THE STORY – Follows a former student who returns home to face her past, stirring long-buried truths among a group of interconnected individuals on the Normandy coast.
THE CAST – Sofia Boutella, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Lizzy McAlpine, Quentin Tarantino, Simon Pegg & Liam Hellmann
THE TEAM – Jamie Adams (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 92 Minutes
As Simon Pegg’s Julian roams around in his empty hotel when he’s not clacking away on his typewriter, audiences get a peek into a man who is clearly frustrated with the world, mainly himself. The scraggily haired chain smoker all but spells out a weathered artist desperate for inspiration. That’s when visions of Sofia Boutella’s Charlotte come running rampant in his mind once again. Then it all comes rushing forward, but to audiences, what we think is a breakthrough in his writing is merely the beginning of a ploy that sets in motion the events of Tribeca alum Jamie Adams’ latest feature, “Only What We Carry.” The film is a heavily improvisational drama that allows a tight-knit ensemble of actors to swing for the proverbial fences. Yet, this freedom Adams bestows upon his actors is more of a curse than anything else, as they crumble under the inability to get anything beyond fleeting moments, if any at all.
While Adams introduces us to Julian, “Only What We Carry” is told from the perspective of Julian’s once-esteemed muse, Charlotte, who wallows in the trauma of her struggling career and personal life. Her sister Josephine, played by Charlotte Rampling, tries to lift her spirits, but the two butt heads, especially in the aftermath of their mother’s passing. It’s not until they see an excerpt from an article by Julian about his career as a choreographer and his comments about Charlotte that the sisters are driven back home to Deauville in search of answers to questions they didn’t even have in the first place.
Adams’ style of filmmaking, which has been centered on the emotionality of his characters and less on the stylistic substance of his technical craft, is all but repeated here. The occasionally luxurious locale of Duevelle, from the massive hotel owned by an affluent publisher, John (played by Quentin Tarantino), to the beaches, is squandered by a questionable handheld visual style. The cinematography by Neema Sadeghi is rough to watch, forcing audiences to stare at pivotal moments captured as if the camera operator had taken a break during a take to play hot potato, making it difficult at times to discern what is transpiring on screen. It’s all for the sake of Adams’s failed attempt at flavoring cinema verite, which makes a feature like this feel like a tepid recreation of the films that directly galvanized this project.
His direction adds little to the bare-bones screenplay, which is merely a guideline for his actors. Adams’s inability to rein in his wandering performers only leads to the most stammer-filled, repetitive dialogue delivered in some time. Actors swerve off the beaten path in an attempt to flesh out the context of loosely constructed characters, like a coloring book, leaving audiences wondering what the hell is even being discussed at times, beyond these characters’ sexual frustrations and their inability to conjure a thought. The intentionality of characters like Charlotte and Julian in their inability to convey their emotions, as if they’re dancing around the words, is almost fitting, given their careers. Still, it’s obvious when the ensemble isn’t well-suited to this type of work, and it collapses in real time.
For a film that rests on Boutella’s shoulders, unfortunately, she isn’t capable of commanding a scene, aside from the awkward line readings, which are only more noticeable because of the film’s editing. Even Rampling, an incredibly talented actor who has delivered great work before, isn’t working with much, mainly setting up a morally conflicted family woman who, for some reason, is ready to risk it all for an incredibly loud and coarse Tarantino, whose presence is all but noticeable among his peers. Tarantino does have a few line readings that are hilarious to witness, yet when Adams tries to veer him into dramatic territory, it’s about the best one can expect for someone of his caliber.
Pegg does get some moments to shine, showing he’s the only one of the ensemble to rise above a flimsy screenplay, but not even a strong monologue he has in the back half of the film is enough to warrant sticking through what is a brief yet exhausting runtime. “Only What We Carry” had the blueprint for a successful feature. But in its desperate attempt to evoke the life-altering intellectualism of the French New Wave, it’s more of a self-serious episode of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” with nothing of note to say.
