It’s oddly appropriate that grief-stricken widower Ted (David Sullivan) spends most of Jack C. Newell’s “Monuments” schlepping his wife’s ashes around the geographical midpoint of the continental U.S.A. This dippily surreal existential comedy — imagine Quentin Dupieux engineering a head-on collision between “Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia” and “Little Miss Sunshine” — feels like it’s born of the exact middle ground between the big-budget escapist mainstream and the hardcore arthouse “coasts” of American cinematic output. It’s in a flyover state of mind.
Any other year, no big deal — there has traditionally been no shortage of Sundance-y, SXSW-y low-budget American filmmaking to which the awful adjective “quirky” can be applied. But right now “Monuments” — which at least has no smirk in its quirk — getting a theatrical release makes a hopeful, daffy case for the U.S. indie still having a role to play in the polarized post-pandemic movie landscape.
Any other year, no big deal — there has traditionally been no shortage of Sundance-y, SXSW-y low-budget American filmmaking to which the awful adjective “quirky” can be applied. But right now “Monuments” — which at least has no smirk in its quirk — getting a theatrical release makes a hopeful, daffy case for the U.S. indie still having a role to play in the polarized post-pandemic movie landscape.
- 6/4/2021
- by Jessica Kiang
- Variety Film + TV
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