MATT AND MARA (Melbourne IFF 2024) – Review by Alexandra Heller-Nicholas
The already not-so-great life of Canadian literature academic Mara (Deragh Campbell) who lives with her musician partner and young child is thrown askew with the sudden, unexpected arrival of an old college friend, Matt (Matt Johnson). Charismatic, attentive and comparatively a much more successful writer than Mara – who has effectively put her writing career on hold to teach and raise a family – the combination of Matt’s urbane New York lifestyle and easy charm instantly enthrals her. Spending increasingly more time together as their encounters advance from surface-level banter to something more intimate and personal, Mara undergoes a fundamental perspective shift that makes her reconsider the things in her life that she might have been taking for granted.
Following on from his superb collaboration with Campbell who starred in the title role of his 2020 film Anne at 13.000 Feet, Kazik Radwanski returns with another banger that, while low key in vibes, once again dazzles with a confident, creative vision. Going back at least to his earlier (and just as impressive) How Heavy This Hammer (2015), Radwanski is very much an actor’s director, and the patience and attentiveness his camera pays to the electricity between Campbell and Johnson is a real masterclass in intuitive and collaborative indie filmmaking.
It is this electricity – the obvious product of nothing less than immaculate casting – that really drives Matt and Mara, and in the hands of other actors it would be difficult to imagine the movie working as well as it does. On paper, what is effectively a close encounter with a developing emotional affair becomes something so much grander when brought to life with the nuanced, humane performances upon which the film very much depends. The relaxed yet vibrant banter between Matt and Mara at the heart of the movie might be best described as something almost post-mumblecore in nature, but such a description risks sounding inappropriately glib. Rather, this is a careful, considered and considerate film, an authentic portrait of two people at a transformative moment full of all the life and humour and contradictions shared by us all.
