"Ordinary People" cubed.

Kat Candler's "Cicadas" is one of my all time favorite Austin films. Candler gets remarkable performances from young actors while creating a level of angst that is not phony while also creating emotional devastation that never seems maudlin or overly dour. Her films are about the sadness of being young and trying to work your way through the emotional rollercoaster that is being a teenager. In "Jumping Off Bridges," she couples this with the grief and incomprehension of loss in a film that, for its time, is every bit as relevant and emotionally revealing as "Ordinary People" was 25 years ago.

Here she brings us Zak Nelson, played perfectly by Bryan Chafin ("Cicadas," "The Patriot"), a young man living within a suburban family damaged by the loss of a child. The mystery of this loss is what propels the film and also what draws us into the plot. Chafin is a marvelous actor and his ability to play emotional depth without becoming unrealistic or overly sentimental lends itself to creating the perfect focus for the film.

Chafin is supported by many fine and talented young actors including Glen Powell (soon to be seen in Richard Linklater's "Fast Food Nation"), Rhett Wilkins ("The Puffy Chair") and newcomers Katie Lemon (Candler's cinematic teenage doppleganger) and Savannah Welch. Each one of these young people brings a little something extra to the film that helps pull us into the story and remind us just how tenuous and frustrating being a teenager can be. At the center of this, however, is Chafin's wonderful performance. This young actor has sparkling chemistry with everyone with whom he shares the screen.

Michael Emerson, most recently seen on the mega-hit TV show "Lost," plays Zak's father, a seemingly weak and ineffectual man who eventually evolves into one of the strongest characters in the piece. Emerson is a consummate actor and his work here with Chafin evokes some of the most touching and honest father/son moments ever to be seen on film.

Candler creates images with the visual alchemy of filmmakers twice her age who have a budget a million times what she is allotted. Look at how she lights and dresses her sets. The images are stark and austere yet utterly realistic. Her lines are sharp and clean. Her colors are solid and focused. Those who think these basic settings are simply a result of a low budget are sadly mistaken. Even moments set out of doors seem as if they were completely clean and orderly. There is no trash in Candler's world, no clutter. Everything has a place and everything is in its place. Chaos and disorder only comes when humans begin to attempt to exist in this neat and orderly world.

Her characters are damaged individuals in a world that has no place for turmoil or confusion. These characters live in a world that has seemingly been wiped clean of the grime of being alive. It is no wonder that they are broken and lost. People are messy. Life is messy. These characters are trapped in a world so demanding that they conform and remain orderly that when they try to break out, they can only end up with tragedy. When Zak smashes his camera against a concrete wall it only begins to signify the sadness, desperation and frustration of these characters. And the fact that the youth in the film make a dangerous game out of the titular act of jumping off bridges shows just how constricted and limited they feel when left to cope with the real world. These characters are blind, hopeless, confused and lost. Their actions often seem as ineffectual as scraping your fingernails against a prison cell wall. They want to break free but in Candler's world, such rebellion can just as easily lead to death as it can redemption.

Candler's critics might call her films dour and angst-ridden with some correctness, but they are missing the point. "Jumping off Bridges" is one of the most emotionally devastating films you could ever see and yet it is filled with a raw optimism that isn't frilly or silly or out of touch with reality. Candler speaks volumes about being a teenager in a way that makes "The Breakfast Club" seem hopelessly contrived and ineffectual. But the message isn't simply for the young. Her essay on the perils of having emotions in an apathetic world are easily understood by anyone who has taken a breath on planet Earth.

Candler's ability to take some of the darkest and most jagged truths about fear, regret, sadness, loss, suffering and pain and break them open for her audience to experience in ways that are both optimistic and honest makes her one of the most important and promising young filmmakers on the cinematic landscape. I can't wait to see what her imagination, thought and sensitivity will lead us to next.

Notes:

Sound design is by Justin Hennard. Kurt Volk, who has worked with Candler on some previous films, also does some work here.

Viewed at SXSW in March of 2006 with the filmmaker in attendance.

Report Card

Script: A+

Acting: A+

Cinematography\Lighting: A+

Special Effects\Make Up: A+

Music: A+

Final Grade: A+