Heartland: The Outside Story
This year’s Heartland Film Festival will be a combination of drive-in and virtual screenings. For a complete schedule and to buy tickets, click here.
Charles (Brian Tyree Henry) is having a bad day.
He just broke up with his girlfriend (Sonequa Martin Green, "Star Trek: Discovery"), and he's on deadline, creating an In Memoriam video for a famous actor who is on the brink of passing away.
Then he locks himself out of his apartment. Kids hit him with water balloons. And a cop (Sunita Mani, "GLOW") gives him a parking ticket.
And so begins "The Outside Story," a fun, sweet, breezy tale of a guy who is struggling to keep it together when everything seems to be falling apart.
His boss keeps calling him, but he can't make progress when he can't physically get to his computer, and so the stress builds, while around him, life moves on as normal. He finds a few moments of peace through the help of his neighbors, particularly Elena (Olivia Edward), a young girl trying to escape the suffocating clutches of her mother (Maria Dizzia, "Orange is the New Black"), and Andre (Michael Cyril Creighton), an upstairs neighbor in the throes of a rather unusual relationship.
This isn't the sort of film you never see, but the path it takes certainly is. There are themes of infidelity, jealousy, and insecurity, though they're handled in a way most films do not. Indeed most of Charles's problems emanate from his own lack of confidence, the result of pressing too hard and being afraid of losing what he has.
And it's in the moments where he has to face the prospect of losing those things that he finds what he truly has: community with good people who are his people whether he knows it or not.
And who those neighbors are are tremendously diverse: a collection of people of different ages, races, family situations, and sexual orientations. Charles's ignorance of them isn't rooted in disdain, it's more in apathy, and once he needs them, he realizes the value they can bring to his life.
The acting here is solid and unshowy. Henry is as engaging as his character allows, and by the end of the film he's changed, but also not; his behavior remains often head-scratching even as we root for him to succeed. Martin-Green is the film's biggest "name" actor and gets only a few flashback scenes before showing up for the finale. She's fine, but her presence doesn't resonate enough in the script for her character to earn its place in the climax, and in many ways her character is there to give Charles a reason to have anxiety.
Creighton is someone I wanted to see more of. His character is interesting and fun, but he mostly rolls his eyes at Charles's escalating requests. Creighton was tremendous in a supporting role in 2016's "Spotlight" (he played an adult victim telling his story to Boston Globe reporters) and it would have been fun to see him have more to do in this film.
And Mani as a beleaguered beat cop is given room to grow as a character after a less-than-auspicious start that made her feel one-note. How the film allows her to become a three-dimensional character is special.
Ultimately "The Outside Story," feels like a film that is about three-quarters complete in the script stage. It is often fun film that not only does things differently, but is proud of its uniqueness. And it accomplishes a lot, but ultimately all of the film's characters are there to serve Charles and his needs. Of course the film is his journey, but allowing them to have more well-rounded needs, and allowing some of those needs to be met, would have put this film in a different place altogether.
Still. "Outside" is a sweet, engaging film with solid characters and a great attitude, and is very much worth seeing.