Hey, good news! The Exploding Girl, directed by Bradley Rust Gray and produced by So Yong Kim, will be distributed in North America by Adam Yauch’s Oscilloscope Films. O-scope previously released Treeless Mountain, directed by Kim and produced by Gray, who are also husband and wife (Kevin Lee interviewed Kim for us earlier this year).
When I saw the film last spring at Tribeca, I noted that Girl, which stars Zoe Kazan as Ivy, an epileptic college student navigating tricky interpersonal territory on a school break, “not ‘just’ a naturalistic character study; in fact The Exploding Girl is a work of rigorous formalism. Shooting in real locations on the streets and rooftops of New York, Gray keeps his camera far away from Ivy when she’s in public, allowing his star to pop and weave in and out of layers of cars and strangers, the crush of city life both overwhelming her and protecting her. The film’s sound design amplifies this layering effect; the core of this film is the frustrated sadness that surrounds a long-awaited phone call finally coming in, only to have the voice at the other end of the cell virtually swallowed by the noise around you, the conversational flow choked by distance and uncertainty.”
indieWIRE has more info.
With The Exploding Girl, director Bradley Rust Gray has picked a title that’s so evocative, it’s almost tasteless. The film focuses on Ivy (Zoe Kazan), home in Manhattan for a one-week break from her first year of college and uneasily negotiating the tricky transition from shy teenager to functioning adult. If Ivy’s burgeoning womanhood is the figurative explosion the title references, her epilepsy and its effects are the literal reference. Slowly, virtually subliminally but with a determinism reminiscent of a horror film, Gray builds up a sense of dread, but ultimately picks mystery over money shot. In the end, the title is by far the most explosive element (pun intended) of this beautifully restrained film.
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