BEESWAX
Edited, Written & Directed by Andrew Bujalski
Produced by Dia Sokol & Ethan Vogt
Released by Cinema Guild
USA. 100 min. Not Rated
With Tilly Hatcher, Maggie Hatcher & Alex Karpovsky
 

Writer/director Andrew Bujalski continues to be in the forefront of naturalistic, no-budget filmmaking with this, his third feature, fusing non-professional actors, guarded writing, and an intimate framework. In Beeswax, plausible life scenarios with twentysomethings in Texas are depicted by fresh-faced newcomers and real-life twins Tilly and Maggie Hatcher—Jeannie, the wheelchair-bound, vintage-clothing shop co-owner; and Lauren, the job seeker examining her options. Like her character Jeannie, Tilly also has paraplegia. Her handicap, although an integral part of the story, brilliantly plays out as a non-issue through the very end.

The Hatcher sisters are a revelation of odd sorts. Their on-camera inexperience and unfamiliarity instantly makes them intriguing. Whether in separate or joint scenes, each twin offers a charming and stimulating performance in a life-altering dilemma. Relationships—close and estranged—are examined through these two character studies with undercurrent sub-themes of friendship, aging, and the essence of familial ties.

The beauty of Beeswax is its painstaking core. Many scenes are drawn out in real time with the usual real-life quirks, stutters, and dead-air—a staple for any mumblecore film, really. Sensations of voyeurism and intrusion arise as scenes illustrate both the controlled composure and the emotional outbursts of Jeannie and Lauren, yet subtle comical touches break the tension of the common reality-based circumstances.

Although the film exemplifies many strengths, such as its impressive leads in the Hatcher sisters, possibly its one flaw is its lack of heavy-hearted trials and tribulations. Not to minimize the seriousness of a potential lawsuit that Jeannie faces or the fact that Lauren, who is close to exiting her twenties, is in-between jobs and not careers, but their dilemmas are not entirely catastrophic, one might say. Ironically, the weightiest difficulty turns out to be the most irrelevant. With Bujalski’s careful, tactile direction, a calculated move seems more pragmatic. Marcell Minaya
August 7, 2009