Two wives fall in love amid the grinding exhaustion and violence of pioneer life, hoping to build a future for themselves
The World to Come is a tragedy and a love story – and also a puzzle, courtesy of the title. Does it mean the afterlife, the entry into paradise that will be recompense for all the hardship and injustice we’ve suffered here? Or does it mean the future: that progressive yearned-for place in which current bigotries will be abolished, and in fact the place from which we, in the 21st century, are looking back on this tale from the 19th, confident that we are freed from these bygone characters’ constraints, content that we understand what is going on and they may not?
The director is Mona Fastvold – who also wrote and directed The Sleepwalker and wrote the script for The Childhood of a Leader – working from a screenplay by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard,...
The World to Come is a tragedy and a love story – and also a puzzle, courtesy of the title. Does it mean the afterlife, the entry into paradise that will be recompense for all the hardship and injustice we’ve suffered here? Or does it mean the future: that progressive yearned-for place in which current bigotries will be abolished, and in fact the place from which we, in the 21st century, are looking back on this tale from the 19th, confident that we are freed from these bygone characters’ constraints, content that we understand what is going on and they may not?
The director is Mona Fastvold – who also wrote and directed The Sleepwalker and wrote the script for The Childhood of a Leader – working from a screenplay by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard,...
- 7/23/2021
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Romantic frontier drama “The World to Come” opens the June installment of International Film Festival Rotterdam 2021 and its director, New York and Oslo based writer-director Mona Fastvold is also set to give one of three Big Talks at the festival this week.
Since the director’s second feature made its debut last September at the Venice International Film Festival, the mid-19th century-set tale of two isolated farmers’ wives in rural upstate New York who fall in love, with the threat of disease never far away, appears to have struck a chord with people.
She says: “I would be having these conversations at festivals – before the second wave of the pandemic hit – and they would tell me about their own love stories, or a person that this film made them think of.
“I think that when we are forced to take a break and we pause and have time to...
Since the director’s second feature made its debut last September at the Venice International Film Festival, the mid-19th century-set tale of two isolated farmers’ wives in rural upstate New York who fall in love, with the threat of disease never far away, appears to have struck a chord with people.
She says: “I would be having these conversations at festivals – before the second wave of the pandemic hit – and they would tell me about their own love stories, or a person that this film made them think of.
“I think that when we are forced to take a break and we pause and have time to...
- 5/30/2021
- by Ann-Marie Corvin
- Variety Film + TV
The Covid pandemic is not over, and may not be over for a long while yet. But with vaccination rates up, this might be a good moment to pause and think about what a microscopic virus has done to our world. Already there’s a literary pandemic of excellent books emerging, including Michael Lewis’ The Premonition and Nina Burleigh’s Virus.
Jim Shepard’s Phase Six, released last week, is nothing like those books. Phase Six is a novel that Shepard wrote before this pandemic about the next pandemic. Its...
Jim Shepard’s Phase Six, released last week, is nothing like those books. Phase Six is a novel that Shepard wrote before this pandemic about the next pandemic. Its...
- 5/26/2021
- by Jeff Goodell
- Rollingstone.com
You smell like biscuits. Of all the details comprising Tallie and Abigail’s first kiss in Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come, this reaction, which comes from Abigail, may be the most surprising and disarming — moreso, even, than the fact that it’s a kiss between two married women in 19th-century America. It’s a covert but not wholly unexpected gesture between wives whose passions seem only to spring to life while their husbands are away. It’s a surprising line, in part, for containing so much. You smell like biscuits: like comfort,...
- 3/7/2021
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
After breaking out with her impressive directorial debut, 2014’s The Sleepwalker, Mona Fastvold wrote Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux with her partner Brady Corbet, and The Mustang with other collaborators. She takes on a different role with her second feature The World to Come, directing an original script by Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard, and making the film completely her own.
In the 1850s-set drama, Fastvold explores the interior lives of two women Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a farmer’s wife, and her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Taking place on a farm in Upstate New York, Abigail has lost her only child to diphtheria. She tends to the needs of her husband Dyer (Casey Affleck), but Abigail heals in Tallie’s arms to the disgust of her controlling husband Finney (Christopher Abbott). The film is beautifully structured by a diary kept by Abigail over the course of the four seasons,...
In the 1850s-set drama, Fastvold explores the interior lives of two women Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a farmer’s wife, and her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Taking place on a farm in Upstate New York, Abigail has lost her only child to diphtheria. She tends to the needs of her husband Dyer (Casey Affleck), but Abigail heals in Tallie’s arms to the disgust of her controlling husband Finney (Christopher Abbott). The film is beautifully structured by a diary kept by Abigail over the course of the four seasons,...
