{"id":107227,"date":"2025-10-29T15:12:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/107227\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T15:12:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T15:12:12","slug":"bleak-fable-about-encroaching-authoritarianism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/107227\/","title":{"rendered":"Bleak Fable About Encroaching Authoritarianism\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe idea that politics is an abstract concept that can be removed from, say, family dinner conversations would be laughable if it weren\u2019t also so corrosive. Such thinking only makes sense if one understands politics to exist apart from the material circumstances that frame them and exempt from the real-life consequences they engender. Jan Komasa<\/a>\u2019s \u201cAnniversary<\/a>,\u201d a family drama set against an increasingly dystopian political landscape, understands that all too well. And if Komasa\u2019s heady, provocative feature loses its way as it lands somewhere between a pitch-black satire and an all-too-bleak fable, it nevertheless finds urgency in depicting a family (and country) ravaged by the threat of authoritarianism.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiving in an affluent Virginia suburb just outside D.C., Paul (Kyle Chandler) and Ellen Taylor (Diane Lane<\/a>) have made an enviable life for themselves and their children. It\u2019s why the celebration they are hosting in honor of their 25th anniversary feels weighted with so much goodwill. This is a rare chance to see all of their children \u2014 Anna (Madeline Brewer), Cynthia (Zoey Deutch), Josh (Dylan O\u2019Brien) and teenage Birdie (Mckenna Grace) \u2014 under one roof and toast what hopefully will be another quarter-century of happiness. Sadly, if expectedly, that won\u2019t be the case.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBecause, borrowing a trope from great family stage dramas (think Chekhov, Miller or even Wilson), whatever picture-perfect image of the Taylors is first shown to us will soon begin to crack. And it will all be courtesy of Josh\u2019s new girlfriend: the disingenuous ingenue Liz (Phoebe Dynevor). Liz\u2019s eagerness to make a good impression on Ellen is, we soon realize, coming not from a place of wanting to please a future mother-in-law so much as settling scores with a former professor. The two knew each other years ago, when a scandal put both women on opposite sides of an academic battle \u2014 all over politics and the fascistic streak Ellen once saw in the young student.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBy the time the anniversary party comes to a close, Komasa\u2019s film treats the book Liz has written, called \u201cThe Change,\u201d as a kind of Chekhov\u2019s gun. An ambitious provocation, the book calls for a single-party system of government that ostensibly gives power back to the people (even if it\u2019s been published by a shady corporation with its own interests in mind). This is all setup. \u201cAnniversary\u201d leaves that first anniversary party behind soon enough. It then follows the Taylors over the next four years as they reunite annually in this idyllic suburban home and experience how Liz\u2019s increased success with her book begins to reshape their country, their own lives and even their own familial allegiances.<\/p>\n

\n\tLori Rosene-Gambino\u2019s screenplay favors a biting tone (\u201cIt\u2019s what all Americans do in their spare time: seethe in anger,\u201d says one character), as well as an overly neat narrative construction. As in a play, we\u2019re bound to this one setting and visit it in episodic spurts that keep the outside world at bay \u2014 only, the change that \u201cThe Change\u201d brings about slowly finds its way into the Taylor household, which ends up feeling like a stand-in for the country as a whole.<\/p>\n

\n\tLed by an entrepreneur (Paul is a restaurateur) and an academic (Ellen), the Taylors also include an outspoken queer stand-up comedian in Anna, a well-intentioned lawyer in strait-laced Cynthia and even a budding scientist in shy Birdie. Here is as robust a vision of a country\u2019s brightest as the film can envision. Only Josh seems to stand apart. A failed novelist, he\u2019s eventually drawn into Liz\u2019s political consulting\/lobbying world, a choice that further fractures the family dynamic. Every year that passes broadens the gulf between the Taylors, all while neighborhood and country alike seem to morph into something almost unrecognizable.<\/p>\n

\n\tKomasa\u2019s vision of the United States, where an authoritarian streak seems to slowly bubble up, is as familiar and unsettling as the \u201cChange\u201d U.S. flag (stars in the middle of the red stripes) that soon dots the houses around the Taylors. And so, what begins like a family melodrama soon becomes something altogether darker. Casting Brewer (best known for her work in \u201cThe Handmaid\u2019s Tale\u201d) suddenly becomes a fitting way to telegraph in what direction \u201cAnniversary\u201d is headed, even before issues of free speech and political persecution take over the seemingly placid world of this suburban family.<\/p>\n

\n\tIndeed, it is the cast that really anchors the increasingly dire, curfew-riddled world the Taylors cannot escape: O\u2019Brien, in particular, nails the smug demeanor of a young man enamored of his own success, no matter the cost. Dynevor, meanwhile, finds texture in a villainous role that rightly reminds us how petty personal grievances (on campus, no less) may well be the driving force behind the most outspoken political provocateurs.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo watch \u201cAnniversary\u201d is to watch the darkest timeline imaginable. That\u2019s both enjoyable (since it\u2019s just a movie) and exhausting (since it feels so plausible). Yet because of its sprawling ensemble and its many-headed subplots (including a business going under, a stand-up joke gone too far, a covert resistance enclave and even a marriage gone awry), the film can never quite find its footing or its focus. Its timeliness and urgency are so obvious as to be uninteresting on their own. (It\u2019s no surprise Ellen wears a tee that reads \u201cMy pencils outlast your erasers,\u201d a stance the film exalts and mocks in equal measure). And so, even as it thrusts itself into an electrifying, bloodied thriller of a final act, the film doesn\u2019t land any of its social commentary: Its satire remains much too obtuse, its parable much too diffused.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The idea that politics is an abstract concept that can be removed from, say, family dinner conversations would…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":107228,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[4624,62551,61461,156,14833,409,111,139,69],"class_list":{"0":"post-107227","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-anniversary","9":"tag-diane-lane","10":"tag-dylan-obrien","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jan-komasa","13":"tag-movies","14":"tag-new-zealand","15":"tag-newzealand","16":"tag-nz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107227\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}