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LOVE, ANTOSHA
Director: Garret Price MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 1:32 Release Date: 8/2/19 (limited); 8/30/19 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | August 29, 2019 So many people want to talk about Anton Yelchin—to try to explain what made him tick, to describe what he was like, to say how he changed some way they live or do their work, to just tell stories about him. This was a young man who was and still is loved. There is, perhaps, no greater testament to a good life lived well than that, and that's what we see in Love, Antosha, director Garret Price's documentary-as-eulogy. We expect a lot of grief and mourning in a film like this one, but that's not the case here. There's almost exclusively happiness from the participants, who include Yelchin's parents and assorted actors and filmmakers, because that's mostly how they remember the young actor, who died at the age of 27—the result of a freak accident at his home. We see these people smile, laugh, and continue to be genuinely befuddled by Yelchin's existence—his talent, his compassion, his health struggles (which will come as a surprise to many), his mind, his humility in the face of even all of these challenges and qualities. It only makes his loss all the more tragic. The structure is biographical, of course, telling the story of an imaginative kid, born in the Soviet Union before his parents moved to the United States, who became a child actor. After that, he kept working until the day he died. Through home movies, we see him playing as a child and preparing for acting gigs (including getting drunk, just to see what it's like). Through journal entries (narrated by Nicolas Cage), we come to understand how thoughtful he was in life and in work (His script pages often contain more handwritten notes than dialogue). Through the interviews—with family, friends, and the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Chris Pine, Jodie Foster, John Cho, and Kristen Stewart (not to mention many, many others)—we get a clear idea of the kind of friend he was. Love, Antosha paints a tender and ultimately heartbreaking portrait of a man who was devoted—to film (His journals include reviews of the vast array of movies he watched), to acting, to family, to friends, to art, to the constant pursuit of learning, to life. The real testament is how many people want to return that favor of his devotion one more time. Copyright © 2019 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for
language, some sexual content and nudity)
