Pretty Good

The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

(Flash Review)This was a tough tale to watch to play out. A supposedly recovering alcoholic and substance abuser, who has avoided her family for a long time do to erratic behavior, gets invited to a large family dinner. Even from the start, you can see the ominous writing on the wall by the sounds she hears in her head and how she perceives the crowded and bustling house accentuated by clever cinematography. As the event goes on, her emotional state and anxiety begins to ramp up. Will she be able to keep her emotional state in check or will she fall back to her old ways? This movie was not super fun to watch because it was depressing and highlights this type of person's problems and how they affect others around her. This was well-made and had an independent film feel. But in the end, I was left with nothing to take away or ponder. What was the director's message?

I admit it, too raw and intimate for me. The accompanying soundtrack makes it feel like a horror film. Which, in many ways, it is. And I hate horror films. It is a dysfunctional family drama set during Thanksgiving in Texas, after all. I feel like horror films work because they are detached from reality enough for us to, well, not walk out of the theater feeling depressed. This was a real life horror film. It definitely took an original approach to a genre film. Almost every scene has palpable tension. Atmosphere is on point. I found it difficult to be completely invested in the film. Well made, I can agree. But not my type of film.

As an aspiring filmmaker, I cannot help but feel as if I relate to the debut filmmaker Trey Edward Shults. This film is heavily stylized and intense, and I feel that if I were able to make my own low budget film it would turn out to be something like this. The film focuses on extreme emotions, making the audience feel somewhat warm and humored at first, but completely crushed by the final shot. The film is overall extremely ambitious in its approach, due to Shults' use of long takes, black humor, and an atmosphere that contains both heavy realism and surrealism. "Krisha", one of the finest and funniest films to come out last year, is not only a beautifully made film but also the most earth shatteringly heartbreaking portrait of addiction since "Requiem for a Dream". It takes place during Thanksgiving as a family prepares for the holiday. One somewhat special member of the family has visited this year, Krisha, an old woman who has been absent of their presence for 10 years. This brilliant, harrowing shocker combines elements of humor and horror to craft a modern miracle. Unfortunately, this masterpiece is quite obscure and underrated-but I must urge anyone stumbling across my review to check it out immediately! It is a jaw droppingly fantastic work of art.

Krisha, Trey Edward Shults' feature film debut, showed up at last year's Spirit Award screenings as well as this year's Gotham's Audience Awards. It's a very low-budget affair shot at Shults' parents home, with most of his family members and friends playing a fictional, dysfunctional family. The protagonist is also named Krisha, played by Shults' aunt in real life. His actual mother plays Krisha's sister and Shults himself plays Krisha's son.Incredibly, on Metacritic there are 27 positive reviews and only one mixed. Most of the critics were captivated by Shults' aunt's performance (her full name is Krisha Fairchild). When we first meet her, she hasn't been back at her sister's home in ten years, and initially ends up ringing the neighbor's doorbell by mistake.When Krisha finally wanders into the right house, we can tell right away there is something wrong with her by the reaction of the various family members, who appear to regard her with contempt. In many ways, Krisha is a black comedy (or farce), as Shults depicts the family members as passive-aggressive, doing their best to put on a good face towards an absentee relative who deep down is regarded (except by an almost senile grandmother) as a complete pariah.Krisha earns the family's contempt by her neurotic, self-destructive attitude, fueled by pills that she keeps hidden in a small locked box marked "private." It's alcohol, however, that pushes Krisha over the edge, and the family's passivity suddenly goes by the wayside when Krisha drops the Thanksgiving turkey on the kitchen floor (after continuously offering to help prepare the big bird, before it's served).Shults is more interested in depicting the humor of the family breakdown than making a case for the embattled Krisha, whose neuroticism is probably beyond any therapeutic assistance or repair. Thus all the sordid dysfunctional family members (including Krisha) live up to master critic Eric Bentley's dictum: that in farce, one is "permitted the outrage, without the consequences."The problem with all this is that Shults tips his hand very early as to what's going on. We "get" the idea just how neurotic Krisha is, and her exploits aren't very surprising (or humorous) after a while. The climax, which features the one-note humor of an extremely neurotic family member returning from exile--who sets off the relatives who banished her years ago--is not only predictable but not very consequential, in terms of the kind of humor we can expect from a more seasoned farcical script.I admire Shults for getting his project off the ground (especially by raising a nominal $14,000 via a Kickstarter campaign) but Krisha is nothing more than an exercise in "low stakes." Next time, hopefully, the fledgling director will aim for higher heights with both well-developed characters and a more clever plot, featuring substantially more humorous situations.