To Be Friends (Eckhart, 2010): USA

Reviewed by Larry Gleeson. Viewed Saturday, January 29, 2011, 10 P.M. at the Lobero Theatre, Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

To Be Friends, a drama and the first film by James Lawrence Eckhart, older brother of Hollywood actor Aaron Eckhart, takes the prize, in my opinion, for best cinematography at the 2011 festival. The setting is majestic coastal similar to, if not, the Gaviota Coast. Eckhart’s use of closeups and extreme closeups coupled with almost flawless acting and editing creates a visual utopia. His use of natural lighting is exquisite providing the characters with an ethereal aura.

In the Q & A following the film’s showing, Mr. Eckhart in a self deprecating  down played the cinematography by saying he felt that anyone can shoot a film like this with the right camera – if only that were true. The film garnered the Best Cinematography Award at the Boston Film Festival. Josh Silfin is credited as the cinematographer.

The film itself has two nameless characters – a male and a female. The male, played by Todd Stastwick and the female, played by Joelle Carter, have come together to celebrate a lifelong friendship.

The characters’ dialogue seemed almost stage like. The dialogue sounds formalized. The effect creates a feeling of high intelligence. The male, a writer, felt spurned and abandoned by the female. The female craved the male’s rapacious wit.

The story is an intimate love story. The two have come together for a final adventure. Through their dialogue they explore each other’s psyche sharing the most intimate feelings and details in trying to determine where they are going. The use of violins and cellos to provide background enhances the film’s spiritual quality.

A few of the lines are: “What is true once is true forever.”

“Love the thing you have.”

“I am beautiful because she knew me.”

As the film progressed I began to feel a disliking for the male character. I felt he was insecure, needy, and ultimately selfish. He always wanted her but never got her. It seemed he couldn’t accept her for who she was. He had to have her as he wanted her. Consequently, he came to believe he couldn’t trust her and thereby felt abandoned. A driving force behind the male’s career path of a writer was the hurt he felt at not possessing the female.

By the film’s end the characters had melded into one another. I felt the plot got really deep here. They have bared their souls to one another. She understands his need to possess her is what drove them apart. She offers herself to him body and soul in an outpouring of humanly love after confessing that when he wanted her years before she wanted him as well. She tells the male that she needed to be held now because that’s what he needed.

The film ends as the female suffering from a chronic sickness dies in an outdoor cast bathtub of warm water. The male is holds her and reassures her he’ll never let her go as she slips from their world together with slit wrists.

Very powerful moving story by James Lawrence Eckhart, screenwriter/director.