Sweet Thing is a family affair which takes its child protagonists on the road
Alexandre Rockwell continues his work in black-and-white for a sincere and lyrical lo-fi indie that looks at the world through young eyes.
► Sweet Thing is in UK cinemas from 10 September.
After his feature debut In the Soup won the Grand Jury Prize in Sundance’s decade-shaping 1992 US indie line-up – ahead of Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, Allison Anders’s Gas Food Lodging, Gregg Araki’s The Living End and others – director Alexandre Rockwell became something of a forgotten man of American cinema. It’s taken the twin pillars of family and film – specifically, black-and-white celluloid, Rockwell’s so-called “language of dreams” – to bring him back: his young children Lana and Nico starred in his 2013 monochrome, micro-budget Little Feet; and they again take centre stage in this Berlinale 2020 prize-winner.
Like Little Feet, Sweet Thing is a lo-fi picaresque about two siblings largely let down by their parents, who join up with another youngster to grapple with the adult world. Here, though, the more mature Rockwell clan expand their storytelling ambitions. The previous film felt like an experimental home movie, setting up situations and then capturing the kids’ reactions. This offers a developed narrative about escaping a neglected, sometimes dangerous home life, navigating poverty and finding resilience, kinship and wonder on the road.
The deadbeat alcoholic dad (briefly and wordlessly played by Rockwell himself in Little Feet) is a fully fleshed out character here, with veteran actor Will Patton continuing his recent fine run of ambitious indie supporting roles (American Honey, Minari). And there’s genuine jeopardy in the abusive boyfriend of their estranged mother (played by Rockwell’s wife and Lana and Nico’s own mother, Karyn Parsons), inciting violent self-defence that sends the youngsters on the run.
It’s a delicate balance to maintain, between gritty life-on-the-margins and the lyrical, cine-literate style that Rockwell favours, complete with silent-movie iris effects, bursts of saturated colour, and even borrowing Carl Orff ’s tune ‘Gassenhauer’, so associated with Terrence Malick’s Badlands (and, more shamelessly, Tony Scott’s True Romance). That it largely works is due largely to the refreshingly raw young cast – Rockwell apparently found his third juvenile lead, Jabari Watkins, at a New York skate park – and crew, largely drawn from Rockwell’s own New York University graduate students. The resulting authenticity and dynamism help knit together the film’s occasionally jarring tonal shifts.
Lana Rockwell’s Billie is named after Billie Holliday, but the film’s real musical guardian angel is Van Morrison, whose lilting track from Astral Weeks inspired its title. The way the song is resung and its meaning reconfigured throughout the film shows how attuned Rockwell is to his material. One hopes the reinvigorated sincerity and commitment exhibited here are the springboard for a continuing belated return to form, and to the timeless storytelling he clearly still loves.