Blue Jay

Sarah Paulson and Mark Duplass shine in Blue Jay, a charming nostalgia trip tackling heady themes in a manner that is both lovingly awkward and brutally real.

3099d ago

“Blue Jay” is ultimately about the lingering intensity of young love, and the longing for the freedom that passion brings when it’s not attached to careers, children, or the worries of middle-age.

3099d ago

Blue Jay poses important questions about adulthood without delving too far into concrete answers. That can be frustrating at times, but having its characters self-question and contrast themselves is a smart decision. How different am I from twenty years ago? What has changed? Have I learned anything? And, really, who hasn’t tried to ask that about themselves at some point in their lives?

3099d ago

Having said that, I’m a sucker for two-handers with performances this good. I always have been and I always will be. It’s probably my theatre background, or simply my adoration for Richard Linklater’s “Before” trilogy.

3099d ago

Duplass and Paulson paint a cumulative portrait of the fragility and rareness of being truly in sync with a partner.

3099d ago

Mark Duplass and Sarah Paulson play high-school sweethearts who reunite unexpectedly in Alex Lehmann's black-and-white two-hander.

3099d ago

Cinematographer Alex Lehmann expresses the wholehearted romanticism of Blue Jay, his directorial debut, primarily through the nonverbal communication between Amanda (Sarah Paulson) and Jim (Mark Duplass), small-town high school sweethearts whose unexpected encounter triggers memories sweet and bitter.

3099d ago

Nostalgia gives way to melodrama, and dramatic truth to soapy histrionics, and Blue Jay falters on a formulaic revelation about mistakes made and lessons learned too late.

3099d ago