{"id":491210,"date":"2026-06-13T18:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/491210\/"},"modified":"2026-06-13T18:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-13T18:08:09","slug":"act-one-review-an-intriguingly-off-kilter-psychodrama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/491210\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Act One’ Review: An Intriguingly Off-Kilter Psychodrama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHow far would you go for a woman who claims with a straight face to be \u201cendeavoring to bring about a change in consciousness through our art?\u201d Not that far, probably: Confronted with that statement, most people would likely make a polite excuse and back away slowly. But most people are not actors, or even aspiring actors, and Sophia Takal<\/a>\u2018s eerily askew, drily funny \u201cAct One<\/a>\u201d thrives \u2014 like the character who says those words \u2014 on the hunger and anxiety and potential madness of those with an earnest desire to become someone else, before a crowd, for at least a moment in time. <\/p>\n

\n\tObserving one such person, a highschooler in whom no one else much believes, as she falls into the psychological grip of an acting coach with a very dangerous method, \u201cAct One\u201d is quietly and affectingly plausible until it follows its young protagonist, with pleasingly ripe conviction, off the deep end. At face value, this might all seem quite silly. But the film holds you, in part because stars Ella Beatty<\/a> and Ari Graynor<\/a> are so steadfast in their commitment to the bit, and in part because the film isn\u2019t quick to let on what \u201cthe bit\u201d actually is. Takal\u2019s approach is unpredictably perched between utter seriousness and high-wire camp; the anonymous stretch of late-\u201990s American suburbia in which it\u2019s set is recognizable, but feels dreamed, not altogether tethered to reality.<\/p>\n

\n\tPremiering at Tribeca, \u201cAct One\u201d is Takal\u2019s first film since 2019\u2019s undervalued, Blumhouse-backed \u201cBlack Christmas\u201d remake, though it\u2019s far more of a piece with her 2016 sophomore feature \u201cAlways Shine\u201d \u2014 another unhurried psychodrama that balanced grabby genre tropes with spare chamber-piece intensity. That film eventually swung in an altogether more experimental direction, while this one is more consistent in delivering on its strange promise: Limited theatrical distribution is possible, but it\u2019s likeliest to cultivate an audience via indie-oriented streaming platforms.<\/p>\n

\n\tThough she\u2019s tall, waterfall-haired and striking, 17-year-old Hannah (Beatty) has the recessive body language of a wallflower: No one\u2019s ever encouraged her to stand out, and even her mother (Elizabeth Reaser) passive-aggressively criticizes her bespectacled appearance. Only when performing on stage does she feel like a bolder, brighter person, so she\u2019s crushed when she fails to secure even a small part in the annual high school play; mom\u2019s suggestion that this is a sign to pursue another vocation doesn\u2019t help.<\/p>\n

\n\tConsiderably more sympathetic to her plight is Melanie Saunders (Graynor), a high-minded acting teacher whose intensive Act One studio Hannah chances upon while researching her favorite young actress, Gracie Thomas (Tavi Gevinson), online. Turns out Gracie studied under her, which is enough to sell the teen on Melanie\u2019s course, despite the sketchiness of the older woman\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9. (The film\u2019s amusing period detailing extends to Act One\u2019s clunky website design, not to mention the visual and tonal particulars of turn-of-the-century IM messaging.) One class in, and Hannah is thoroughly seduced both by Melanie\u2019s flattery and by her therapyspeak approach to acting, with its talk of truth-telling and connecting to one\u2019s body. The flirty attentions of handsome fellow student Henry (Nate Mann) \u2014 an adult, like everyone else in the class \u2014 don\u2019t hurt either.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt doesn\u2019t take long, however, for Melanie\u2019s somewhat controlling mentoring style to take on the aura of cult leadership. By the time she\u2019s urging Hannah to \u201cpurge the poison\u201d of her parents\u2019 influence, the flags are looking as red as the ominous, blood-washed fadeouts frequently favored by editors Zach Clark and Matthew L. Weiss, and that\u2019s before she takes an overly hands-on interest in Hannah and Henry\u2019s budding sex life. Graynor, however, plays Melanie with such knowing, unblinking assurance that you can\u2019t altogether blame her naive new prot\u00e9g\u00e9e for ignoring all the signs. \u201cAct One\u201d is attuned to the enticing adolescent allure of an adult\u2019s yes in a world of no, and if Melanie\u2019s posturing all seems a bit of act, it\u2019s still a persuasive testament to what she professes to teach. <\/p>\n

\n\tIn her first lead following her feature film debut in last year\u2019s \u201cIf I Had Legs I\u2019d Kick You,\u201d Beatty (the youngest child of Annette Bening and Warren Beatty) is convincingly guileless as the coltish, unformed protagonist, but there\u2019s a hint of performance within performance here too. That ingenuous quality partially hides a darker, uncompromising drive \u2014 interestingly, when Hannah turns it on as a performer, Beatty takes on the more brittly commanding mannerisms of her mother \u2014 so she\u2019s up to the melodramatic demands of the film\u2019s ramped-up, smeared-mascara denouement. <\/p>\n

\n\tAs is Takal, clearly having fun with the film\u2019s queasy, lurching atmospherics, abetted by the sparse, shivery, atonal chimes of Jonathan Goldsmith\u2019s score, and the floating, disembodied feel of Robert Leitzell\u2019s camerawork. Not that the filmmaking in \u201cAct One\u201d ever pulls focus from the peculiar magnetism of the performers: They may not be telling the truth, as Melanie insists they must, but they have our attention anyway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How far would you go for a woman who claims with a straight face to be \u201cendeavoring to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491211,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[226701,151523,226702,146,85,46,397,226703,67452],"class_list":["post-491210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-act-one","tag-ari-graynor","tag-ella-beatty","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-movies","tag-sophia-takal","tag-tribeca-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491210"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491210\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}