Spring break forever! Waylaid in Washington, DC on a class trip, freshman Lillian (Talia Ryder) pledges allegiance to the flag, blanks on Upton Sinclair’s name, ignores several famous stone memorials, and engages in some rote debauchery: ass-shaking, glass-raising, freestyling, cum-flinging. “The South shall rise again!” bellows blonde dumbbell Troy (Jack Irv), terrorizing a member of another visiting group. These Harmony-ous antics are played out, and the filmmakers behind The Sweet East know it. (Note that, contra the Indiewire review from Cannes, the film has a screenwriter—Nick Pinkerton, a film critic, programmer, and author making his feature debut—while the director is the well-known cinematographer Sean Price Williams). And so, no more than five minutes after introducing their disaffected heroine—and gifting her a solo, semi-diegetic musical number sung softly over the opening…
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Cinema Scope (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 95 - Summer 2023