- 3/4/2021
- by Joshua Encinias
- The Film Stage
Katherine Waterston is as fatigued as anyone by what she describes as “the absence of flow” created by a life lived on Zoom. But even from a virtual interview out of her London home, close to where she’s filming the third “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” the actress is poised, curious, and overflowing with openness about her experience filming “The World to Come.”
The ravishing romance takes place in 19th-century upstate New York, where two women (Waterston and Vanessa Kirby) cobble together an intellectual and erotic connection amid the soul-crushing frontier. It’s easily career-best work from this focused, fiercely intelligent performer who first wowed audiences in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice.”
“Paul really did pluck me from obscurity,” she said of her breakout role in the shaggy 2014 Thomas Pynchon adaptation, where she starred as the elusive femme fatale Shasta Fay, ever out of Joaquin Phoenix...
The ravishing romance takes place in 19th-century upstate New York, where two women (Waterston and Vanessa Kirby) cobble together an intellectual and erotic connection amid the soul-crushing frontier. It’s easily career-best work from this focused, fiercely intelligent performer who first wowed audiences in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “Inherent Vice.”
“Paul really did pluck me from obscurity,” she said of her breakout role in the shaggy 2014 Thomas Pynchon adaptation, where she starred as the elusive femme fatale Shasta Fay, ever out of Joaquin Phoenix...
- 3/2/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
“With little pride and less hope, we begin the new year.” So starts Mona Fastvold’s mournful frontier romance “The World to Come,” on January 1st of 1856. (The film’s Sundance screening follows a premiere at last summer’s Venice Film Festival and precedes an imminent theatrical release.)
The words are written in the diary of young wife Abigail (Katherine Waterston), who reads them as an ongoing narration of her inner thoughts and torments. She and her husband, Dyer (co-producer Casey Affleck), have recently lost their little girl to diphtheria, and the space between them is miles wide. He has channeled all his emotions into their struggling farm, a hardscrabble plot in frigid upstate New York. She is pouring hers into the diary, when she’s not cooking, cleaning, milking cows and taking care of Dyer.
Into this austere existence blows Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), an outgoing new neighbor who is...
The words are written in the diary of young wife Abigail (Katherine Waterston), who reads them as an ongoing narration of her inner thoughts and torments. She and her husband, Dyer (co-producer Casey Affleck), have recently lost their little girl to diphtheria, and the space between them is miles wide. He has channeled all his emotions into their struggling farm, a hardscrabble plot in frigid upstate New York. She is pouring hers into the diary, when she’s not cooking, cleaning, milking cows and taking care of Dyer.
Into this austere existence blows Tallie (Vanessa Kirby), an outgoing new neighbor who is...
- 3/1/2021
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
Casey Affleck is grieving on the big screen again, with supporting roles in two new dramas: “Our Friend” and “The World to Come.” The former features the actor as real-life journalist Matthew Teague, whose article about his wife’s unsuccessful struggle with cancer serves as the film’s source material. Affleck explains about Teague in his exclusive interview with Gold Derby (watch the video above), “He cares a lot about sharing — about being seen. He wrote the article because he wanted that experience to be seen. He wanted the movie to find a wider audience than the article and be seen.”
In the 1856-set “The World to Come,” Affleck plays a farmer named Dyer, who is in mourning over his daughter. That period piece hails from Affleck’s production company. He explains, “We were thinking, that instead of trying to think about what are people seeing/what typically do people like to see,...
In the 1856-set “The World to Come,” Affleck plays a farmer named Dyer, who is in mourning over his daughter. That period piece hails from Affleck’s production company. He explains, “We were thinking, that instead of trying to think about what are people seeing/what typically do people like to see,...
- 2/22/2021
- by Riley Chow
- Gold Derby
Photo: 'The World To Come'/Bleecker Street Set in the 1850s, ‘The World to Come’ is a period-piece drama from female director Mona Fastvold. The story focuses on housewife Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) and her relationship with grieving mother Abigail (Katherine Waterson). Although both women are married, they find a connection in one another that they don’t find anywhere else. Both a sensual and emotional piece, ‘The World to Come’ showcases a forbidden romance effortlessly. ‘The World to Come’ has a slow build, beginning with slight touches between the women and a forlorn relationship between the housewives and their husbands. It evolves into the women reading poetry together and goes from there. Eventually, it explodes in a dramatic moment where Kirby goes missing and Waterson leaves to rescue her without hesitation. It is a film more about subtleties than anything else. Related article: One of the Most Beautiful...
