Tuesday 22 October 2019

GOOD POSTURE review

The feature directorial debut of Dolly Wells sees an aimless young woman, Lilian (Grace Van Patten), move in with some of her father's friends after a break up. The home of famous author Julia Price (Emily Mortimer), Lillian forms a combative bond with her reclusive benefactor via notes left in her journal that leads her to think Julia might be the perfect subject for a documentary.


Formerly a regular face on British TV screens in the like of The Mighty Boosh, Peep Show and The IT Crowd, not forgetting big screen appearances in the Bridget Jones series, Dolly Wells is perhaps best known for the TV series she co-created and starred in with her long time best friend Emily Mortimer, Doll & Em. Here she takes on the role of writer/director to tell the story of Grace Van Patten's Lilian, enlisting Emily Mortimer as a famously reclusive novelist forced to house this young woman in search of a direction in life.

Grace Van Patten has slowly been building a career as an in demand indie darling, appearing in Noah Baumbach's The Meyerowitz Stories, Adam Leon's Tramps, and from earlier this year, David Robert Mitchell's Under The Silver Lake. Here she's front and centre, appearing in nearly every frame of the film as a spirited Lilian, unsure of what direction to take and waiting to start looking for a new apartment with her father, currently in France with his new girlfriend. There's a risk that some of Lilian's social flaws that lead to the break up of her relationship with Nate (Gary Richardson), like always forgetting to take a towel for after a shower and using other people's toothbrushes, could have been presented as cutesy manic pixie dream girl foibles to be cherished and adored, but the other characters around her, namely Mortimer's Julia and Timm Sharp's dog walker, George, can barely tolerate her presence at the start of the film. Julia even dubs her "the entitled oaf", a title Lilian is keen to prove Julia wrong about.

Good Posture is one of those delightful little indies that makes you realise how inherently cinematic New York is. Filmed in and around the Bed Stuy neighbourhood Dolly Wells now calls home, there's lingering, static shots of the beautiful houses with the steps leading up to the front doors and tracking shots of the local streets and their inhabitants, staring back at the ethereal spectator of the camera. If Lilian isn't in a situation you would want to experience, at least hers is a world you would like to visit.

Having said that, a lot of the action takes place within the four walls and garden of Julia Price's house, with the majority of Julia and Lilian's interactions delivered via snippy notes they leave for each other in Lilian's journal as they argue over dinner (helpfully narrated for us). Mortimer's Julia is an ever present character, but she doesn't actually appear in the film very much, leaving Julia Price to be something of an enigmatic figure mostly hidden behind a closed door, right up until the end of the film. This is partly offset by a device the film has of having real life well known authors such as Zadie Smith, Jonathan Ames and Martin Amis waxing lyrical about their love for (the fictional) Julia Price's work. It's a little jarring at first, but once it's apparent this is footage collected by Lilian and her cameraman Sol (a hilariously on form John Early) for their unauthorised documentary, it makes a lot more narrative sense.

Owing a debt to some of the big hitters of the independent movie scene like Noah Baumbach and Daryl Wein, it's at times a little rough around the edges in its presentation but thanks to its witty, engaging script and hugely likeable cast, Good Posture is able to stand up straight and hold its head up high as a delightfully charming little indie. Expect great things from Wells and Van Patten in the future.

Verdict
4/5

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