The Sweet East, 2023.
Directed by Sean Price Williams.
Starring Talia Ryder, Earl Cave, Simon Rex, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy O. Harris, Jacob Elordi and Rish Shah.
SYNOPSIS:
A picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S undertaken by Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina. She gets her first glimpse of the wider world on a class trip to Washington, D.C.
Sean Price Williams will stay as one of the most interesting and dynamic cinematographers working today, but with his directorial debut The Sweet East, it is clear he has a bright future as a director too. His zany road trip film feels indisputably Williams in its texture and tone; he serves as DOP here as well as director, enforcing the loose-footed, freewheeling nature of Nick Pinkerton’s screenplay with handheld camerawork. There are a few stumbles along the way—mainly in The Sweet East’s messy and unsubtle navigation of modern America—but it is impossible not to be seduced by the film’s blend of gritty realism and trippy surrealism.
The Sweet East begins on a high school class trip to Washington D.C., and initially threatens to be a cringey journey of teenage angst. Swiftly, things switch up drastically, doing so consistently in wholly unpredictable ways. Student Lillian (a mesmerising Talia Ryder) abandons her schoolmates, beginning an up-and-down journey that takes her from left-wing political activist hubs to racist countryside meetups. Just like Lillian’s journey, The Sweet East tumbles forward fervently, hitting extreme highs and weaker lows.
One of the film’s most promising stretches comes early on, when Lillian starts living with a university professor with right-wing beliefs. Simon Rex shines in this role, and the pair’s onscreen chemistry is fantastic in depicting a highly odd relationship and its strange, ever-shifting power dynamics. In contrast, other aspects of Pinkerton’s story fall flat. After a particularly insane moment later in The Sweet East, it notably loses its footing and nosedives, treading water and fizzling out as opposed to raging on with its previous passion and potency. In general, The Sweet East’s structure causes some odd lurches in the plot and leaves many characters forgotten, but in many ways, that fleeting nature is representative of Lillian’s turbulent young life.
At the centre of the energetic vehicle that is The Sweet East is Ryder, who showed her acting skills in 2020’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always but fully shines in the lead here. Her character is a mostly closed book, a guarded figure on the cusp of adulthood, but despite this ambiguity Ryder remains highly watchable, never allowing her character’s mystery to become frustrating. Ryder is subtle but powerful, with cutting delivery and intense eyes that speak volumes for Lillian as a character. Rex is terrific in his supporting role, as are the comical Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy O. Harris.
The Sweet East is hyperactive and intense, which might tire even the most patient viewer out—yet it is this often exhausting quality that makes Williams’ film so alluring. It’s a full-blooded, raging affair that exists both as an amusing and terrifying treatise on America and its surge of right-wing extremism. It can be as on the nose as films can be, but subtly is never made out to be Williams or Pinkerton’s preference here.
The Sweet East’s cinematography is, unsurprisingly, exquisite, its grittiness and dynamism further elevated by an experimental original score and Stephen Gurewitz’s snappy editing. Perhaps most impressive is how Williams navigates the terror of modern society in America alongside such intense surrealism. Through this, we see even more starkly how frightening societies such as this can truly be.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
William Stottor
