Originally Premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT Selection.
"The Cathedral" is about during the late '80s and early '90s, the Damrosch family's only child, Jesse, watches his family's quiet rise and fall. This is the Third Feature film from Ricky D'Ambrose and while I am not an fan of Avant-garde style of filmmaking, D'Ambrose approach on melodrama and family surprised did work on me.
The film explores themes of growing up, family dysfunctional, and time as the direction really helps to build up time and growth. D'Ambrose is able to take a unique style of both narrative and somewhat documentary feeling about a family story which is based loosely from D'Ambrose's life. There are many uses of newsreels of live footages from famous events to add to context of time and changes to express the films exploration of the character's growing up years and it really worked out.
The performances from the cast are all pretty good although certain performances felt wooden, the sound design is good and the dialogue is pretty realistic and nature as it feels like a real life conversation. The pacing is one of the weaker elements as it does drag a little and as I mentioned, because some performances are wooden, it did felt a little messy when the writing and tone plays together. But it didn't bother me too much.
Overall, it's an interesting take about a simple family melodrama that worked with me. I don't recommend to everyone since it's not a popcorn kind of film and mainly for art house lovers. But if you are interested. Check it out
Rating: B+
