CHESTNUT - Mark Reviews Movies

Chestnut, Utopia

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 20, 2024

Having finished college, Annie (Natalia Dyer) is getting ready to start her post-education life, but is her current plan what she really wants? That's kind of the question of writer/director Jac Cron's feature debut Chestnut, which revolves around Annie making friends and, maybe, trying to be more than that with a slightly older woman and man, who might be in a romantic relationship themselves. The uncertainty of the possible love triangle might be a reflection of Annie's greater ambiguity about her life, but as portrayed here, the mixed-up and messed-up relationships are too shallow to represent anything other than melodrama.

The sort-of couple is made up of Tyler (Rachel Keller) and Danny (Danny Ramirez), whom Annie meets at a local dive bar one night. Annie has recently graduated from a Philadelphia university, has a job at a financial firm in Los Angeles lined up at the end of the summer, and has decided to stay near her former school until starting work. There's a lot more going on with Annie than whatever it is that happens between her and the couple, such as her fairly recent passion for writing poetry, which she might not be able to pursue while working in the financial industry, and her worry about moving so far away from her widower father.

Ultimately, neither of those things or anything else about Annie matters. As the story progresses, her whole existence becomes caught up in Tyler, Danny, her apparent attraction to both of them (definitely Tyler), the way each of them teases being attracted to her, and how much of her time and emotions she invests in two people who repeatedly forget about or seemingly ignore her.

Is the idea here that Annie is somehow completely naïve about other people? That certainly seems to be the case, or perhaps, it's simply one suggested by Dyer's performance, which has a constant quality of looking surprised and vaguely confused every time she speaks and with every reaction to another character. It's more than a bit distracting, especially in the actors' multiple scenes opposite Keller and/or Ramirez, who bring a subtle sense of mystery to their respective characters. What do they want from this young woman, and is anything they say or do authentically about wanting to spend time with her?

The movie's pattern has the trio spending time together in different combinations, as Annie tries to be alone with Tyler, Danny seems to want to be alone with Annie, and everyone ends up more or less miserable and alone by the end of the night. When she's not out at assorted bars and clubs and apartments with both or either of the pair, Annie mopes around her apartment, sending and waiting on texts from Tyler to make or keep plans.

That she already has a good friend in Jason (Chella Man) is apparently forgotten by the character and Cron, and when he reappears suddenly in the third act, it's so that Annie can realize Tyler lied to her and abandon her friend's birthday party to hang out with this inconsistent person. What kind of friend does that make Annie?

Such questions aren't for the movie to explore or address, because it's all about the relationship drama. There's never a good explanation for why Annie becomes so obsessed with either Tyler and Danny, apart from the facts that she's cool, pretty, and emotionally distant and that he's charming, seems interested in Annie as a person, and is often in close proximity to Tyler. Maybe that's enough for Annie, who might be wrestling with her sexuality (A scene of her flirting with and bringing home a random woman from a bar suggests otherwise, though), but if it's really just about sex in some way, the sexless nature of the storytelling—some heavy kissing and editing around anything more, such as the bar hook-up—doesn't communicate that feeling.

Anything deeper than that, having to do with Annie's insecurity about herself and her chosen career and moving to the other side of the country, is even less convincing. The movie itself is so distracted by the pseudo-relationship stuff that it barely has time or makes room for such matters. If there is a deeper level to the protagonist of Chestnut, it's not on screen in the plotting, the filmmaking, or the lead performance. She's just an unwitting pawn in a game being played by two self-centered people, and if that's the whole point, it's a pretty dull and repetitive one for an entire movie.

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