The Pianist
2018 · 10m · USA
Directed by Doron Max Hagay
Tones: absurdist, humorous, tender
A frazzled mother waits on a babysitter so she can escape to a high-profile summit of female creatives. Domestic duties refuse to follow her schedule.
Picked by Felix
The scouts
Kate Berlant in domestic free-fall — the kind of comic performance that mistakes itself for a small movie until it isn't. The summit of female creatives can wait; this is the better text.
Kate Berlant in maternal-panic register is a specific instrument no one else can play, and Joanna Arnow's domestic neuroses is the exact lineage. Doron Max Hagay has earned trust.
Kate Berlant doing maternal panic in a frazzled-mom-waiting-on-a-babysitter showcase is a built-in win — her register is precisely engineered for this exact texture of domestic neurosis. Hagay knows how to frame her.
Reviews
No one is better than Berlant to embody a frazzled pianist trying to steer her children away from a hyper-masculine society.