What would you do if you found out through Facebook that your best friend was marrying your ex-boyfriend?
Get the fuck across town.
Kicking off the Miami Film Festival, Mackenzie Davis dominated the first two nights starring in the movies that highlighted last weekend. First in Diablo Cody’s Tully and then in Christian Papiernack’s first feature film Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town.
Unable to see Tully’s screening, I made sure my booty was planted in leather for Izzy. Already a fan of Davis’ other roles in That Awkward Moment and the TV series, Halt and Catch Fire, it caught my attention when I perused this year’s schedule. Her performance as a shameless and scrambling millennial rock musician that makes a mess of everything she efforts is refreshing, relatable and proves that she is more than a one-dimensional actress.
But her rendering isn’t the only one to recognize; other hilariously fierce performances from Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense, Sassy Pants), Alia Shawkat (Arrested Development), Carrie Coon (Gone Girl, Fargo series) and Annie Potts (Ghostbusters, Pretty in Pink) exploded on the screen as supporting characters.
A perpetually puzzled Izzy begins the story hungover in a strangers apartment — a long time after her sister abandoned her and their briefly successful band, which she’s never been able to get over. After seeing the Facebook engagement announcement of her former best friend and ex, Roger (Alex Russell), she vows to crash their party and ruin their plans — no matter how embarrassing and pathetic it may get. Buried in a hole of blatant absurdity and disorder, she constantly struggles to dig herself out — including trying to win him back as a hopeless attempt to repair her damage in what she thinks is her “destiny”.
In her journey across L.A., her encounters with a series of eccentric people — who she desperately reaches out to for money and/or means of transportation — both help and hurt Izzy’s hunt. She’s challenged by her estranged sister, a casual friend and his finessing match on Tinder, an arbitrary elderly woman and, last but not least, her pregnant roommate and the woman’s hateful husband — but it still doesn’t crush her stubborn belief in her fate.
Perhaps my favorite part of the movie was Papiernack’s creative assortment of mixed media, powerful character development and his aesthetic. This includes split-screen scenes with unusual angles, graphically designed dividers that separate each section into chapters with designated titles and carefully placed colored filters that not only set the mood but were beyond cool.
But the best part was the intricate history behind every person had that seemed to perfectly contribute to Izzy’s story.
It’s not a bad start for a directing and screen-writing debut. Pretty awesome, actually.
And you can catch me watching it again next Saturday, March 17th (6:45 pm), for it’s second showing at the Regal 17 cinema on Lincoln Road in SoBe. Information on Izzy and more movies (that I’ll be checking out too) is on the film festival’s website here.
If you can’t make it this weekend, don’t trip. Izzy Gets the Fuck Across Town gets the fuck across the country May 4 at a theater near you.
