Movies about super intelligent characters often fail to convince because they're clearly not made by super intelligent filmmakers who possess the ability to think as smartly as their fictional creations. Sew Torn is a comic thriller about a very smart and resourceful young woman, and it works because its first time writer/director, Freddy Macdonald, is clearly a mad genius himself. It's not often I find myself thinking "that's something I haven't seen before" while watching a new movie, but it's a thought that crossed my mind at several points in Macdonald's debut, which is an expansion of his 2019 short of the same name.
From the opening scene we realise we're in the hands of a highly imaginative filmmaker. Our young heroine Barbara (Eve Connolly) wakes in the home attached to the haberdashery business once run by her late mother, and which she has now taken over with failing results. Part of the business involves the creation of "talking portraits," hand-stitched portraits that play greeting card style recordings when a string is pulled. To remember her mother, Barbara has rigged up her home with dozens of these portraits of herself and her mom, complete with recordings that bring back memories of happier times.
Despite now having only one customer, Barbara almost forgets her "mobile seamstress" appointment to fix the wedding dress of prissy English woman Grace (Caroline Goodall). While doing so Barbara drops a button, vital to hold the gown together, and just to spite Grace she flicks it down an air vent. It's an act Barbara immediately regrets as Grace demands that she return to the store and fetch a new button.
Driving back to her shop, Barbara stumbles across what will become the inciting incident for a trio of Run Lola Run-esque alternate timelines: the aftermath of a drug deal gone wrong, with two wounded men lying prone beneath their crashed motorcycles, a pair of guns out of their reach, bags of cocaine strung around the road, and a briefcase filled with cash. Surveying the scene, Barbara mentally weighs up her choices: "Perfect crime, call the police, or drive away."
As Sew Torn goes on to detail the impact of all three decisions, it becomes something of an anthology film with three very distinct short films all featuring the same characters. In all three cases, Barbara finds herself making an enemy of Hudson (John Lynch), the mobster father of one of the injured men. Other oddball supporting characters pop in and out, like the dotty local sheriff (K. Callan), interfering busybody Oskar (Ron Cook), and of course Grace, who remains steadfastly determined to get her dress fixed.
Sew Torn is set in Switzerland, where Macdonald grew up, but it's an alternate reality version of that Central European nation where everyone speaks English for some reason. The stunning alpine backdrop, gorgeously captured by cinematographer Sebastian Klinger, adds much production value and won't fail to draw comparison with the Coen brothers' Fargo. The Coens are clearly an influence on Macdonald's blend of crime and comedy and it was Joel Coen who advised Macdonald to develop his short into a feature. Another influence would appear to be the Coens' early collaborator Sam Raimi, with Macdonald devising manic set-pieces that create the feeling that you're watching a live-action Tex Avery cartoon.
The real thrill of Sew Torn is how ingeniously it implements its heroine's special set of seamstress skills. In each of the three scenarios Barbara comes up with wildly inventive ways to use her embroidery and stitching talents to get herself in and out of danger. Not since The Human Centipede has a needle and thread been deployed in such creative fashion. The ways in which Barbara creates Rube Goldberg devices from string really have to be seen to be believed, and if they ever decide to make a screen adaptation of the classic video game 'Spy vs Spy', Macdonald has to be the one to direct it.
In a largely silent performance, Irish newcomer Connolly excels as the sort of eccentric young woman who consistently finds herself condescended to by people who don't possess a fraction of her brainpower. Her Barbara is the Roadrunner to Hudson's Wile E. Coyote, and Lynch is effectively repulsive as an arrogant villain in love with the bad jokes he repeats across all three timelines.
In Macdonald, Connolly and Klinger, Sew Torn introduces three new talents who are sure to set Hollywood alight in the coming years. Whether they'll ever get the chance to work on something as boldly original as this again remains to be seen, but for now they've created a striking work of filmic embroidery with nary a stitch out of place.
Directed by: Freddy Macdonald
Starring: Eve Connolly, Calum Worthy, John Lynch, K. Callan, Caroline Goodall, Thomas Douglas
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