"Disfluency" - Film Review
In a word, the opening scene of Disfluency is disorienting. A young woman, Jane (Libe Barer), walks through a dark hallway filled with twinkling Christmas lights as dance music pulses loudly. Near the end of the passage she stumbles into an nearly empty lecture hall. The only occupant is a professor (Molly Hagan) who is giving a lecture on disfluency, the condition that interrupts the continuous flow of speech. Suddenly, everything is flipped upside down and Jane is in the backseat of her parents’ (Ricky Wayne & Diana de la Cruz) car on her way to her childhood home. She flunked out of her final college class and is spending the summer at home with her sister (Ariela Barer). As the summer unfolds, Jane must come to terms with what happened during her last semester at school.
The multi-colored Christmas lights from the opening scene appear and disappear throughout the rest of the film, lingering in the background and referencing something the audience doesn’t understand until much later in the film. There are clues as to what happened to Jane that led to her failing her final class. The camera, and Jane, seek out the police station time and again, but always from afar. It’s the audience’s best insight as to what happened. The Christmas lights and the lecture hall are Jane’s personal hell that she keeps returning to against her will.
disfluency film
Mental health is often difficult to portray on a movie screen. It’s an internal battle that is waged every second of every day, but there’s no way of knowing when it will bubble over into an outward expression. Jane has PTSD from a traumatic event that happened during her last semester of college. She has moments where she unwillingly remembers the events of that night, and other moments where she completely dissociates and loses track of time. Certain objects will forever be connected to that night. The film’s editing allows the audience to live inside Jane’s brain for the duration of the movie. We lose extended periods of time, just like Jane. We feel claustrophobic during her panic attacks and always feel like we’re one step away from seeing those Christmas lights flashing in our eyes. It also helps that Barer’s performance as Jane is extraordinary. She gives great depth to the role and there’s a third-act monologue that is revelatory.
Even with the film’s heavy subject matter, Disfluency is drenched in warmth, nostalgia, and sunshine. It’s summertime on a lake filled by people Jane has shared over a decade of history with. The high school friend (Chelsea Alden) she lost touch with who now has a kid, her childhood crush (Dylan Arnold), and her sister’s friend who’s a wannabe influencer (Kimiko Singer). Writer/director Anna Baumgarten writes these characters with such fondness and richness that they feel like the people you knew in high school. There’s such a mixture of emotions that comes with returning to the place you grew up and sleeping in your childhood bedroom. Even if you’re well past the age of feeling like a kid, that version still exists within you and tends to come out when you’re in proximity to people and places who knew you when you were young. It’s a distinct feeling that’s a mixture of melancholy and joy, nearly impossible to articulate, yet it radiates effortlessly from the screen in Disfluency.
disfluency film
Over the course of the summer, Jane offers to help her high school friend, Amber, learn sign language so she can communicate with her deaf son. The two have morning lessons on the dock and Jane mentions that what she loves about sign language is that it requires a person’s full focus. You can’t be mindlessly scrolling on the phone and speaking sign language in the way you can with verbal communication. At the risk of mildly spoiling a moment in the film, Disfluency puts that idea into practice in one of the most impactful scenes in the film, maybe in any film all year. It’s a testament to communication, to the things we say and the things we don’t, how we say them, and how difficult it can be to speak our truths.
The film begins with a small dedication: “for my sisters.” Above all else, Disfluency is a love letter to the people who provide unconditional support. Jane and Lacey are played by real-life sisters. Hilariously, their roles are reversed for Disfluency. Libe is older in real-life, but plays the younger Jane. Regardless, their dynamic is crackling and genuine, the sort of lived-in, fast-paced bickering that can only come from having spent a lifetime together. It also wouldn’t be surprising to learn that the entire cast is actually childhood friends. They feel like the friends you had from high school, whether or not you still keep in contact with them. Each one of them, in their own way, helps Jane along her journey, and she helps them too. It’s friendship in the purest sense.
Disfluency is a powerhouse, a stunning debut feature film by writer/director Baumgarten. She perfectly balances the necessity of her message about the power of one’s own voice with the youthful breeziness of summertime. Disfluency is the sort of movie that stops you in your tracks and forces you to pay attention. It has all the warmth of Lady Bird and the urgency of Never Rarely Sometimes Always. Disfluency is quietly confident, a reminder of the essential nature of storytelling.
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