Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Sarah Carter
Starring: Ciera Danielle, Erin Hammond, Philippe Caland,
Charlie Farrell, Nyambi Nyambi, James Aaron Oliver
Stories of estranged family members renewing their bonds have been a
cliché in American indie cinema for the last couple of decades,
stretching back to Kenneth Lonergan's debut
You Can Count on Me. You'll find a few of these narratives padding practically every film
festival, and they can often tend to blur together. What generally
distinguishes such films are the performances, and you can see why
actors are attracted to such stories that allow them to run the gamut of
emotions.
Aside from its unique backdrop of the Los Angeles arts scene, what
makes actress Sarah Carter's directorial debut
In Her Name stand out is the central performance from
Ciera Danielle, an actress whose CV consists mostly of
appearances in Christmas themed TV movies. Come to think of it, those
movies often share similar narratives to indie dramas, as they're often
focussed on a family reuniting, just, you know, at Christmas time.
Perhaps that's why Danielle seems like such a natural fit here.
Danielle plays Fiona, a thirtysomething Minnesota housewife who travels
to her childhood home in Los Angeles to confront her ailing father Marv
(Philippe Caland), an acclaimed artist, over the property tax
bills she's been paying for the past few years. Fiona hasn't seen her
father - or her sister Freya (Erin Hammond), who has been taking
care of him – for four years, so it's no surprise that they don’t take
too kindly to her somewhat ill-timed proposal to sell the house.
This is a family that was split many years ago, and depending on whom
you believe, it was torn apart either by Marv's philandering or his
wife's mental health issues. Freya stayed with Marv while Fiona left
with her mother, and a line was immediately drawn which Fiona has rarely
crossed.
We know exactly how this story will play out, so it's no surprise to
see the two sisters bonding and reconnecting despite their differences.
What is surprising is how disinterested Carter seems in mining the
initial animosity between the pair. The sort of bickering you expect
between the sisters is dispensed with almost immediately as the two
become friends, which makes you then assume the story will be about
Fiona reconnecting with her father. But that's not really the case, as
Marv is oddly sidelined in this story despite his impending death
providing the central narrative thrust.
Thanks largely to Danielle's charming performance - going from uptight,
unhappy soccer mom to embracing the California hippy lifestyle in her
own awkward way – it's fun to hang out with Fiona and Freya, but that
notable lack of conflict means we never quite get pulled into the drama.
Fiona drops her prim and proper façade all too easily, giving in to the
lecherous demands of her father's creepy artist protégé (James Aaron Oliver), reaching the summit of her character arc far too early in the
film.
In Her Name's portrayal of the L.A. arts world feels as though it's mocking the
scene, populated as it is by the sort of beatniks you find in movies
like Roger Corman's A Bucket of Blood and the Tony Hancock
vehicle The Rebel. But Hammond is herself an L.A. based artist, so it seems unlikely
that this was the intention. Perhaps, much like how they say you can't
make a war movie without making war look exciting, you can't portray the
arts world without parodying it.
