We’ve seen many a movie about the stifling, repressive atmosphere of small towns on the people who don’t or can’t conform to their arbitrary moral standards. But I think Sweet Angel Baby may be the first to drop that story in Newfoundland, which is an especially good place for it -as far as Canada is concerned. I lived in Newfoundland for a time, and while its distinct old Irish Catholic cultural character is a genuine source of a lot of charm in the place and its people -there is a darker side to it as well that as someone in the St. John’s area I can only imagine was pronounced in those little communities so far apart, homogeneous, and isolated. Writer-director Melanie Oates seems very familiar with that, emphasizing these tendencies in how she shoots everyday life in her fictitious village.
But against the faded monotony is that streak of vivid red hair -symbolic of the against-the-grain nature of the person it belongs to, much as she tries to hide it. Sweet Angel Baby is the story of Eliza, played by Michaela Kurimsky, a covert outsider to the town she grew up in. While Eliza is an active if modestly introverted member of the community -helping spearhead efforts to save its historic church for example, privately she is an erotic content creator, maintaining an Instagram account of photos of herself (face obscured) in various sexualized contexts against a backdrop of nature for her folklore-inspired aesthetic. She is also broadly closeted though trying to pursue a relationship with Toni (Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers), an out lesbian (and thus occasionally ostracized) and her one real friend. Eventually of course, these secrets are exposed.
For Kurimsky, the movie’s subject matter is familiar territory. Her breakout -by Canadian standards- in the excellent film Firecrackers was likewise about suffocating under conservative small-town culture (in that case in Saskatchewan), and the impassioned though futile efforts at escape for two young women. The village here isn’t quite as constraining or violently misogynistic, but its own harshness to difference is conveyed well through Eliza herself. There are external factors we see in a few casual comments by the locals -many quite curious why Eliza is still single after all these years- but most of the atmosphere of suppression is palpable in the way Eliza has been shaped by the community, how she has been conditioned in her feelings on her own sexuality, and has turned to expressing it secretly the way she does as a kind of plea for affirmation of her desirability, which she has been taught not to see in herself.
This all comes out bluntly and gradually over the course of the movie, but it is palpable from early on -largely through Kurimsky's mesmerizing performance. Kurimsky, who since Firecrackers has grown into Canada’s Sarah Snook doppelganger, plays Eliza's photoshoots with the authentically mundane tenor of an artist at work -considering different poses, framings, and how much clothing ought to be removed for reasons related to both aesthetics and body image. It is a discreet confidence nowhere to be found in the manner she presents herself otherwise, wherein she seems positively bashful in conservative sweaters and linens. And still another side of her is seen in her moments alone with Toni. The erotic yet tender tension between Kurimsky and Tailfeathers in these scenes is open and palpable. Eliza yearns for sexual intimacy, which Kurimsky plays so astutely it is devastatingly pitiable; she finds it at one point with a man Shawn (Peter Mooney), considered the town's most attractive prospect, but it is guarded -as though she is putting on a performance of sexuality. With Toni she is safe to be vulnerable and more honestly passionate, perhaps to a fault -the truth of her self-respect makes Toni uncomfortable.
And yet the encounter with Shawn is downright exploitative, only reinforcing Eliza's warped perception of her own value. It is a good commentary that Oates engages in on the relationship many men have to feminine sexuality. Shawn discovering Eliza's secret is the only reason he can view her in a sexual light. The power over her that he has is demonstrated in a very insidious way -identifying and manipulating her mixture of arousal and discomfort to assert himself in a threatening fashion that is couched in a kind of prodding foreplay. His attraction is paired with a possessive resentment though, and in such a traditionalist community it unites him with so many other men. The women meanwhile are obliged to shame and chastise her -including Shawn's wife, somehow far more upset with Eliza than Shawn for his infidelity.
The role of the internet is vital to this -how easily accessible and not particularly hard to hide Eliza's sordid second life is, to the point you are taken to wonder if a part of her subconsciously wanted it to get out (she doesn't exactly conceal some of her backdrop locales). Even in a small town this Scarlet Letter situation for Eliza proliferates swiftly through social media where everyone can access her perceived discretion. You feel the claustrophobia of this, the sense of unease for Eliza through a few sequences of judgement both spoken and unspoken by the townsfolk. Oates acknowledges the double-edged sword that the digital age is for self-expression. Eliza posted for a sense of affirmation and adulation across the vastness of the internet, under the social contract of her viewers being anonymous strangers who would have no effect on her tangible life. But the scorn she receives from the people in her tangible life, however dwarfed they may be by her followers, is harrowing to bear. Oates ultimately reaches a verdict that feels a little too easy on this front, and holds back perhaps a little in terms of the consequences of this digital footprint -and especially concerning Shawn and the other men of the village. Maybe it’s a sense of tastefulness that reins her in.
Because much of the fallout is focused on Eliza and Toni, and the crossroads it sets for any kind of relationship between them. And even at the expense of dissecting the social ostracization, I can’t fault Oates too much for looking at it through this more intimate lens that grafts a messy emotional complex onto Eliza without making it entirely about shame -the film very much wants to communicate there is nothing wrong with what Eliza has been doing. And Kurimsky and Tailfeathers are quite beautiful and sensually compatible together -it makes sense to leave the film’s climax to them.
Simple and inauspicious though it may be, Sweet Angel Baby is perhaps the best Canadian film of the year, for its sober yet dramatic look at the judgement of a small town, its yearning for intimacy and expression, and all of the thrilling nuances of Kurimsky’s fantastic performance -one of Canada’s best underrated stars (she also nails the Newfoundland accent for what it’s worth). Artful and evocative, and with some important comments on sexuality and repression in the digital age. A nice gem of a film worth looking for.
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