At the Sea Review: Amy Adams Plays It Overly Straight in Insufferable Upper-Middle-Class Drama
Shame, healing, and personal growth dominate the narrative in this humourless, self-adoring, and vapid exploration of an artistic and narcissistic family residing in Cape Cod. Directed by Kornél Mundruczó and written by Kata Wéber, the film presents a quite unbearable curation of first-world problems, starring Amy Adams in a role that strays far from her typically brilliant and lively performances.
A Solemn and Narcissistic Tale
At the Sea pivots to a solemn, narcissistic story, couched in self-forgiving and self-adoring rhetoric, centering on upper-middle-class artistic individuals in the United States. These characters yearn for wellness and recovery within their lovely Cape Cod home, inviting the audience to believe in their alleged talent and importance while extending submissive empathy to their inter-generational psychic wounds.
Amy Adams portrays Laura, the grown-up daughter of a supposedly brilliant dance company director, now deceased and remembered through epiphanic childhood memory-glimpses. This genius figure had close-cropped grey hair, a black polo neck, and functioning alcoholism. Laura inherited both his passion for dance and his boozing, now running his world-renowned company with an uncertain hand after returning from rehab following a drunk-driving incident where her young son Felix was in the car.
Family Dynamics and Wealthy Concerns
Her artist husband Martin, played by Murray Bartlett, is portrayed as angry yet concerned, with the film expecting viewers to believe his paintings are of high quality. Their teen daughter Josie, a super-talented dancer, expresses anger and hurt, while wealthy friend George, a business sponsor, supplies a similar angry-yet-concerned combination. Laura's witty gay assistant Peter is angry-and-concerned about her neglect of the company during her secret rehab stint, which was misleadingly claimed as a research trip among Indigenous dancers of Bali.
The very first sight of Adams's face is a closeup of her expression of dignified suffering and self-knowledge during an entirely preposterous drumming-therapy session. This facial expression becomes the default for the entire film, with occasional moments of laughter or tears of mortification, such as when she neglects Felix's wellbeing, leading to a jellyfish sting incident resolved by a dishy recovering addict.
Financial Worries and Uninteresting Catharsis
Adding to the drama, the family faces money worries, though not as other mortals might know them, with the potential need to sell their lovely Cape Cod house. These complacent bores pursue their issues to an uninteresting quasi-catharsis, culminating in Laura and Josie performing impromptu modern dance together on the beach, creating an uncomfortable spectacle.
At the Sea screened at the Berlin film festival, marking a departure from the challenging and interesting material previously offered by Mundruczó and Wéber. The film's overly straight and insufferable approach leaves much to be desired, failing to leverage Adams's renowned acting prowess in a meaningful way.
