"The Cathedral" -- Movie Review

 

On the opening weekend of this year’s New Directors/New Films Festival, I attended a screening of the drama “The Cathedral”, written and directed by Ricky D’Ambrose. 

Synopsis

As a little boy comes of age, he witnesses the collapse of his entire family. 

Story

Jesse is born in the late1980’s to a couple who live on Long Island, New York.  At that point, and throughout the decades until he reaches college, there are plenty of events in the country that serve as a backdrop to his maturing process; these national upheavals can be seen in a direct comparison to the personal upheavals that occur during his early years.  As a result, young Jesse can only sit back and watch while everything in his life – and the world around him – seems to unravel and there’s not a single thing he can do to either stop or reverse any of these events.  He is forced to passively watch, unable to take action. 

As the world collapses around him, Jesse’s family, appears to be following along the same path.  The families of both his mother and father are constantly squabbling.  Jesse’s father owns a printing business, and he’s struggling to make a go of it day-to-day.  This puts immense stress on the marriage and under extreme financial constraints, the parents are fighting with alarming frequency.  Eventually, Jesse’s parents are forced to divorce; both later remarry – his mother winds up with a physician and his father with a woman from Trinidad, who scams him for $8,000 before completely dissolving their union. 

When Jesse graduates from high school and prepares for college, his father throws an elaborate party for him.   Guests include not only his own family, but also his ex-wife, her husband and her side of the family as well.  Once the uncomfortable, tension-filled party concludes, Jesse’s father gets into a fight with his ex-wife’s family.  Despite organizing this party while he was already strapped for cash, Jesse’s father ultimately must have his business file for bankruptcy when the move towards digital publishing begins.  After the death of a family member, the family must eventually reunite for the funeral.  Will they be able to put aside their differences once and for all?     

Review

“The Cathedral” is thankfully short – but it is also an intense, humorless film that tries to be deep but is instead detached; it is difficult for the audience to connect with either the story or the characters.  We are supposed to see the breakdown of the family unit through the eyes of Jesse but we lack any kind of personal connection to him because he comes across as two-dimensional.  Add to that the fact that much of the exposition is done through the use of a voice-over narrator who seems as emotionally distant as possible, almost to the point of being robotic in her pronouncements.  With much of the exposition occurring off-screen, the motion picture suffers.      

Director Ricky D’Ambrose looks to have difficulty telling a story that is so personal to him; he admits that it is somewhat based on his own family life. There are certainly character arcs -- obviously Jesse, who grows up over the course of the story.  Also, the downturn that the family takes could be considered multiple character arcs.  The problem is that the story gives the impression to not really have a resolution; it appears to have somewhat of an arbitrary ending.  If you are looking for a somewhat traditional three-act structure, there is an argument to be made that it is done through the life of Jesse – his childhood, adolescence and early adulthood when he is in college.  Unfortunately, in terms of structure of the story, there isn’t one that’s a clear narrative thread.   

Following the screening, there was an interview with writer/director Ricky D’Ambrose.  When asked about the title, D’Ambrose seemed to have a difficult time explaining this; there is a scene in the movie where Jesse is looking at a book that contains drawings of cathedrals (why a little boy of that age is doing that is something of a mystery).  At that moment, a key turning point occurred in his family.  D’Ambrose said that he likes to title his work in a way that does not immediately give the appearance of being directly related to the story itself.  He added that because of the budget, they had to work quickly; the entire shoot took about 20 days.  Because of this, he shot the entire film using a zoom lens on the camera so they didn’t have to stop and change lenses between different shots.