Krisha Fairchild stars as a woman under the influence of her director’s oppressive stylistic constraint. A silver-haired lioness who has spent the past decade detouring the road to redemption parks before her sister’s home where the Thanksgiving reunion dinner will take place, the tail of her garment flapping precariously outside the driver’s door. It’s the first cheap shot in a film awash with easy targets. The unnuanced long take leads to a sprawling suburban home, populated at any given time by 20 or so family members, yet thanks to Trey Edward Shults’ disordered editing pattern, the film never gets around to establishing a sense of place or secondary characters. Just suffering, and plenty of it. Clearly aiming for Cassavetes country, first time writer-director-editor-actor-producer (phew!) Shults instead takes an august turn at Osage County and collides head-on with a “Just Say No!” PSA. Artificial style applied to human suffering in a first-time vanity production. I took this bullet for you. (2015) — Scott Marks
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