BECKS – QFest St. Louis Review

BECKS screens  Wednesday, Apr. 4th at 7:00pm at the .ZACK (3224 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. Ticket information can be found HERE.

Review by Stephen Tronicek

Becks begins on an image of great hypnotic quality. As the image slowly fades in we see Lucy (Hayley Kiyoko) ordained in a turquoise light that creates an image that sucks you into the frame and immediately engages you. This image is so important because it is this woman that will hold precedence in the titular character’s mind the whole time that the film plays. We as an audience understand the protagonist, Becks (Lena Hall) because we understand the serendipity of the image she has created of Lucy. Even better, this opening image is followed by Malickian flashes of the relationship that they shared. Throughout the film, these flashes will not only haunt both us and the character but also provide bearing for a lucidly structured work.

As Becks travels home following a bitter breakup, she kind of drifts through life, arriving and having the overwhelming elements of her home thrown right back on her. Her homophobic and very Catholic mother (Christine Lahti), her burnout brother (Michael Zegen) and a complete lack of skills other than playing the guitar are there to greet her. Soon, she starts teaching guitar lessons to earn some money over the summer and to play sets of escalating popularity at a bar in town. In this flurry of music and experience, she falls in love with one of her students (Mena Suvari)

In the context of a simple comedy drama, that is a lot to cover, especially if your narrative isn’t going to follow anything similar to a traditional character arch. Becks characters do not. It kind of meanders on and, lacking any semblance of context, that meandering may not have worked. It does though because the film begins with such spellbinding flashes of experience and then continues to use this technique to magnetically draw you into its world. Becks often plays at a small bar in the film and during the moments that she does, the film grounds itself with the flashes of imagery from the beginning of the film. In the midst of the chaos of reality, suddenly we see the beautiful and painful face of the world.

On top of the use of grounding imagery, it is paramount to the film that the work between the directors and actors are up to par, which thankfully they are. Lena Hall is particularly good as the title character and she carries herself with a confidence that is needed for some of the tougher scenes in the film. The same goes for Suvari, who following her starring role in American Beauty, hasn’t received to many roles worthy of her talent. Here, she thankfully has. There’s a passionate love scene near the end of the second act that requires the most out of both actresses and both deliver on it fantastically. It is the type of scene that highlights the very romantic soul of the film and if it was botched, the whole scene could have sunk the entire film. It doesn’t though and it basically makes up the best scene Suvari has been part of since any number from American Beauty (Context has soured the film but it is still a good movie). As far as direction goes co-directors Daniel Powell and Elizabeth Rohrbaugh seem to have more attention to composition then you might find in most comedies with the overall framing keeping the film from feeling languid. The blocking is fresh, if a bit samey, and provides a perfect range of characterization, something that most comedies would boil down to simple shot reverse shot coverage.

These elements blend beautifully with the great cinematography by Kate Westergaard, a cinematographer who has found herself in a unique position of being one of the most vibrant and visionary cinematographers working with only a few feature films underneath her belt. She shot part of last year’s Q-Fest opener Lovesong, a film that captured a similar intimacy without the sacrifice of the romantic soft light that gave that film and this one their beautiful, calming look. Her talent was presented spectacularly in last year’s underrated gem, Novitiate, where her use of dynamic shadows created a perfect sense of stuffy intensity that made that film shine. One can also tell that there’s a richness to her cinematography found in the overexposure of faces, making the characters more sympathetic and beautiful. There’s a heightened sense to the look that transports you to the setting.

Speaking of setting, this film was partially shot in my hometown of Maplewood, Mo, which brings it even closer to home. The shots of Manchester’s main street took me off guard at first, but soon the setting started to feel like home and experiences started to recall my own, even in the sections shot outside of Missouri. Driving down Manchester, independent musicians playing in independent stores, being woken up way too early to follow a much more religious family member to church, all of this I’ve known and Becks captures it with an unparalleled amount of truth. To live in Maplewood is to experience the beautiful mundanity that the film presents.

Becks is a fantastic opener to Q-Fest. Laid back and gorgeous as its lead, the film captures both the heartache and the passion of living and loving. Buoyed by great performances and direction that bolster the overall malleable structure, Becks is not one to miss at this year’s Q-Fest.