TRIBECA FILM ESTIVAL 2015 // A FILM REVIEW OF "SHUT UP AND DRIVE"
The 2015 Tribeca Film Festival, presented by AT&T, runs April 15th-26th and features hundreds of features, documentaries, short films, and special events all throughout downtown New York City. The ArtsWire Weekly's three featured reviewers Mateo, Derek, & Chrisena are hitting the festival and bringing the reviews right to you! What you should see and what you should skip...
Quiet, petite Jane (Sarah Sutherland) and space-hog Laura (Zoë Worth) end up in an old silver 4-door sedan driving from California to New Orleans so the former can deliver an acoustic guitar to her boyfriend who's on set for a Civil War movie and the latter can record a song or two with him. They start off at odds, but learn a ton from each other along the way, like how important friendship really is in life, and what it truly looks like, as they find it in each other. Melanie Shaw's feature film Shut Up and Drive is part quiet and awkward, part loud and fun, but keeps us rooting the best for the two vastly different but similarly wandering souls whose voyage we follow. With a quirky and cool, albeit short, performance, Zachary Webber gives us Milo, brewing weird, hallucinogenic tea concoctions in the desert where the girls make a pit stop. The Director of Photography, one Dan Chen, should be commended for his creative shots and spansive landscapes that captured the feel of a road trip through the American southwest.
Two unsuspecting pals--one wound too tight, the other perhaps not tight enough--go on a roller coaster of a ride through hopeful pleasantness to disappointing abandonment and back again. Where they finally end up is a long way from where they started, and the geographic distance they've traveled is symbolic of the length they've gone as people, and friends. Shut Up and Drive is a valiant effort by a young team to take us on this journey.
VERDICT: ON THE FENCE
WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY Melanie Shaw FEATURING Sarah Sutherland, Zoë Worth (also Produced), Morgan Krantz, James Duval, Zachary Webber
Playing as part of The 2015 Tribeca International Film Festival. For tickets & schedules: http://www.tribecafilm.com
W. DEREK JORDEN is an actor currently living and working in New York City. He and his wife live on a Spaceship on the top of a building, which makes for some interesting dinner parties.