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The NYC Insider's Guide
for women who aren't kids
The Three Tomatoes
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Lisa Kirchner has been a freelance writer since her first published piece -- a review of the film I’ll Do Anything -- presaged a career. While working real jobs at The Andy Warhol Museum, Ketchum Public Relations and the Tribeca Film Festival, her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Salon.com, Bust.com, Budget Travel, New York Post and Qatar Today among others. She's interested in the gap between equality and our undeniable differences as human beings. And dirty jokes. Her book, WALK BEHIND ME: A Cranky White Girl in the Muslim World, is coming out next year.
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Tanner Hall opens beautifully. As Fernanda (Rooney Mara) is driven to boarding school she recalls an event from childhood which taught her that bad things don’t just happen, sometimes people do bad things; danger exists inside everyone. Ok, so it’s kinda clunky foreshadowing but I’m willing to suspend disbelief because everything happening onscreen—the scenery, the people—is so darn pretty. The prettiness continues, but sadly the suspension of disbelief does not. One contrived scene upon the next conspires to make even Amy Sedaris (playing house mum Mrs. Middlewood) annoying. I know. The directors (Tatiana von Furstenberg and Francesca Gregorini) did go to boarding school and I didn’t, but that doesn’t take away the fact that the shower scene is gratuitous. The most fulfilling character portrayal is of Lucasta (Amy Ferguson), who grapples with complex feelings toward Hank (Shawn Pyfrom).
This hot mess unravels in a filmic non-sequitur—a note is passed to warn Fernanda to stop getting in trouble when she hasn’t gotten in any trouble yet. Right there I gave up trying to buy the movie at all. So I’m looking at the clothes (designs by Diane Von Furstenburg, as noted in the press materials) and listening to the music (I do like how occasionally it’s played like you’d actually hear it, echoing off a bathroom wall from an iPod), and wondering how much more influential this film might have been if released back in 2009. Supposedly the release was delayed when Mara was tapped to play The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
When lo and behold things get interesting. Mind you, it’s the last 10 or so minutes of the film. But there’s the kind of girl on girl action I want to see in my boarding school flick—betrayal, recrimination and remorse. Yes! I’d like to think this bodes well for future works by all involved.
Tanner Hall Theaters & Showtimes:
