Pregnant and Dying
2014 · 12m · USA
Directed by Rachel Garber Cole
Genres: dark comedy, drama, experimental
Tones: darkly comic, provocative, theatrical
A woman named Elma faces a simultaneous pregnancy and terminal illness, while Cole performs every member of her family reacting to her predicament. Theatrical staging and rear-screen projection give way to film-stock footage and a darker register about bodily autonomy.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
One actor plays the dying-and-pregnant woman AND every member of her family — and the gimmick lands because the politics are real. The title is the least surprising thing in it.
Rachel Garber Cole's whole-family-as-soloist mode is in the Sarah Polley / Miranda July register of performative confessional; ambition is its own argument here.
One performer playing the protagonist AND her entire family with rear-screen projection — Nutty Professor mechanics retooled for body autonomy is a wild formal bet, and theatrical/artificial is the right register for it.
Reviews
Director/performer Rachel Garber Cole pulls a Eddie Murphy (via Nutty Professor) and plays a whole family, except she's not dealing in farts & fat jokes, but rather body + gender + family dynamics.