The best performances are often the ones that ask actors to play something very far from themselves, putting on a different skin and tapping into emotions and worldviews that aren’t familiar for them. But bringing some lived experience into a role can also be helpful, especially for work on the stage when audiences can watch closely and see the expressions on actors’ faces. Their Town uses the pretense of two leads running lines to explore a much deeper connection that they’re not aware that they have, spinning a beautiful story of human relationships in the process.
Abby (Ora Duplass) is starring in the school play opposite her boyfriend Tyler (Will Parker), but when he drops out, their frazzled teacher Mr. Elliot (Jeffery Self) chooses someone at random to fill his part, settling on Matt (Chosen Jacobs), who is quietly painting sets before he’s told that he’s now the new lead. Abby and Matt opt to take some time to go over their lines and soon discover, as they first visit her house and then his, that they have a shared past which feels like a lifetime ago. Through scattered interactions with the key people in their lives and a series of lengthy conversations, they get to know each other over the course of one winter night out in Bangor, Maine.
This is the latest collaboration between husband-and-wife team Mark Duplass and Katie Aselton, back at SXSW after last year’s Magic Hour. Neither appears in this film, but Aselton directs a script by Duplass, which stars their daughter Ora in her first feature film role. Keeping things in the family is a fabulous decision as the younger Duplass delivers a layered, inviting performance as someone who others think is popular but is dealing with her own indignities that she tries not to present to the outside world. This may be her first time leading a film, but it should by no means be the last.
Jacobs has been acting for longer and presents the perfect performance to match Ora’s, much more initially reserved and slowly opening to casual flirtation and then a pushier effort to get her to talk about the things she doesn’t want to say. Together, they’re mesmerizing, capturing the attention of audiences as they discuss their families, their histories, and how they’re feeling in the current moment. They’ve never spoken before this night but feel impossibly close now, and the believability of that sentiment is due entirely to the commitment and chemistry of these two performers.
This film has a simple setup, focused almost entirely on these two people talking to each other. But that allows more than sufficient opportunity for character-building and rich dialogue as they ask each other initially innocuous questions and then get into more incisive, serious matters that threaten to derail an otherwise magical night. There’s something whimsical about these two roaming the streets without any sense of time or commitments to take them away from the little world they’ve created together.
Aselton directed her first film, The Freebie, back in 2010, and every successive project has been very different. The much darker Black Rock was followed by the infinitely lighter Mack & Rita, which, like this film, she doesn’t appear in as an actress. She and Duplass have obviously developed a rich professional partnership to match their personal one, and bringing their daughter into the fold in their latest project is a wondrous choice that shows confidence in her ability which fortunately should also be perceptible to audiences. Their Town is simple but sweet and extremely compelling, finding nuance in a number of very worthwhile and enlightening conversations.
Movie Rating: 8/10
