struggle with addiction and shaking free of an abusive relationship with her stepfather, skips town and heads to New York. There, she initially struggles without money or a roof over her head until she meets some rare good-natured folk who help her get some grounding. It’s never that easy in cinema, though, and her past soon catches up with her and collides with her new present.
Of course, when it comes to getting indie dramas off the ground without star names or a well-established ‘name’ in the producer credits, those that do find their way from script to screen to release need to be good. Thankfully, Bound is just that. Evoking early Sean Baker, Woofter brings together an excellent cast and gives them idiosyncratic and interesting characters.
The protagonist, Belle, is engagingly flawed and compelling. Still fairly fresh into the crushing realities of adulthood, she’s also slow to trust and quick to self-sabotage. The quirky addition of a pet flying squirrel is just one of several effective character touches throughout. As Belle, Alexandra Faye Sadeghian is incredible. The film rarely leaves her gaze, and a lot is resting on her shoulders. She’s able to project so much complexity, even with a character who doesn’t say much. When the bigger emotional moments come, Sadeghian is equally adept at letting it all out and breaking your heart for good measure.
Casting in indie pictures can be really tough. There’s time and money to consider. The short version is that sometimes the surrounding support cast may be whoever is easy to get in rather than someone who might truly inhabit the character. Woofter avoids those pitfalls, bringing together a group of broadway veterans who step in and elevate the rest of the key characters. Jessica Pimentel, Ramin Kaminloo, Pooya Mohseni, Alok Tewari and Jaye Alexander are excellent. Bryant Carroll really stands out as Gordy, too, not merely playing the abusive stepfather one dimensionally but making him multifaceted, able to flip from reprehensible to tragic and pathetic.
As the film sets up its last act, it threatens to potentially take things into more formulaic thriller territory, but thankfully manages to just about tread the line and retain its emotional core. Some twists in the tale felt a touch too coincidental, given the subtlety of the film preceding it to that point.
On all technical fronts, it’s incredibly polished. The cinematography (Maximilian Lewin, Jake Simpson) is excellent, the locations are eye-catching and earthy, and the score from Ethan Startzman is complimentary and atmospheric. Bound is definitely a film worth checking out, with first-rate performances from top to bottom and an engaging and emotionally powerful story. Not always an easy watch with its hard-hitting themes, but the film has so much sincerity. Dear indie filmmakers, let’s see more like this, please.
Bound is due to hit streaming in May.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Tom Jolliffe
