This is Kristen Stewart’s directorial debut. (She directed a short film in 2017. This is her first feature.) It’s an adaptation of Lidia Yuknavitch’s 2011 memoir of the same name and it’s an extraordinary piece of work. I can’t say enough good things about it. It’s experiential, so my descriptions of it can’t really do it justice. I reviewed for Ebert.
I loved your review .
I was blown away by the book and I’ve been hoping Kristen would be able to make a movie of it, ever since I heard she had the rights. I’m so glad she’s succeeded. I hope this makes it into a local theater.
Thank you! it’s really amazing what she has done. she breaks so many rules and is true to the material. Imogen Poots is out of this world. this is the kind of thing where Stewart was faced with “No”s for almost a decade. I really respect her for ignoring the Nos. she knew she could do this.
Looking forward to seeing the movie.
As a warmup I watched the New York Times podcast interview with her. Stewart very much is as you’ve wrote about her in the past.
But the interviewer does go off on a douchey bash-method-acting tangent by ridiculing Brando’s use of cue cards and pronunciation of the word Krypton, and then Stewart can’t think of any women method actors, which had me yelling at the screen. She needs to follow your blog.
Disappointing but not surprising!
As Ellen Burstyn says, “there’s no such thing as method acting. there is just good acting and bad acting.” and she is heavily associated with the actors studio too! The label just doesn’t work – especially not for Marlon Brando. who did not “study” at the actors studio at ALL. He studied with Stella Adler – who was anti-Method – and she basically was like “you don’t need classes. Fly, be free.”
This is all easily discoverable.
I wouldn’t classify Stewart as anywhere near the “method” except for her ability to just be herself onscreen and not reject any of her impulses, including awkwardness and shyness. So many actors literally cannot do that. Working from your own impulses and trusting your impulses is basically “method” – there literally should not be any confusion about this.
But anyway! the movie is amazing and one of the best I’ve seen all year!
I put it in with verbal missteps like Jennifer Lawrence saying “ nobody had ever put a woman in the lead of an action movie”. It barely works even within it’s own context. Ooopsie daisy on that one.
Yes! You hear stuff like that all the time. It’s like history goes back only 10 years.
Meanwhile, women dominated in almost every genre in the 30s and 40s. And they all had jobs. They weren’t housewives!