How far would you go for a woman who claims with a straight face that she strives to bring about a change in consciousness through her art? Probably not that much. When confronted with this phrase, most people will probably politely excuse themselves and slowly back away. But most people aren’t actors or even aspiring actors. Sofia Takal’s eerily oblique and acerbically funny “Act 1” is about the hunger, anxiety, and potential madness of people who, like the characters who utter the words, have a desperate desire to be, at least momentarily, someone else in front of a crowd.
“Act 1,” which observes one such character, a high school student whom no one believes in, falls under the psychological control of an acting coach in a very dangerous way, is a quietly and movingly plausible story of the young protagonist’s comfortably ripe faith until he falls off the abyss. At face value, this may seem completely ridiculous. But the film keeps you hooked, partly because stars Ella Beatty and Ari Greiner remain steadfast in their commitment to the parts, and partly because the film doesn’t immediately reveal what the “parts” actually are. Takal’s approach is unexpectedly torn between sheer seriousness and hard-line stance. The film is set in an anonymous, late-’90s American suburb, which is recognizable, but not entirely connected to reality, and feels more like a dream.
“Act One,” which premiered at Tribeca, is Takal’s first film since 2019’s underrated, Blumhouse-backed remake of “Black Christmas,” but it’s a far more integral piece of work than his 2016 sophomore feature, “Always Shine,” another laid-back psychodrama that balances elusive genre tropes with spare chamber music intensity. Where that film ultimately took a completely experimental turn, this one more consistently delivers on its strange promise. Limited theatrical distribution is possible, but it will most likely find an audience through indie-oriented streaming platforms.
Tall, cascading, and striking, 17-year-old Hannah (Beatty) has the recessive body language of a wallflower. No one ever encourages her to stand out, and even her mother (Elizabeth Reaser) passive-aggressively criticizes her bespectacled appearance. She feels like a bolder, brighter person only when she’s performing on stage, so she’s devastated when she doesn’t get a small role in the annual high school play. The mother’s suggestion that this is a sign for another career is unhelpful.
More sympathetic to her plight is Melanie Saunders (Greiner). She is a high-flying acting teacher who stumbles upon Hannah’s Act 1 Intensive Studio while researching her favorite young actress, Gracie Thomas (Tavi Gevinson), online. It turns out that Gracie had studied under her, and despite the older woman’s sketchy resume, it was enough to sell the teenager onto Melanie’s course. (The film’s interesting period depiction extends to the first act’s clunky website design, not to mention the visual and tonal details of turn-of-the-century IM messaging.) When class begins, Hannah is completely charmed by Melanie’s flattery and therapy-speak acting approach to speaking truth and connecting with your body. The flirtatious attention of handsome classmate Henry (Nate Mann) — an adult like everyone else in his class — doesn’t hurt, either.
However, it didn’t take long for Melanie’s somewhat restrained leadership style to take on the aura of cult leadership. By the time she exhorts Hannah to “purge the toxicity” of her parents’ influence, it’s as much of a red flag as the creepy, blood-soaked fade-outs that editors Zach Clark and Matthew L. Weiss so often favor, and that’s before she takes an overly practical interest in Hannah and Henry’s budding sex life. But Greiner plays Melanie with such knowing, unblinking conviction that you can’t entirely blame her naive new protégé for ignoring all the signs. “Act 1” is attuned to the seductive appeal of adolescence as an adult yes in a world of nos, and even if Melanie’s posturing all seems like a bit of a performance, it’s still convincing evidence of what she professes to teach.
In her first leading role following her feature film debut in last year’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, Beatty (the youngest of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty) plays the Coltian, unformed protagonist with convincing innocence, and even here there are hints of acting within acting. Its original nature partially hides a darker, more uncompromising drive. Interestingly, when Hannah turns it on as a performer, Beatty takes on her mother’s more impatient and commanding mannerisms. As such, she lives up to the melodramatic demands of a movie with a mascara-smeared grand finale.
Takal is no different, clearly relishing the film’s nauseating, shambling atmosphere, fueled by the sparse, trembling, atonal chimes of Jonathan Goldsmith’s score and the floating, disembodied feel of Robert Reitzel’s camerawork. That’s not to say that “act one” filmmaking never fails to focus on the unique charm of its cast. They may not be telling the truth, as Melanie claims to be, but they get our attention anyway.
