Dallas Film Festival 2014

In my sporadic quest to attend any and all film festivals I can, I made a brief appearance at the DALLAS FILM FESTIVAL on Friday, April 4th (also NCAA Final Four Weekend in North Texas) to catch the red carpet arrivals and see one film: LITTLE ACCIDENTS (USA). I would have gone to the opening night film (WORDS and PICTURES starring Clive Owen and the lovely Juliette Binoche), but at $50 a ticket--NOT including any kind of reception or party--I decided to spend my money at the Kimbell Museum of Art in Fort Worth listening to a classical Guitar Quartet from the UK (take THAT, pretentious Dallas!)

More on the film later, but I must start with the lovely actresses I spotted on the carpet prior to the evening's screenings:

Brina Michelle Palencia

 

Heather Kafka

- Brina Palencia stars in the indie horror flick LADIES OF THE HOUSE and attended North Texas and Weatherford High School (danke, IMDB!).

- Austin native Heather Kafka was here representing two films: JOE and ABOUT MOM AND DAD (and she looked lovely in a chic Black & White outfit).

Erin Elizabeth Reed

- The actress I really wanted to meet was the lovely ERIN ELIZABETH REED, making her Hollywood debut in David Gordon Green's JOE. We have so much in common! Texas natives; graduates of UT Law School; gave up a promising (and profitable) career at a high profile downtown Houston law firm -- me: Fulbright & Jaworski; her: Haynes & Boone -- to pursue a dream to be in the motion picture business (OK, her dream is closer to reality than mine...). AND she was in the "Assault and Flattery" musical troupe at UT, while I KNEW PEOPLE who were in "Assault and Flattery!" You go, Erin!

LITTLE ACCIDENTS (USA) - Directed by Sara Colangelo

Starring Elizabeth Banks; Boyd Holbrook; Jacob Lofland; Chloe Sevigny

Synopsis: "In a small West Virginia coal-mining town still living in the shadow of a terrible mine accident, the disappearance of a teenage boy draws together a surviving miner, the lonely wife of a mine executive, and a local boy in a web of secrets."

Sounds good, right? With support from Sundance (where it premiered this year), this film is inspired by Sara Colangelo's 2010 short film of the same name--but it is not a remake. She has created something new: a complex and moody piece about flawed characters in desperate situations. 

For her first feature, Colangelo elicits nuanced performances from her fine cast: Boyd Holbrook plays the surviving miner with sensitivity and shyness (a blue-collar Ryan Gosling, if you will). The young actor Jacob Lofland has quite a niche playing neglected, usually Southern boys (as he did in MUD and JUSTIFIED). But it is Elizabeth Banks who shines as the mine executive's wife: she communicates the range of conflicting emotions of her character -- guilt, neglect, passion -- with a raw but understated intensity. It is time we started thinking of Ms. Banks as more than a comedic actress.

The soundtrack and cinematography further enhance the mood of this self-assured debut feature. Nor does Colangelo shy away from the socio-economic-environmental tensions surrounding the mining industry and the communities it both provides for and exploits.  I can't wait for her next film.