Despite U.S. press being unable to attend this year’s 77th Venice Film Festival, there was still a ban in place for U.S. travelers to Europe, the film festival went on, going half-digital so that, stateside at least, film journalists could cover the prestigious festival. One of the big titles to debut there this past year was “The World to Come,” which is finally being released in theaters and VOD on Friday, February 12th. Despite a 84% rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 16 reviews), and an impressive 85 on Metacritic (based on 10 reviews) I had a fairly mixed reaction to the film when I saw it in September. Here were my thoughts on it:
Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come” is a sapphic romance that, quite painstakingly, tries to not veer towards melodrama. Vanessa Kirby (Tally) and Katherine Waterston (Abigail) give performances that aren’t showy, but exude a world of emotions — this is a film that heavily focuses on stares and unsaid words. It is semi-successful as a drama because it avoids the trappings of the usual yearn-filled romance by deliberately underplaying its emotions. From the first frame to last, it slightly breezes past you with the feel of a poetic short story. There are no good or bad people in Fastvold’s film, just life itself. The respective male partners are flawed, but their actions are understandable, although one can make the case that Christopher Abbott, playing Kirby’s downtrodden husband, steps out of bounds numerous times – Fastvold only hints at it, again, never showing anything our narrator isn’t seeing. It’s a purposely benign film, understandably so as it is told through the eyes of Abigail, a woman so dissatisfied by her marriage with hardworking, but depressed Dyer (Casey Affleck) that she would rather shut off all reality and just imagine a non-existent life with Tally.
SCORE: C+
The short version: "Woman Unknown" was a compromise. The jury deadlocked over "Possible Love" and "NAZA," not able to com to terms, fell back on their #3, May el-Toukhy's film.