Alexander the Last is the kind of movie people expect to see at film festivals. It’s a collection of indie movie clichés, the kind of film where every character is an actor or a musician or some sort of artist and every shot is framed in a way that’s supposed to seem artistically significant but is probably really just the result of not being able to afford to do it any better. It’s the kind of movie that seems designed to speak more to the artists it depicts, than general audiences. It’s perfect film festival fodder and I guess that makes sense since this is writer/director Joe Swanberg’s fifth year in a row at SXSW with five different films, none of which have really been noticed anywhere outside the festival circuit. There’s nothing wrong with that, I’m simply saying that perhaps Swanberg has found his niche, and this is it.
It’s the story of Alex (Jess Weixler), a married actress who lands a part in a play and starts crushing on her hot male co-star Jamie (Barlow Jacobs). Her husband goes out of town, she asks her co-star to stay over because apparently she can’t envision a world in which that might lead to, at the least, intimate feelings. The play requires her to engage in explicit love scenes with her male counterpart and she starts getting all gooey for him on the inside.
Also in the mix is a subplot involving an almost creepily close relationship with her sister, whom she hooks up with Jamie almost as if she’s looking to live vicariously through her sib. There’s no real payoff to any of the sister subplot, though the film often seems to act as if it’s the central theme of the whole thing. It does result in one rather inspired bit of filming in which Swanberg cuts between shots of Alexandra simulating sex with Jamie on stage and her sister actually banging him back at her apartment. I’m not sure that justifies the entire movie but if you’re an actor or an aspiring filmmaker then you’ll probably love Alexander the Last. It’s not meant for the rest of us.
