Sometimes, an idea is so shrewd, the movie seems to write itself.
She was.....not a person but a whole kind of person, the ones who crossed the ocean, who brought with us to America the villages of Russia and Lithuania - and how we struggled, and how we fought, for the family, for the Jewish home, so that you would not grow up here, in this strange place, in the melting pot where nothing melted. Descendants of this immigrant woman, you do not grow up in America, you and your children and their children with the goyische names. You do not live in America. No such place exists. Your clay is the clay of some Litvak shtetl, your air the air of the steppes - because she carried the old world on her back across the ocean, in a boat, and she put it down on Grand Concourse Avenue, or in Flatbush, and she worked that earth into your bones, and you pass it to your children, this ancient, ancient culture and home.
Josh O'Connor has a weird life in his trailer. He visits the campfire with his neighbors--homeless lesbians, a young widow. The trailer itself is lacking in character, so O'Connor's young daughter sticks glowing neon stars on the walls of the interior. A community activity involves hiking to a spot where a little stem and leaf can be identified; the stem is the first sign of life in many weeks, the first sign since the wildfire ended.
As O'Connor treads water, he spends more and more time with his kid, who is scrupulously honest. ("Mom says she knew you in school. She says you didn't apply yourself.") Some scenes are just wordless interludes in the parking lot of the one-room library; people need to go here to access Wifi, so grade-three homework can be completed.
There is some tension surrounding O'Connor's final move--the film handles the Third Act in a smart way, with just a little sentimentality. A great deal rests on O'Connor's shoulders; he is subtle and believable, and it's not a mystery why he now seems to star in *all* indie movies that are arriving in NY and NJ.
Good story.
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