A Film Review

Movies come in all shapes and sizes. From big-budget summer popcorn movies to the art films that you may never have heard about. And while we tend to judge a film’s success based on the amount of money it makes or the awards it receives, that doesn’t mean that the film is good. Sure, bad films can be fun and entertaining, but they aren’t films that we necessarily need to see. As someone who covers a lot of film festivals, I tend to see a lot of art films that will never get the distribution that big-budget films get. These are films that usually end up on Amazon or some other kind of on-demand platform. Most of them do the film festival circuit and then disappear. But these are the films that I think everybody should see because they’re not made with the intention of making lots of money. It would be nice if they are financially successful. However, for the filmmakers that make them, it’s about the art itself and the power of the story they are telling. For me, one of the great pleasures was seeing an independent film called Stuck by director Jenni Tooley. It was a mind-blowing experience that goes beyond just watching movies in order to be entertained, but an emotional story that can affect anyone of us. It’s a story that’s our story because we’ve all been stuck at some point in our lives while doing everything we can to move forward.

I can’t say that I even fully understand every part of this film. It’s certainly one that I’ve had to watch more than once when delving into its true meaning. Anytime I’ve experienced this phenomenon that meaning may have changed a little bit the same way that I’ve noticed things when I go back and read classic novels about the author’s true intent. But from an artistic point of view when I watched stuck I think the film is brilliant in many ways. Because when you show different characters that are stuck at points in their life, no matter what the situation is and although it seems very different for each character, its virtually the same thing.  Aristotle once said this about art, “the aesthetic quality of art is not about its outward appearance, but its inward significance.” I think that’s especially true when you are looking at truly artistic Independent films that are filled with deeper meanings than the typical summer popcorn movies that just entertain us. That’s what I mostly like about this film and why I think people should see it the same way everybody should experience a Terrence Malick film. Films like this force us to have a careful examination of the human condition and make us realize that we are not much different in how we experience things in life.

In truth, we need these kinds of films just as much as the ones that simply entertain us. We need films like this to make us see things that we’ve never seen before and force us to discuss those experiences out loud. I’m not saying that Jenny Tooley’s filmed is like group therapy, but how such things affect us when we are forced to discuss the things that make us Stuck in life, can certainly be just as beneficial as something like group therapy. I think it’s one of those rare artistic films that we need to experience more than once and even if we only have that short experience and never go back to it, we are all the better for it. And the mark of a truly great filmmaker us someone who can give us such a cathartic emotional experience within their work even if we hate it, but forces us to take a cold hard look at ourselves and realize that our problems can be the same for everyone. It’s what we do with them that counts. No, this may not be a film that you revisit every so often. And it may be like Schindler’s List where it’s once-in-a-decade or even one-in-a-generation type of film that you experience, but it’s the experience we get with it that truly counts and you can’t say that about every movie that’s ever made. There are films that simply may just entertain us, but films like this that change our perception and make us really see first hand, the human condition, they’re even better. Stuck is a wonderful experience even if it’s only and we at That Nerd Show recommend everybody have that experience at least once.

~ Marcus Blake 

Editor and Producer – That Nerd Show