- 2/13/2021
- by Jordan Qin
- Hollywood Insider - Substance & Meaningful Entertainment
“My plan was to die before the money ran out” has become the anthem and tagline of the Sony Pictures Classics’ French Exit starring Michelle Pfeiffer as a 60-year-old penniless Manhattan socialite – a role that has been earning her plenty of awards season buzz.
Opening in theaters today before expanding nationwide April 2, French Exit is directed by Azazel Jacobs and written by Patrick deWitt, who wrote the bestselling novel on which the movie is based. In it, Pfeiffer plays Frances Price whose life hasn’t gone exactly as planned after her dead husband’s (Tracy Letts) inheritance is gone. She cashes in the last of her possessions and decides to live out her twilight days anonymously in a borrowed apartment in Paris with her directionless son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and a cat named Small Frank — who may or may not embody the spirit of her husband.
French Exit made its...
Opening in theaters today before expanding nationwide April 2, French Exit is directed by Azazel Jacobs and written by Patrick deWitt, who wrote the bestselling novel on which the movie is based. In it, Pfeiffer plays Frances Price whose life hasn’t gone exactly as planned after her dead husband’s (Tracy Letts) inheritance is gone. She cashes in the last of her possessions and decides to live out her twilight days anonymously in a borrowed apartment in Paris with her directionless son Malcolm (Lucas Hedges) and a cat named Small Frank — who may or may not embody the spirit of her husband.
French Exit made its...
- 2/12/2021
- by Dino-Ray Ramos
- Deadline Film + TV
Pitch Rider to Perdition: Fastvold Fans Flames of Forbidden Desire in Masterful Period Drama
Few and far between are cinematic narratives which attempt to, much less accomplish, desire melded with interiority from a woman’s perspective. Director Mona Fastvold delivers an exceptional anomaly with her sophomore film The World to Come, a period piece which blazes with fierce intelligence and intention as much as it waxes poetically before dangling precariously into despair.
Penned by novelists Jim Shepard and Ron Hansen, it’s a film which channels the energies of D.H.…...
Few and far between are cinematic narratives which attempt to, much less accomplish, desire melded with interiority from a woman’s perspective. Director Mona Fastvold delivers an exceptional anomaly with her sophomore film The World to Come, a period piece which blazes with fierce intelligence and intention as much as it waxes poetically before dangling precariously into despair.
Penned by novelists Jim Shepard and Ron Hansen, it’s a film which channels the energies of D.H.…...
- 2/11/2021
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Director Mona Fastvold’s second feature film The World to Come is an adaptation of a Jim Shepard short story of the same name. The film follows Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a well-read 19th century wife living in upstate New York who has grown frustrated with the humdrum of provincial life. She soon begins a love affair with her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Editor Dávid Jancsó tells us of the film’s meticulous editing style, the influence of Daniel Blumberg’s score on the process, and his prior collaborations with Fastvold. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]
The post "Treat the Ptsd That Comes from Filming": Editor Dávid Jancsó on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "Treat the Ptsd That Comes from Filming": Editor Dávid Jancsó on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/2/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Director Mona Fastvold’s second feature film The World to Come is an adaptation of a Jim Shepard short story of the same name. The film follows Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a well-read 19th century wife living in upstate New York who has grown frustrated with the humdrum of provincial life. She soon begins a love affair with her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Editor Dávid Jancsó tells us of the film’s meticulous editing style, the influence of Daniel Blumberg’s score on the process, and his prior collaborations with Fastvold. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your […]
The post "Treat the Ptsd That Comes from Filming": Editor Dávid Jancsó on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "Treat the Ptsd That Comes from Filming": Editor Dávid Jancsó on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/2/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
Director Mona Fastvold’s second feature film The World to Come is an adaptation of a Jim Shepard short story of the same name. The film follows Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a well-read 19th century wife living in upstate New York who has grown frustrated with the humdrum of provincial life. She soon begins a love affair with her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Cinematographer André Chemetoff discusses the unique challenge of portraying winter scenes in summer, ballerinas, and achieving ethereality on film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes […]
The post "Softness to Achieve an Ethereal Image": Dp André Chemetoff on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "Softness to Achieve an Ethereal Image": Dp André Chemetoff on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/2/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Director Mona Fastvold’s second feature film The World to Come is an adaptation of a Jim Shepard short story of the same name. The film follows Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a well-read 19th century wife living in upstate New York who has grown frustrated with the humdrum of provincial life. She soon begins a love affair with her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby). Cinematographer André Chemetoff discusses the unique challenge of portraying winter scenes in summer, ballerinas, and achieving ethereality on film. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes […]
The post "Softness to Achieve an Ethereal Image": Dp André Chemetoff on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post "Softness to Achieve an Ethereal Image": Dp André Chemetoff on The World to Come first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 2/2/2021
- by Filmmaker Staff
- Filmmaker Magazine-Director Interviews
The World to Come Trailer — Mona Fastvold‘s The World to Come (2020) movie trailer has been released by Bleecker Street and stars Katherine Waterston, Vanessa Kirby, Christopher Abbott, Casey Affleck, Andreea Vasile, Sandra Personnic-House, Ioachim Ciobanu, Karina Ziana Gherasim, and James Longshore. Crew Jim Shepard and Ron Hansen wrote the [...]
