Directed by: Meredith Hama-Brown
Distributed by: Game Theory Films
Written by Michael Clawson
70/100
If “Aftersun” had taken place along the coastline of British Columbia, it would look something like “Seagrass,” a similarly nostalgic family and marital drama set in the 1990s. The story follows a family of four – husband and wife Judith and Steve and their two young daughters, Stephanie and Emmy – on a summery, multi-day retreat for intensive couples’ therapy. In the wake of her mother’s passing, Judith is grief-stricken, and her relationship with Steve is faltering. They and other families stay in modest cabins on B.C.’s Gabriola Island, and while parents partake in group exercises to reconnect with their emotions and each other, the kids play together as if they were at camp, inventing games, frolicking in the pool, and exploring the island’s rocky shore.
Gently observed and beautifully shot on 35mm, the film’s dramatic focus is of uncommon breadth, spanning the emotional and social worlds of the adults and the children. Stephanie and Emmy each experience the quotidian delights and pitfalls of early adolescence, with Stephanie becoming interested in boys and suffering minor embarrassments, while Emmy, who’s younger, withdraws from the packs of children for spells of introspection. Off away at counseling, Judith and Steve grapple with their relationship’s disintegration, which is compounded by Judith’s simultaneous reckoning with her alienation from her Japanese heritage (she’s Japanese-Canadian, Steve is white). Steve’s insecurity is fired up by another husband in their classes, a suave, rich, multi-lingual Asian man, whose performative displays of vulnerability bring some light comedy to the film.
Ultimately, “Seagrass” spreads itself a bit thin across a runtime of nearly two hours, and themes encompassing loss, marital dysfunction, racial identity, coming-of-age, and familial bonds. There’s also an unnecessary flirtation with the supernatural when the kids gossip about a cave with the power to resurrect the dead. In a film that’s otherwise so precisely concerned with fundamentally human matters, the possibility of a ghostly presence feels out of place in the narrative at large. But the movie’s sincerity and serene visual elegance take it far, and often outweigh the unevenness of the drama (scenes with the children play more naturally than those with the adults). “Seagrass” might be less crushing than “Aftersun,” but its shimmery memory texture is frequently just as striking.
“Seagrass” Trailer
Michael Clawson is a member of the Seattle Film Critic Society you can follow his passion for film on Letterboxd.