Recently, I attended the 58th Chicago International Film Festival. I was able to attend 3 films. This is the first of the three subsequent reviews fro, the festival.
Marian Mathias’s 2022 film Runner is a visually arresting film. Each shot has masterfully executed composition and feels worthy of being a photograph: a separate piece of art by itself and in its own right. The cinematography is steeped in a profound sense of stillness. And this stillness is matched by the film’s very limited sound and score, as well in the performances by the cast. Everything is still. And this stillness is the perfect characterization of its setting: the middle-of-nowhere Midwest during a purposefully ambiguous time (the film feels largely as though it is set out of time).
The 18-year-old Hass (Hannah Schiller) has to cope with the death of her father Alvin (Jonathan Erickson Eisley), as well as the economic burden he has left her with, having failed to earn an actual income or pay off any debts during his life. She must travel from nowhere Iowa to nowhere Illinois, the birthplace of her father, to have him buried. While she is there, a heavy rain makes it impossible to have him buried for a couple days. During her stay in the town, she develops a relationship with a young man, only to leave him when she must return to Iowa after her father is buried.
The stillness of performances and cinematography is also matched in its plot and characters, although this time to the film’s detriment. By the end, the film wants us to believe a change has been undergone. But if there is change in Haas, it is not palpable. Certainly, she seems happier around the young man, but when she returns home, she feels the same as she always has, despite the film’s insistence that she has changed.
Speaking of her mood around the boy, this change feels largely out of nowhere. She does not grow after meeting him, but instead it is like a switch is flipped. There is a near immediate sense of trust that I am especially skeptical about, given the lack of relationships she had before she met him. The only person she ever really interacted with was her father, and even then there were problems with their dynamic. So this spark of trust is a little tough to sell.
On another note, I struggle with much of the dialogue. Oftentimes there are moments where it feels really overwrought. The dialogue wants to be and is trying to be poetic. It wants to be and tries to be meaningful. But in this, it loses power and comes across rather painfully. It feels like somebody wrote the lines and thought they said something profound. But in reality, all it is is, once again, overwrought. A screenplay filled with sweet nothings.
There is so much beauty in the craftsmanship of Runner, especially the cinematography and composition. But at the same time, there are deep rooted problems, most notably the weak plot and try-hard dialogue. The narrative elements do not live up to the standard that the film creates for itself in its visuals. By the end, I’d say it is worth it to see for the visual beauty alone, but do not expect to walk away in any way changed or different. Perhaps that’s why I’m struggling to find anything else to say at this point: there really isn’t much there to talk about. A box masterfully decorated, containing nothing. I might be forgiving of this, if the box didn’t constantly assert that actually, it is filled to the brim with riches.