Continue reading: The World To Come (2020) Movie Trailer: Katherine Waterston & Vanessa Kirby form a Dangerous Relationship in the 19th Century...
Continue reading: The World To Come (2020) Movie Trailer: Katherine Waterston & Vanessa Kirby form a Dangerous Relationship in the 19th Century...
- 1/17/2021
- by Rollo Tomasi
- Film-Book
A good period drama, with terrific acting, is a longtime staple of cinema. Last year, on the festival circuit, one such movie made the rounds in The World to Come. Featuring top notch work from Christopher Abbott, Casey Affleck, and especially Vanessa Kirby and Katherine Waterston, this romantic drama has a lot to offer. In advance of its release next month, in the middle of February, Bleecker Street has released a Trailer. Watching it, it’s clear to see how good Abbott, Affleck, Kirby, and Waterston are here. You can see the Trailer at the bottom of this post, as per the usual… The film is a period romantic drama, as you might expect. Here’s the official synopsis: “In this powerful 19th century romance set in the American Northeast, Abigail (Katherine Waterston), a farmer’s wife, and her new neighbor Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) find themselves irrevocably drawn to each other.
- 1/14/2021
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby are lovers on the American frontier in Mona Fastvold’s ravishing period romance “The World to Come,” which finally comes to U.S. audiences after an acclaimed bow at last year’s Venice Film Festival. The lesbian love story, co-starring Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott, makes its stateside premiere virtually at the Sundance Film Festival before opening from Bleecker Street Films in available theaters on February 12 and on digital March 2. Watch the trailer below.
Set during the 19th-century somewhere along the east coast of the United States, “The World to Come” follows the acting foursome as they battle the elements and isolation. Waterston, who also provides a literary voiceover in the form of epistolary diary entries, plays Abigail, grieving from a recent loss while eking out a pastoral life with her husband, Dyer (Affleck). She’s thrown for an emotional tailspin when she meets Tallie...
Set during the 19th-century somewhere along the east coast of the United States, “The World to Come” follows the acting foursome as they battle the elements and isolation. Waterston, who also provides a literary voiceover in the form of epistolary diary entries, plays Abigail, grieving from a recent loss while eking out a pastoral life with her husband, Dyer (Affleck). She’s thrown for an emotional tailspin when she meets Tallie...
- 1/14/2021
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
Bleecker Street has acquired the North American rights to “The World to Come,” a period drama and romance starring Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby that made its premiere at the Venice Film Festival.
“The World to Come” is directed by Mona Fastvold and won the Queer Lion Award at the festival and the Fanheart3 Award. Bleecker Street has yet to set release plans.
“The World to Come” is set in the mid-19th century along the frontier of America’s Eastern shorlines and follows Waterston and Kirby as two farm wives who form an intense love affair apart from their husbands, even as they battle hardship, isolation from the outside world and are challenged both mentally and physically.
Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott co-star in the film. Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard wrote the screenplay. Affleck is also a producer on the film along with Whitaker Lader, Pamela Koffler, David Hinojosa,...
“The World to Come” is directed by Mona Fastvold and won the Queer Lion Award at the festival and the Fanheart3 Award. Bleecker Street has yet to set release plans.
“The World to Come” is set in the mid-19th century along the frontier of America’s Eastern shorlines and follows Waterston and Kirby as two farm wives who form an intense love affair apart from their husbands, even as they battle hardship, isolation from the outside world and are challenged both mentally and physically.
Casey Affleck and Christopher Abbott co-star in the film. Ron Hansen and Jim Shepard wrote the screenplay. Affleck is also a producer on the film along with Whitaker Lader, Pamela Koffler, David Hinojosa,...
- 9/17/2020
- by Brian Welk
- The Wrap
Bleecker Street has bought U.S. rights to Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come,” a period romance with Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, rolling off its critically acclaimed premiere in competition at the 77th Venice Film Festival.
Repped in the U.S. by UTA Independent Film Group, Endeavor Content and ICM Partners, the Venice breakout was being circled by four bidders beginning the night of its premiere on Sept. 6.
