Female Film Critics 24/375
Just about everyone ends up feeling invisible at some point during their teen years — but what if you actually disappeared? That’s what happens to Holly in writer/director Claudia Myers Above the Shadows, a drama/fantasy that serves as an allegory for what it’s like to be marginalized out of your very existence.
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Writer/director Claudia Myers’s Above the Shadows blends several genres — fantasy, romance, sports — for an original take on grief, particularly childhood grief. It’s such a complex topic that it’s commendable that the filmmaker approaches it from a fresh, imaginative angle.
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The protagonist in Claudia Myers’ drama Above the Shadows is not only invisible, but also unheard. She started fading at the age of 10, just after her mother died, and is unremembered by her family. Myers challenges us to look at ourselves through the eyes of others and drop our self-centered grievances long enough to see what other people may be going through. Myers’ script is ingenious and her direction of her actors masterful in making scenes with a supposedly invisible character work.
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Loss changes us. Sometimes we face that, sometimes we don’t. That’s something new indie release and winner of the audience award at the Brooklyn Film Festival Above the Shadows explores. A fantasy anchored in the reality of 21st century daily life, it is the story of Holly, (Olivia Thirlby) who, after losing her beloved mother, fades out of sight over time.
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In Claudia Myers’ indie fantasy drama, Above The Shadows, Holly is lonely, grief stricken and isolated, and she is left with no choice but to navigate the world from the shadows. She was the closest of all the children to her mother, whom she felt was the only person in the world who understood and cared for her. When she tries to interact with the rest of her family after her mother’s death, they ignore her until she fades completely from their presence and is forgotten.
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