This review is for a film originally viewed at the 22nd Annual Tallgrass Film Festival. WD;ED will update when the film becomes available either in theatres or on VOD.
Teen pregnancy is a bit different today than it was fifteen years ago. Sadie Bones’ debut, one that stands strong in this genre despite inevitable comparisons to Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody’s Juno, is a charmer that claims hearts. Its honesty, side-splitting humor, and delightful cast make for one of this year’s best comedies.
Sydnie’s (Aitana Doyle) boyfriend, Lucas (Braxton Fannin), dumps her the night after a prom-hookup on the beach so he can screw other girls at college. Supported by her snarky and invested family, she eats potato chips on the couch and cries and drinks pickle juice until she discovers that Lucas left her a little surprise. Multiple positive pregnancy tests lead Sydnie to realize she was pregnant and, seeing an opportunity, draws Lucas back via his mother into a tentative reunion. His more…”douchetastic” qualities (my words, not those of the writer/director) begin to show through as Sydnie begins to be attracted to Daniel (Andrew Michael Fama), a local rock ‘n’ roll singer. She soon realizes that she will have to decide what she actually wants, whether it’s a family with Lucas or a future with Daniel, and she better hurry up because that baby bump is growing.
Bones is able to make some masterful mockery of the different ways family reacts to, handles, and follows-up on a pregnancy. A teen pregnancy is particularly challenging, but a game cast that’s able to have a blast with the material while also digging for something honest make magic happen. The cast making up Sydnie’s family is a home run, with David Krumholtz and Nadia Dajani as her parents and Ava Bodnar as Iris, her living-in-the-basement hairstylist sister. The group have a dynamic that comes right up to the line of feeling scripted and avoid it by a hair, managing instead to feel like a family that’s often smarmy and honest and sweetly snide to one another. It’s a fun contrast to Lucas’s relationship with his mother (Catherine Curtin), which honestly more resembled mine to my parents. It’s a great group of people, but Aitana Doyle keeps these satellites rotating around her gravitational pull as a touching, funny, and emotional lead.
Enough attention cannot be drawn to the fact that director Sadie Bones is only 19. The script for If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing was penned at 17, but between private financing and apparently sheer will she got this thing onscreen and it’s just a blast. It was written during the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a staggeringly incoherent moment in American history when women were reduced from people to the mere cells inside of them. Bones film takes all of this to task, lashing out at morons who use the word “woke” with sincerity and Facebook warriors that assume their religious beliefs should apply to everyone by law. There’s a bitter rage inside the glass that is often barely contained by the humor and pathos around the rim.
Speaking of the humor my GOD does Sadie Bones have a good sense of humor. Some of it is quite blunt, like a rock band going by the moniker “Delusions of Grandeur,” but more of it is the snappy dialogue amongst the members of Sydnie’s family. Bones’ script is tight as a drum and laden with the type of humor rarely seen in modern comedy. It’s not self-loathing or meta like Marvel, which is what most audiences identify as humor these days. Bones’ dialogue is built on sincerity, love, and genuine heart that feels alien in this landscape.
If That Mockingbird Don’t Sing is a lot of things. It wantonly mocks modern, privileged conservativism amongst Americans. It shines a light on the idea of asking a young woman to give up her life for the beliefs of others. Perhaps most important, it asks us to see all of these people as human beings with bodies and beliefs and meaning that is worthy of having identity and agency. It’s a lovely movie, one that deserves to be seen and loved the way it sees and loves its audience.
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