Based on the stellar reviews and strong buzz that “The World to Come” garnered in Venice, it will likely be a serious Oscar contender if Bleecker Street is able to release it on time. There is no release date planned yet.
Kirby, whose performance has been unanimously praised, was on double duty at Venice where she starred in another competition film, Kornél Mundruczó’s “Pieces of a Woman.”
“The World to Come” marks the sophomore outing of actress-turned-filmmaker Mona Fastvold,...
Repped in the U.S. by UTA Independent Film Group, Endeavor Content and ICM Partners, the Venice breakout was being circled by four bidders beginning the night of its premiere on Sept. 6.
Based on the stellar reviews and strong buzz that “The World to Come” garnered in Venice, it will likely be a serious Oscar contender if Bleecker Street is able to release it on time. There is no release date planned yet.
Kirby, whose performance has been unanimously praised, was on double duty at Venice where she starred in another competition film, Kornél Mundruczó’s “Pieces of a Woman.”
“The World to Come” marks the sophomore outing of actress-turned-filmmaker Mona Fastvold,...
- 9/17/2020
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
In the fall festival derby, everyone was expecting the Kate Winslet-Saoirse Ronan romance “Ammonite” to follow up “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” as the next must-see Sapphic bodice-ripper. (It plays Toronto later this week.) But the lesbian love story to break out first in Venice is actress-writer-director Mona Fastvold’s second movie, “The World to Come,” a grim yet achingly beautiful 1850s pioneer drama about two isolated farm wives (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby) who escape from their domestic drudgery with each other.
After struggling to move forward with several projects as her follow-up feature to 2014’s “The Sleepwalker,” Norway-born Fastvold fell in love with someone else’s story instead. She usually writes movies for herself and her creative and life partner Brady Corbet as well as other filmmakers (“The Mustang” and Antonio Campos’ “Homemade” episode).
As Fastvold worried about how to make the story her own,...
After struggling to move forward with several projects as her follow-up feature to 2014’s “The Sleepwalker,” Norway-born Fastvold fell in love with someone else’s story instead. She usually writes movies for herself and her creative and life partner Brady Corbet as well as other filmmakers (“The Mustang” and Antonio Campos’ “Homemade” episode).
As Fastvold worried about how to make the story her own,...
- 9/7/2020
- by Anne Thompson
- Thompson on Hollywood
In the fall festival derby, everyone was expecting the Kate Winslet-Saoirse Ronan romance “Ammonite” to follow up “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” as the next must-see Sapphic bodice-ripper. (It plays Toronto later this week.) But the lesbian love story to break out first in Venice is actress-writer-director Mona Fastvold’s second movie, “The World to Come,” a grim yet achingly beautiful 1850s pioneer drama about two isolated farm wives (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby) who escape from their domestic drudgery with each other.
After struggling to move forward with several projects as her follow-up feature to 2014’s “The Sleepwalker,” Norway-born Fastvold fell in love with someone else’s story instead. She usually writes movies for herself and her creative and life partner Brady Corbet as well as other filmmakers (“The Mustang” and Antonio Campos’ “Homemade” episode).
As Fastvold worried about how to make the story her own,...
After struggling to move forward with several projects as her follow-up feature to 2014’s “The Sleepwalker,” Norway-born Fastvold fell in love with someone else’s story instead. She usually writes movies for herself and her creative and life partner Brady Corbet as well as other filmmakers (“The Mustang” and Antonio Campos’ “Homemade” episode).
As Fastvold worried about how to make the story her own,...
- 9/7/2020
- by Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
In The World to Come, an unlikely romance blossoms against the rugged rural backdrop of the American Northeast. The action plays out during the year 1856 somewhere in the region of Syracuse, a few years shy of the American Civil War. The setting could hardly be more isolated; the living much further from easy. On January 1st, our lonesome protagonist welcomes the changing of the calendar with the bleakest of resolutions: “With little pride and less hope, we begin the new year.”
Directed by Mona Fastvold, a Norwegian filmmaker now based in Brooklyn, the film marks her follow-up to The Sleepwalker, which followed another isolated couple whose marriage was set to crumble––albeit in the present day and with much more dancing. After co-writing The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux with partner Brady Corbet, it is with great anticipation that Fastvold returns to the director’s seat. It’s...
Directed by Mona Fastvold, a Norwegian filmmaker now based in Brooklyn, the film marks her follow-up to The Sleepwalker, which followed another isolated couple whose marriage was set to crumble––albeit in the present day and with much more dancing. After co-writing The Childhood of a Leader and Vox Lux with partner Brady Corbet, it is with great anticipation that Fastvold returns to the director’s seat. It’s...
