TWO OF A KIND // A FILM REVIEW OF "FORT TILDEN"
It's not easy to like Harper and Allie. In fact, at least for the first hour of FORT TILDEN you most likely won't. They're dismissive, petty, sarcastic towards everything, and have zero ambition. They're pretty terrible actually, even to their own "friends," and to each other. So why spend 90 minutes with them and their overtly complicated journey to the beach? Because writer/directors Sarah Violet-Bliss & Charles Rogers have created two characters so real that you'll immediately recognize them, want to strangle them, and eventually even possibly root for them. That's not an easy sell for any film, especially one with two lead characters who are essentially assholes. Yet, FORT TILDEN pulls it off, thanks to its smart writing and two great leads.
Harper (Bridey Elliott) and Allie (Claire McNulty) are two friends and roommates living in hipster Williamsburg Brooklyn. They live off of the very meaning of entitlement. Harper calls herself an "artist" but doesn't create anything. When she starts to worry about something, she calls her Father and knows that he won't offer any great advice but he will send money straight away. She's also cruel and only focused on what she wants. Allie is more indecisive and on the outside sweeter, but she's just as shitty when it comes down to it. Her "thing of the moment" is telling everyone how excited she is to be going into the Peace Corps. The two go to a friend’s rooftop party and text each other how truly terrible their performance is (which, to be fair, it is). Of course they lie when confronted about it and say how much they enjoyed it. Before leaving, they meet two hipster boys (Jeffrey Scaperrotta and Griffin Newman) and invite themselves on the two boy’s trip the next day out to Fort Tilden beach.
What follows the next morning is their Long Days Journey Into Beach. They wake up late and decide to bike to the beach and meet the boys. Only to realize that they only have one bike (the fact that they realize this after fully making this plan is hilariously pointed on how they make every decision). They get on their bikes & head to the beach, making stops in Park Slope to get Molly from a hilarious and vacuous ex-boyfriend (Peter Vack) and eventually to a friend's apartment that neither one of them likes to get some help. Every single thing they do is treated as if it's life or death and they continuously make every moment to be more awkward than the next (at one point they HAVE to stop and buy some super discounted clothes and from the register line watch their bike get stolen because they have no idea how to make a real life decision). Elliott and McNulty have such great chemistry and comic timing that you can't stop watching their train wreck of a day. They just keep making it worse when it would be so easy to make a logical choice and fix everything. But they never do, and the cringe worthy aspect of it continues to increase scene by scene.
Amazingly, these two actresses eventually get you to feel sorry for them, and somewhat see from their point of view. Yes they are vapid and cruel, but they're also just completely misguided and slowly started to realize it. If you've lived in New York, or visited for long enough, you've known these two girls. You've probably made fun of these two girls (as they were making fun of you) and even if you can't relate to them, you'll laugh at them, sometimes with them, and by the end care about their journey. To care about a person who isn't a very good person? Now that's a great feat indeed.
MATEO'S GRADE: B+
Written by Sarah Violet-Bliss, Brian Lannin, & Charles Rogers Directed by Sarah Violet-Bliss & Charles Rogers Starring: Bridey Elliott, Claire McNulty, Neil Casey, Peter Vack. Now playing in limited theatrical release and on VOD
FORT TILDEN OFFICIAL TRAILER
MATEO MORENO recently won a bet on who could hold their breath the longest underwater. He won the bet, having beat local loudmouth Jimmy "Thunderbird" Thomas with a record breaking "fourteen minutes." True, part of that time was him unconscious and the other part was him being revived, but he still counts it, and is now $20 richer. Take THAT Thunderbird! He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.