Mark Reviews Movies: THE SAME STORM

The Same Storm, Juno Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 13, 2022

The narrative of The Same Storm is akin to a relay race, as some actors pass a baton of loaded, overbearing drama. Writer/director Peter Hedges has assembled a noteworthy cast, but then again, they probably had nothing better to do at the time. They should have found something—anything, really—else to do.

The movie was recorded during and is about the COVID-19 period, using the teleconferencing technology to which so many became accustomed—and probably sick of—for a year or more. Some footage that plays between the opening credits has the filmmaker offering advice and instructions to the actors about framing, lighting, and set decoration. Considering how invested each of the performers is in this occasionally wince-inducing series of standalone scenes, the project certainly meant something to them, if only as a way to pass the time being creative for a few days.

For us, though, we get to watch actors, such as Noma Dumezweni and Raúl Castillo in the opening scene, re-enact the awfulness of a family member learning from a front-line hospital worker that a loved one has taken what surely will be a final turn for the worse. It's obviously intended to be a gut-punch opening, and yes, the manipulation tactics—from the sudden assault of such severity after a yoga lesson to the way the wife's emotional breakdown is perfectly framed by her laptop's camera—are that transparent.

Because the story usually—but not exclusively, which additionally shows how little consideration Hedges put into the script—moves from character to character, the scene immediately following a wife's devastated reaction to her husband's imminent death involves Castillo's nurse trying to masturbate to Mary-Louise Parker's Roxy in a private chat. The sudden, unfortunate tonal shift is a miniature disaster. When Castillo's character explains his job and Roxy promises to bang on some pots and pans for the guy, the return trip to forced sincerity might even be worse.

It's not just the pandemic to get this kind of treatment, though. Moses Ingram plays both a girlfriend who's serenaded by her boyfriend (played by David Zaldivar)—in a scene that's clearly filler to move a step or two forward and away from the pandemic—and a protestor against excessive police force. By the way, she just happens to be the daughter of a New York City cop played by K. Todd Freeman. The dialogue here is so on-the-nose—not only in hammering home the conflict, but also in trying to give equal time and weight to both sides—that none of it feels natural, thoughtful, or as if it's making any particular point.

Hedges also tackles online learning, with real-life husband-and-wife pair Rosemarie DeWitt and Ron Livingston playing increasingly frustrated parents. We get an appearance by Elaine May as Roxy's technologically inept—and, later, flirtatious when she has a video chat with her handsome doctor—mother, although it leaves us with only one question: Why would anyone waste someone of May's stature on such obvious gags?

There's some 2020 election politics, too, which must have felt as relevant at the time of recording as it now feels dated (This has some extraneous, non-pandemic-related praise for a certain, infamously disgraced governor, just to add to that feeling). As for the particulars of that scene, they have Alison Pill, John Gallagher Jr., and Joshua Leonard playing sibling voters for "that guy" battling with Cory Michael Smith's liberal brother. All the while, the siblings are trying to have what might be a final birthday party online for their terminally mother (played by Judith Light). You can't make up such convoluted setups. Well, Hedges can, apparently, against any kind of sensible judgment.

There's more here, of course, such as Sandra Oh playing the mother of a young man (played by Jin Ha) suffering from a mental health crisis (His psychiatrist, played by Danny Burstein, is Roxy's brother and the May character's son, just to keep the obligatory connections rolling). Each scene feels manipulative and contrived in its own way, but some are more worthy of note in that regard than others.

The impulse to make The Same Storm as both a time capsule and a way to deal with this crisis as it's happening is understandable. One hopes the actors and filmmakers got something out of the experiment in the moment, because it just comes across as embarrassing now.

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