- 9/7/2020
- by Rory O'Connor
- The Film Stage
‘The World to Come’ Review: Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby Lead Swoon-Worthy Frontier Romance
As coldly drawn as an atlas yet no less capable of enflaming the imagination, Mona Fastvold’s “The World to Come” is — what its hyper-literate heroine would call “astonishment and joy” — as a merciless 19th-century winter blushes into a most unexpected spring.
Tuesday, January 1, 1856. Abigail (Katherine Waterston) mourns the daughter who was taken by diphtheria a few months prior, and journals about a world that feels barren in the young girl’s absence. “This morning, ice in our bedroom for the first time all winter,” she reads aloud in voiceover, offering the first excerpt from an interior monologue so pronounced that Fastvold’s romance often feels like an epistolary film written by a woman to herself. “The water froze on the potatoes as soon as they were washed. With little pride, and less hope, we begin the new year.”
And what a new year it will be for the ever-studious Abigail,...
Tuesday, January 1, 1856. Abigail (Katherine Waterston) mourns the daughter who was taken by diphtheria a few months prior, and journals about a world that feels barren in the young girl’s absence. “This morning, ice in our bedroom for the first time all winter,” she reads aloud in voiceover, offering the first excerpt from an interior monologue so pronounced that Fastvold’s romance often feels like an epistolary film written by a woman to herself. “The water froze on the potatoes as soon as they were washed. With little pride, and less hope, we begin the new year.”
And what a new year it will be for the ever-studious Abigail,...
- 9/6/2020
- by David Ehrlich
- Indiewire
A shy, introverted farmer’s wife in Schoharie County, New York, Abigail has stopped going to church since the death of her young daughter Nellie. “I no longer derive comfort from the thought of a better world to come,” she says, in one of the many narrated diary entries that give Mona Fastvold’s period drama its literate, contemplative voice.
The line provides “The World to Come” with its title, which reverberates and expands in meaning as the film’s simple, year-spanning story unfolds: At first Abigail may be speaking of the afterlife, though as an exhilarating new love is denied her by the ruling patriarchy, it seems she’s looking to a liberated world far ahead of her modest existence in 1856. For Abigail finds her soulmate in another woman, fellow unhappy farm wife Tallie, and the intensely moving romance that ensues finds release in the imaginative freedom of their desires,...
The line provides “The World to Come” with its title, which reverberates and expands in meaning as the film’s simple, year-spanning story unfolds: At first Abigail may be speaking of the afterlife, though as an exhilarating new love is denied her by the ruling patriarchy, it seems she’s looking to a liberated world far ahead of her modest existence in 1856. For Abigail finds her soulmate in another woman, fellow unhappy farm wife Tallie, and the intensely moving romance that ensues finds release in the imaginative freedom of their desires,...
- 9/6/2020
- by Guy Lodge
- Variety Film + TV
New York and Oslo-based writer/director Mona Fastvold made her directorial debut with “The Sleepwalker,” which unlocked secrets between two sisters and made a splash in 2014 at Sundance. Her ambitious followup “The World to Come” stars Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby as two farmers’ wives in 1856 Upstate New York who fall in love but have no template, no reference points as to how to handle their emotions. The period drama distributed by Sony Pictures premieres Sunday in competition at the Venice Film Festival. Fastvold spoke to Variety about the choices she made in bringing “the dream of these two women” to the screen. Excerpts from the conversation.
The film’s screenplay originates from a short story by Jim Shepard. Was that the starting point for you as well?
What inspired Jim to write the short story is he did research on this great snowstorm that happened in 1856 in Upstate New York.
The film’s screenplay originates from a short story by Jim Shepard. Was that the starting point for you as well?
What inspired Jim to write the short story is he did research on this great snowstorm that happened in 1856 in Upstate New York.
- 9/6/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
A friendship that blossoms into romance offers two mid-19th century farmers’ wives refuge from their joyless marriages and routines of menial drudgery in Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come.
Adapted from Jim Shepard’s moving 2017 short story of the same title, this Venice competition entry is set in a rugged upstate New York where the winters are harsh and the patriarchy hangs heavy. Resignation seems to be the default mode for Abigail and Tallie (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, respectively), the women at the story’s center, whose lives revolve around keeping their husbands’ stomachs full and their ambitions afloat. The ...
Adapted from Jim Shepard’s moving 2017 short story of the same title, this Venice competition entry is set in a rugged upstate New York where the winters are harsh and the patriarchy hangs heavy. Resignation seems to be the default mode for Abigail and Tallie (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, respectively), the women at the story’s center, whose lives revolve around keeping their husbands’ stomachs full and their ambitions afloat. The ...
