“MOTHER FUTURE SELF”

Platonic breakups can be just as heartbreaking and disorienting as romantic ones. In both cases, healing comes only with space and time. Making her feature directorial debut with “Mother Future Self,” writer/director Tori Lancaster explores female friendship from a uniquely creative perspective. Set during a week-long experimental dance workshop in the woods, Lancaster’s story plays out as a nourishing love letter to her protagonists’ future selves. Working through feelings of abandonment and disillusion, two former friends channel their inner conflicts through performance art pieces. With each new workshop exercise, the pair’s past wounds bubble closer towards the surface. From the secluded opening scenes of Lancaster’s film, she sets a tone for shutting out all the noise to look inward and reconnect with oneself. It’s a hypnotic debut led by an endearing ensemble cast, who are given the space and time to be experimental in their performances.

The earthy remoteness of rural Maine serves as a fitting backdrop for characters who are looking to ground themselves. College friends Sofi (Imani Jade Powers) and Jordan (Betsey Brown) had a bitter falling out and haven’t seen each other in years. The two reunite where they least expect: a summer dance workshop all about bringing people closer together, in body and soul. With nowhere to hide their authentic selves, Sofi and Jordan begin to reconnect through a series of workshops facilitated by real-life dance artist and teacher, K.J. Holmes. As the tight-knit dance group participants work towards their final class performances, Sofi and Jordan’s fragile relationship status gets complicated.

The workshop exercises, in particular, radiate an improvisational energy, opening the floor for the actors to get creative with their movements. And with real teachings from K.J. Holmes, we are given a neat blend between fictional and documentary storytelling. The immersive camp setting gives way to vulnerable performances and spontaneous artistic expressions. We are given a front row seat to the characters’ subtle interactions, suggesting a ton of intriguing inflections and unresolved history buried underneath. Whether it’s an intense look of recognition during a dance class or a random conversation about female therapists at a dinner table, Sofi and Jordan share a conflicting dynamic that evokes your curiosity as to why the two had a falling out in the first place. Lancaster’s direction excels at capturing this reasoning in fragmented pieces; we are not given one simple, structured answer, but a series of reactionary moments that shed some light on years-long bottled frustrations.

In a standout scene towards the film’s conclusion, Sofi shares her disillusionment with thinking she could ever truly understand another person. Crushed about being erased from Jordan’s life, Sofi so succinctly describes the pain of a relationship that fades over time. Imani Jade Powers and Betsey Brown draw out the heart of this story with gorgeous chemistry and compelling screen presence. They each add a distinctive personality to their respective characters and bring expressive physicality to the dance scenes. Powers and Brown also share an intense intuitiveness about each other, mirroring the dynamic of two people who may have lost years of their friendship, but can still recognize one another’s defining traits in the most finite of details. With the inclusion of a few unfiltered conversational scenes, such as a compelling dialogue about hair length and femininity, Powers and Brown also get to explore insightful dialogue that reveals their characters’ shared tension. There’s a great intimacy to how these dialogues are filmed, as though we are eavesdropping on spur-of-the-moment conversations.

The non-linear storytelling has its ups and downs, effectively mirroring the characters’ internal crises while also treading repetitive territory. There comes a point when the workshop exercises blend together, and the narrative momentum begins to stall. Additionally, the core relationship history between Sofi and Jordan could have been more fleshed out to stress the emotional impact of their falling out. However, the film stands out in how the characters’ journeys are mirrored through performance art. Lancaster has something memorable to say about looking to creative arts as grounds for exploring one’s personhood and getting to the heart of who we really are underneath societal constructs. With past experience as a production designer and art director, she brings deep awareness of how to elevate a scene through stylish settings and atmosphere. The rural isolation really immerses us into this summer camp environment, where the outside world melts away, and all we have is the here and now.

It’s made clear from the inventive opening title card and the film’s title itself that “Mother Future Self” has an evocative storyteller behind the camera. Lancaster brings a thoughtful approach to the female friendship dynamic in a way that we don’t often see represented on screen. The film captures how delicate and disorienting it can be to reconnect with someone who once held such an intimate place in your life. Sofi and Jordan’s relationship is an intriguing puzzle to watch unfold, and their connection is strengthened by two impressive performers at the center. While the story occasionally loses its narrative edge, there’s a promising vision reflected in the characterizations and direction, especially, giving voice to a beguiling emerging filmmaker.