The Discoverers (Justin Schwarz, 2012): USA

Reviewed by: Alexander Berg Viewed at: Metro 4, Santa Barbara

I had a couple of hours to kill before the next film was going to play at the festival so I randomly decided to watch what I by the name thought was an Adventure Documentary. Needless to say I was way off… but what I ended up seeing was spot on.This film was one of the festivals best surprises.

This film is about a dysfunctional family like any other. Lewis Birch (Griffin Dunne) is a man who’s life didn’t quite come out the way he wanted. He since long divorced with two teenage kids living with their mothers. He is working as a teacher at a Community College and is currently trying to get his book published. We set off as he has promised his kids Zoe (Madeleine Martin) and Jack (Devon Graye) to go on a road trip to Oregon but as they are driving there he get’s a call from his brother Bill (John C. McGinley) to go visit his parents because his mother isn’t feeling well. They turn around and they all go to visit his parents, when he arrives he finds his mother dead on the bathroom floor and his father Stanley (Stuart Margolin) completely disconnected from reality from the shock. Lewis and his father had never quite gotten along well but in order to get him back into reality he must unwillingly stay with him and try to make him better. To do this they set out on an annual Lewis and Clark re-enactment trek to get his father to come back to reality.

The director Justin Schwartz is someone that is completely unknown to me. The only previous work I was able to find was a short film called “Me and the Moilsies”. The film isn’t perfect but I would never have guessed that it was made by a so unexperienced feature length film director. I definitely want to see more of him and his work in the future, at the moment there is unfortunately not as much information about the film or him as I would want but I hope that there will be soon.

The story has some really nice characters, especially our main character Lewis who is quite funny throughout the film. The two kids can be considered your typical teenagers but though this is the case I still think that there is something more to these characters than usual. We see the classical story of the family that is highly dysfunctional and divided. I unfortunately have to say that this part of the film is something we have seen way too many times. And so is it with many other parts of the film too, it has a simple story with simple characters. But what makes it special is it’s special humor and it’s setting. Sure the structure is something we see in almost every Hollywood production but what goes around these parts is still original. There were times in this film where I would burst out laughing because of the great humor it uses. Now there were some instances in the movie that weren’t that good concerning the humor. Sometimes the jokes were poorly timed and a bit off, I think and hope that they can improve the editing a bit before the commercial release of this film as it didn’t always work even though it on paper should. This is an easy fix though and I wouldn’t be too discouraged by this even though they decide to keep it as most of the jokes work out.

The cinematography of this film, now this is where it gets interesting. The special camera moves and lighting in this film is really essential to what makes it so original. In the beginning of the film when we are in the city we see only still shots shot from a camera standing on a tripod leaving you thinking how dull and boring this is. What also stands out here is the characters, not through their acting but through the lighting. The lighting on the characters be what many would consider to be very badly lit, not because it’s too dark but because it’s really bright. The characters really stand out making us feel like they don’t belong where they are. Together with the still camera shots we get a picture of something being wrong. This all changes slowly throughout the film as the characters move out into the woods. As the film goes on the characters blend in more with their world and the camera shows us more moving pictures as the characters come alive together with the film. I really liked that they did it in such an obvious way because it really makes you think about what you are seeing and it makes you appreciate the different shots for what they are and you can through that see what the characters are going through.

I really liked this film, this was one of my favorite film during the festivals and I would recommend it to anyone. This is a film we will see in the DVD-shelves in the future and I hope it will get the attention it deserves.