A friendship that blossoms into romance offers two mid-19th century farmers’ wives refuge from their joyless marriages and routines of menial drudgery in Mona Fastvold’s The World to Come.
Adapted from Jim Shepard’s moving 2017 short story of the same title, this Venice competition entry is set in a rugged upstate New York where the winters are harsh and the patriarchy hangs heavy. Resignation seems to be the default mode for Abigail and Tallie (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, respectively), the women at the story’s center, whose lives revolve around keeping their husbands’ stomachs full and their ambitions afloat. The ...
Adapted from Jim Shepard’s moving 2017 short story of the same title, this Venice competition entry is set in a rugged upstate New York where the winters are harsh and the patriarchy hangs heavy. Resignation seems to be the default mode for Abigail and Tallie (Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby, respectively), the women at the story’s center, whose lives revolve around keeping their husbands’ stomachs full and their ambitions afloat. The ...
The Columbine massacre happened in 1999. It’s crazy to think it’s been over twenty years because we seem to have a new school shooting every month now. And as they grew in prevalence, the conversation surrounding them shifted from tragedy to politicization. Gus Van Sant’s Elephant arrived in 2003 as a poetic psychological display unconcerned with pretending to know answers. It documented the experience of this tragic event as an emotional confluence between troubled souls on both sides of the gun — the mundane taking on meaning beyond its façade. With the help of a 24-hour news cycle, however, this notion of problematic complexity has been erased. Now it’s monster versus victim. It’s mental illness versus gun control. The empathy necessary to solve this terrifying epidemic ceases to exist.
Choosing to tell a story on this subject in 2018 must therefore combat many more prejudices and preconceptions than at...
Choosing to tell a story on this subject in 2018 must therefore combat many more prejudices and preconceptions than at...
- 4/29/2018
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
Being a teenager is hard. We’ve all been through it and survived, coming out the other end hopefully a healthy and curious adult. For some though, it can be literal hell on Earth, with potentially deadly issues. This week, one such independent film opens that seeks to tackle it. It’s called And Then I Go, a drama that tackles some truly important things. There’s a fine line to walk between examination and exploitation, but this movie does it quite well. In fact, it’s one of the more surprising indies of 2018 so far. It really sneaks up on you and leaves its mark. Consider me impressed. The movie is a character study of sorts, focused in on teenagers and how bullying/exclusion can lead to tragic results. This is the IMDb plot synopsis: “In the cruel world of junior high, Edwin suffers in a state of anxiety...
- 4/17/2018
- by Joey Magidson
- Hollywoodnews.com
You may not have liked going to school as a kid, but you probably didn’t hate it as much as Edwin. In his opening narration, the eighth-grader, played by an impressive Arman Darbo, refers to his school as the reason he can’t sleep at night, a clique-filled nightmare and a “big shit-pile floating downstream.” At the bottom of that stream, caught in the wake and crashing against the rocks, he and his best friend are trying — and failing — to make it through each day undisturbed.
Read More: Laff 2017: 10 Festival Picks, from ‘My Friend Dahmer’ to ‘Everything Beautiful Is Far Away’
A coming-of-age drama about kids who may never actually come of age, “And Then I Go” reads as a less abrasive “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” Vincent Grashaw’s adaptation of Jim Shepard’s 2004 novel “Project X” isn’t about red flags and warning signs so much as the toxic combination of angst, detachment and alienation that makes terrible decisions seem like the only recourse to kids who don’t know — or don’t believe — that the problems they’re facing will one day seem insignificant.
“Kids like you used to get their butts kicked when I was a kid,” Edwin’s kind-but-exhausted principal (Tony Hale, living up to the tradition of comic TV actors going serious for the indies) tells him after one especially sarcastic visit to the office. “They still do,” responds the troubled youth, who’s as quick-witted as he is confused. Cut to: Edwin and his best friend Flake getting their asses kicked by a couple of soccer players.
It takes all of 15 minutes to glean that this film’s narrative trajectory probably isn’t leaning toward reconciliation and catharsis. Edwin doesn’t seem likely to emerge from his adolescent ordeals changed for the better, and his parents (Melanie Lynskey and Justin Long) aren’t going to have an aha moment where they realize how to connect with their son. No, this movie’s arc is signaled by a question Flake asks Edwin: “Wanna see my dad’s guns?”
Rather than try to remake Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant,” as Tim Sutton did in “Dark Night,” Grashaw has crafted an intimate, sympathetic character study. The focus is on Edwin rather than what he may or may not eventually do, which is largely at the behest of his angry bestie. They’re making a list and checking it twice, but it’s clear all along that Flake (real name Roddy) is more committed to the idea than our wayward protagonist. Will they or won’t they?
