War can be waged on many fronts, but don’t overlook or underestimate the subtle, but deadly psychological warfare campaign fought by a profoundly disaffected teenage girl. These notions clash and resistance are one of the ideas explored in “Sadie,” a troubled, coming of age trailer park drama from writer/director Megan Griffiths (“The Night Stalker,” “Lucky Them“) bolstered by an unnervingly cold, but breakout performance by Sophia Mitri Schloss. Unrelenting in its ability to create tension even in the most innocuous of scenes, ‘Sadie” plays with coming of age tropes, but turns dark when the character disrupts expectations and pivots the film into something more akin to a morbid drama about disillusioned youth.
Schloss plays the eponymous character, precocious, quietly bitter teen, idolizing her absentee father, who has been serving in Afghanistan on a seemingly endless tour. She glorifies the violence he partakes in, bringing that threat of carnage to her school with an alarming essay that raises red flags with teachers and a disconcerting threat to scare off a bully of her timid best friend. Her feelings are both complicated and juvenile, lionizing her father and yet unable to be honest with herself about his abandonment.
Naturally, Sadie doesn’t take well to men who want to date her mom, Rae (Melanie Lynskey), viewing them both as threats to the probability of her father returning as well as disrespectful of his “legacy.” She’s discourteous, even employs disrupting scare tactics on anyone who doesn’t line up with her point of view; there’s a line where that’s simple teenage bullheadedness before she crosses over into something that feels a bit more calculated, even dangerous. “Sadie” may even cross a boundary here with the viewer, both in suspension of disbelief and sympathies which makes “Sadie” both layered and frustrating.
Cyrus (John Gallagher Jr.) further exacerbates her angst, an ex-pilot with an addiction to pain medicine, who sticks around and begins to form a real bond with Rae. The unpredictability of this relationship sends Sadie spiraling as she starts to double down on her bullying tendencies to manipulate an outcome in her favor.
READ MORE: ‘Sadie’ Trailer Teases What Could Be A SXSW Standout
Set in a depressing, dilapidated trailer park, “Sadie” is a type of quiet struggle right from the beginning, even if the heartbreaking afflictions acts don’t occur until much later. Sadie” boldly confronts the nearly silent anguish of abandonment and how it turns nihilistic in the hands of kids too inexperienced to see the world in greater shades of black and white. “Sadie” is a film about choices, their sometimes-brutal consequences and a startling character study about the roots of fragmenting girl who can’t or doesn’t want to accept the realities in front of her.
As nuanced anxiety course through the film, Griffiths does an exemplary job in honing in on what can make someone like Sadie as unsettling as she is sympathetic. Sadie isn’t quite yet a monster, but the seeds are taking root and her refusal to understand consequences instills a greater sense of trepidation. What grants her some sympathy, or at least some understanding barring justification, is how she views the world. Her father’s legacy is confusing; in her mind, sometimes the ends of conflict justify the means of emotional violence. Dad-endorsed video games and comics steeped in violence seem to distort her worldview too. Everything is a game to Sadie — one she desperately doesn’t want to lose — and she doesn’t quite yet understand the idea of mortality that might make some of her actions ring false.
“Sadie” works on a character level. She’s admirably complex and even unlikable; both manipulative and in pressing need of compassion and understanding. The rest of the movie is mixed, the end perhaps a bridge too far, and sometimes leaning too deep into a dank atmosphere of misery porn. While Lynskey and Gallagher are valuable as actors, both don’t feel fleshed out enough; too one-note and static to ever glean as much engagement. Their characters are also saddled with the majority of the on-the-nose lines of over-familiar dialogue. Both at least challenge the limited range of their roles.
“Sadie,” is no doubt imperfect. As a showcase for Schloss and disenchanted youth, “Sadie” works wonders. As a whole, the indie doesn’t entirely add up to more than the sum of its stilted dialogue and underdeveloped supporting characters parts. However, as a character study of a young, simmering, resentful girl cheated by circumstance and life at a crucial age, the drama’s combative, aggrieved center is earned, authentic and genuinely tragic. [B]
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