The Sweet East

I have never been to the east coast of North America but watching a film like The Sweet East informs me in surreal and unconventional fashion what a culturally specific and striking region it is. This is a film that won't be for everybody; it's terminally odd, episodic to the point of being untethered, fiercely dialogue driven in some areas and visually shocking in others, a challenging arthouse road picture shot on grainy film stock, wrestling through restless themes in unorthodox fashion with a protagonist who is just south of likeable and just north of antihero. Lillian (Talia Ryder) is a runaway teen who finds herself energetically propelled from one strange encounter to the next along the USA's eclectic eastern seaboard, meeting one bizarre character after another in a free flowing, stream of consciousness vernacular that feels like a twilight zone Americana heroes journey gone slightly awry. Going into this it felt very barebones indie but there are some jarringly recognizable faces peppered in amongst the ensemble including Ayo Edibiri (FX's The Bear), Jacob Elordi (Sofia Coppola's Priscilla) and a standout Simon Rex, an actor I know only for his goofy presence in Scary Movie 3 and whose verbose, eccentric middle aged scholar here was an utterly surprising addition. Many films like this strive to illustrate a sort of dark side to the American dream but this one starts Lillian at a place where that dream isn't even a feasible undertaking, and even when she achieves some semblance of it by accidentally stumbling into the film industry, it's quickly snatched away in almost cartoonishly violent, satirically grotesque form. Like it or hate it, a lot of beautiful creativity and thought (both conscious and unconscious) went into this film and I appreciate it for being such a singular piece of artistic expression. Plus who doesn't love weird s**t? It's like a poet hipster's answer to Midnite Movie grindhouse sensibility and that's something you don't see every day.