Read More: As the Los Angeles Film Festival Struggles for Relevancy, a New Director Has Big Ideas For Change
Grashaw keeps us guessing. “And Then I Go” isn’t elegiac or fatalistic, nor is it a dread-filled slog toward an inevitable conclusion. There are glimmers of hope along the way, and a group art project goes surprisingly well — Edwin’s parents suggest taking a trip to the lake they used to visit every summer — and suggestions that the boy will find a way to weather this storm. By the time the end arrives, we’re as surprised as Edwin and Flake want their classmates to be.
Grade: B
“And Then I Go” premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.
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Related stories'Princess Cyd' Review: Now This Is How You Write Strong Female Characters In a Movie'Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press' Review: Hulk Hogan's Gawker Trial Gets a Big, Scary Context'Transformers: The Last Knight' Review: Here's the Most Ridiculous Hollywood Movie of the Year...
Read More: Laff 2017: 10 Festival Picks, from ‘My Friend Dahmer’ to ‘Everything Beautiful Is Far Away’
A coming-of-age drama about kids who may never actually come of age, “And Then I Go” reads as a less abrasive “We Need to Talk About Kevin.” Vincent Grashaw’s adaptation of Jim Shepard’s 2004 novel “Project X” isn’t about red flags and warning signs so much as the toxic combination of angst, detachment and alienation that makes terrible decisions seem like the only recourse to kids who don’t know — or don’t believe — that the problems they’re facing will one day seem insignificant.
“Kids like you used to get their butts kicked when I was a kid,” Edwin’s kind-but-exhausted principal (Tony Hale, living up to the tradition of comic TV actors going serious for the indies) tells him after one especially sarcastic visit to the office. “They still do,” responds the troubled youth, who’s as quick-witted as he is confused. Cut to: Edwin and his best friend Flake getting their asses kicked by a couple of soccer players.
It takes all of 15 minutes to glean that this film’s narrative trajectory probably isn’t leaning toward reconciliation and catharsis. Edwin doesn’t seem likely to emerge from his adolescent ordeals changed for the better, and his parents (Melanie Lynskey and Justin Long) aren’t going to have an aha moment where they realize how to connect with their son. No, this movie’s arc is signaled by a question Flake asks Edwin: “Wanna see my dad’s guns?”
Rather than try to remake Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant,” as Tim Sutton did in “Dark Night,” Grashaw has crafted an intimate, sympathetic character study. The focus is on Edwin rather than what he may or may not eventually do, which is largely at the behest of his angry bestie. They’re making a list and checking it twice, but it’s clear all along that Flake (real name Roddy) is more committed to the idea than our wayward protagonist. Will they or won’t they?
Read More: As the Los Angeles Film Festival Struggles for Relevancy, a New Director Has Big Ideas For Change
Grashaw keeps us guessing. “And Then I Go” isn’t elegiac or fatalistic, nor is it a dread-filled slog toward an inevitable conclusion. There are glimmers of hope along the way, and a group art project goes surprisingly well — Edwin’s parents suggest taking a trip to the lake they used to visit every summer — and suggestions that the boy will find a way to weather this storm. By the time the end arrives, we’re as surprised as Edwin and Flake want their classmates to be.
Grade: B
“And Then I Go” premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.
Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
Related stories'Princess Cyd' Review: Now This Is How You Write Strong Female Characters In a Movie'Nobody Speak: Trials of the Free Press' Review: Hulk Hogan's Gawker Trial Gets a Big, Scary Context'Transformers: The Last Knight' Review: Here's the Most Ridiculous Hollywood Movie of the Year...
- 6/23/2017
- by Michael Nordine
- Indiewire
Jim Shepard is one of the best writers you’ve never heard of. He’s a tenured professor at Williams College, a job he’s held happily for 32 years — raising his family in pastoral Massachusetts, teaching generations of admiring acolytes, writing dozens of short stories and seven lean novels (including the intense character studies Nosferatu and Project X) to his own strange, exacting specifications.Yet Shepard describes himself as “semi-obscure,” a “writer’s writer,” which he takes as a sort of consolation prize: “It used to mean, ‘writers like him, anyway.’” He is not happy with his place in literary culture; nor should he be, since his commercial timing has always been a little off. When he joined a friend to ghostwrite Ya novels, they decided to focus on sports instead of horror stories, that future genre of blockbusters. Project X, about an eighth-grader plotting a school massacre, showcased his...
- 5/12/2015
- by Boris Kachka
- Vulture
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