Film Review

Production Company: Fourth Ward Productions

Written and Directed by: John Schwert

Principal Actors: Brett Gentile, Burgess Jenkins, Brian Lafontaine, Mark Scarboro, Tiffany Montgomery, Andrea Powell

Screening Date: September 20, 2009 Kansas International Film Festival

Film length: 98 minutes

Rating: unrated

Reviewed by Deborah Ground Buckner

John Schwert enjoyed widespread success with his first feature film, Among Brothers, based on an unsolved murder of a college student in 1994. The film screened at seventeen international film festivals, earned a two-hour feature story spot on Dateline NBC, and went into release in 2007. Schwert follows this with his second feature film, the fictional story In/Significant Others.

In/Significant Others provides a dark look at relationships and manipulation, filmed in a shadowy noir style. The story unfolds through a documentary in progress that incorporates more and more people whose lives begin to intertwine in a police investigation of a murder.

Cam (Brett Gentile) is a low-level television station employee convinced he can advance his career by filming one good story. He chooses as his subject Jack Rizzo (Brian Lafontaine), a semi-successful stand-up comic. To learn more about Jack's life, Cam interviews his brother, Greg (Mark Scarboro), who has left a series of different jobs to try to follow in his brother's footsteps—with much less success. Jack's fiancée, Joanne (Gretchen McGinty) and her sister, Susan (Aerli Austen) also provide fodder. A poker game with the brothers and camera crew introduces Cam to Bruce (Burgess Jenkins), recently returned after 26 months of duty in Iraq. Deciding Bruce may be a better story, Cam also interviews Bruce's wife, Salem (Tiffany Montgomery), and her friend, Christina (Andrea Powell).

In the beginning, it seems like a lot of characters to introduce in a film, and it is difficult to keep track of them all. But as the story advances, more and more about each character and his or her life and relationships are revealed. The news of the murder of the mayor's son sets off a police investigation that leads officers to two suspects seen leaving a club where Jack was performing. The police ask to see the footage Cam filmed from that night, and soon everyone is involved in the investigation. As Cam often says, “the camera always negotiates the truth.”

Cinematographer Kenneth Wilson II uses dark filming and eerie shadows surrounding deserted streets and rundown buildings to add to the overall sense of secrets and intrigue. The original music by Anthony Short emphasizes the mood. Burgess Jenkins, as the returned soldier trying to re-connect with his wife and right the wrongs that occurred in his absence, gives a performance charged with desperation, and Tiffany Montgomery, as his wife, Salem, displays a wide range of emotion, always seeming on the verge of shattering. As the cool Christina, Andrea Powell, personifies the manipulation underlying this riveting work.

For more information, visit http://www.4wproductions.com/in-significant-others.

Written by :

Deborah

 

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