In the opening scenes of the 1978 classic film, The Deer Hunter, we watch as a group of men toil in a hellish steel mill. We get a glimpse of their lives in a grim, industrial town. It’s clear that barring some miracle, they’ll never get out and they’ll never amount to much. But what if one of them had been admitted to Cambridge University? This is more or less the feeling we get at the beginning of TK’s new short film, Dropping Out. The college admission comes as such a shock that the parents of Chloe, the anointed one, decide to frame and hang the admission letter on the wall, the way others would hang a degree.
Her despondent sister Maggie, who was also accepted to a university, but dropped out, looks at the chimneys of whatever local industry keeps the town alive, no doubt wondering if her fate will be to work there for the rest of her life. The town, incidentally, is Sylva, North Carolina. Population 2,588. Sylva was also the set for some scenes from the 1972 film, Deliverance.
The story follows two sisters. One is off to a bright future in England and beyond, while the other will probably not get too far beyond her home town. And while the film follows the attempts of both sisters to connect with each other, this is really Maggie’s story. Both sisters seem to hate their parents, but Maggie is much more vocal about it. They also look very different. Chloe is flowery sun dresses, with tidy blonde hair. Maggie’s black clothes from head to tow and unkempt, frizzy hair.
We never really learn why Maggie dropped out of school. There are hints, but it’s never really clear. It may have something to do with her terrible relationship with her parents. Her mother barely acknowledges Maggie’s presence, except to yell at her. Her father’s barely present at all and would rather just ignore the whole mess. Maggie’s a passionate character. She’s rough and prickly, even with her sister, who she clearly loves very much. Chloe may be the one crossing the pond to a famous university, but we learn a lot more about what’s going on inside Maggie. She’s reading Kurt Vonnegut’s book, Slaughterhouse Five. She likes Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Santana. She likes Van Gogh and Edward Hopper. She’s got maps on her bedroom wall of places she may never get to. She’s played with brutal and moving honesty by Bella Hart-Peck. She’s tough, but we really feel for her and wish we could pull her out and rescue her; because we know that given the chance, she too could have a brilliant future.
The story is surprisingly dense for such a short film. It clocks in at just about 15 minutes. There are, as mentioned above, several hints and paths that we never go down. We get the idea that Maggie was blamed for something terrible that happened in the past and that her job involves lightbulbs. I wish there had been more. I could have watched this story unfold for much longer and I was honestly a bit shocked when it ended. I sat reeling at the the final shot trying to process the fact that this is where the story ended. That was likely the director’s intended effect, and it worked. Without giving too much away, I would say that in a sense, this is a quintessentially American film because it deals with realities that are sadly very common in the country. But it is in no way a Hollywood film.
This seems to be director Niko Gonzalez’s debut (at least according to IMDb). But with this film he is making himself known as a real force. His artistry here is powerful and I will be watching eagerly for anything else he makes. As mentioned above, he transports us immediately into a world of peeling wallpaper, awful dinners, smoky, dilapidated furniture. A dead end town. Drab, oppressive browns, badly lit rooms, ugly overgrown yards. The last few shots make use of chiaroscuro in an impressive and not at all showy way. Because he’d established the dark dingy house so well, it makes perfect logical and artistic sense when we see Maggie lurking in the shadows with bright windows shedding no light on her. This is vaguely reminiscent of the famous last shots of John Ford’s The Searchers. We feel the director’s hand at work, but again, not in a flashy way, but in a way that serves the story powerfully.
© 2021. UniversalCinema Mag.