Tahara

Not sure what the directorial and production decisions were that that led to this movie being made in a portrait rather than landscape format (claustrophobia?) But it didn't work.

For the rest of it.... LBGT teen angst.....meh.

Tahara (2020) was directed by Olivia Peace. According to a website, "Olivia Peace (she/they) is a queer black interdisciplinary artist from Detroit, Michigan living in Los Angeles." This film was completed during their fellowship year at the Sundance Institute.

The movie stars Madeline Grey DeFreece as Carrie Lowstein, Rachel Sennott as Hannah Rosen, and Daniel Taveras as Tristan Leibotwitz. There's an unusual triangular plot line that's obviously important to director Peace.

However, the core of the story--for me--is that the three young people are in a synagogue at a memorial service for one of their classmates. It turns out that the young woman committed suicide, presumably because she was shunned by her peers.

However, director Peace skews away from this important plot to concentrate on Carrie, Hannah, and Tristan. The plot involving these three didn't really work for me, so I didn't enjoy the film.

It's interesting that Tahara was filmed inside Temple Beth-El of Rochester, NY. Temple Beth-El should be commended for allowing a movie involving lesbian attraction to be completed inside the synagogue.

Some day director Peace may be a famous cinematic celebrity, and people will search out this film to see their early work. However, for me, the movie has "student production" in every frame. It's rough around the edges, and the acting isn't great. Everyone has to start somewhere.

We saw Tahara as part of Rochester's wonderful ImageOut LGBT Film Festival. (Virtual this year.) This movie has only a handful of IMDb ratings, but so far it's rated at 7.4. I didn't think it was that good, and rated it 6.

Carrie Lowstein (Madeline Grey DeFreece) and Hannah Rosen (Rachel Sennott) are best friends in Hebrew school. Their classmate had killed herself and the whole class attends the funeral. Hannah is only obsessed with kissing Tristan. She begs Carrie to kiss her so to check if she's any good. The kiss awakens something in Carrie.

This is a small black comedy indie. There is a bit of experimenting with the aspect ratio. It's not as problematic on a smaller TV. I have to assume that a theater would be a problem. The black comedy isn't that funny. There are only a few mildly humorous moments. More than anything, it becomes quite interesting with the revelations about the suicide. Hannah gets dark. I have to question this friendship.

Tahara was very indie and I will admit that I was slightly bored during the first half. I really loved the style of the film though, and it had unique vibe, so I kept watching despite some rough acting. Then, just over half way through the runtime, the script took a turn and everything clicked into place. I was really, really impressed by this unique take on a teen drama and I am definitely going to watch this again in the future!

I clicked on this movie primarily because of Rachelle Sennott, and her delivery completely carried the comedy. Her dry and awkward flavor of humor is as strong as ever here, and I cannot see anyone else playing her character and making it work.

Not to take away from those who acted in this but who ever decided to shoot it the way its been shot as well as the picture used on the cover shows they make very poor decisions or at the most have no talent. I mean the cover photo is absolutely horrendous!

Again not to say anything bad about the acting or even the subject matter of the film but closed and claustrophobic shooting style as well as limited shooting locations I feel is going to put off a lot of people.

I'm far from a teen so felt a bit strange and little perverse watching this film but irregardless this is an adult and not a teen movie.