Chicago Critics Film Festival – Opening Night Report

The Chicago Critics Film Festival Runs May 17th – 23rd. Stephen Tronicek is covering the event for We Are Movie Geeeks

Before the opening night screening of Saint Frances last night Erik Childress and Brian Tallerico, two of the programmers for the 7th Chicago Critics Film Festival stood on the stage and professed something to the degree that, “This festival takes all the best films that would be otherwise unavailable and show them in the Midwest (hometown Chicago) all in one week.” This is an adept description for the festival. With screenings of Peter Strickland’s In Fabric, Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale and Lulu Wang’s The Farewell, the CCFF has a pretty much perfect lineup this year.

Opening Night:

Now, if you notice I’m being noticeably vague (I can be a bit wordy, as displayed), I’ve got my hands tied. I have to simply write capsule reviews, meaning vague descriptions of and the qualities of the film. But, I’m going to enjoy this challenge and write something of a report on the events of each night (that I witnessed), sprinkling in clues towards the actual quality of the films on display.

After being ejected from the Airbnb that I was going to because the company had sold me dates that the owner hadn’t authorized (yep), I found myself rather uncomfortably holed up in the downtown Wrigley Hostel. Not that the place is bad, in fact, it’s quite inviting, I just hadn’t settled into the city yet. Thankfully, that feeling of encroaching panic didn’t matter much to me, given the humorous selection that was played opening night.

Saint Frances opened the festival this year and the lounge was livid with Chicago elites and desperately poor press, but in the center (or rather the corner of the opulent room) of attention was the director of the film Alex Thompson and the writer/lead actress of the piece Kelly O’ Sullivan. Positively berated by loving fans, family and co-workers by the time they got to me, I decided to keep my words short, though possibly not short enough.

There was a lot to talk about though. Saint Frances won the Audience Award at 2019’s SXSW Film Festival and the buzz surrounding the piece is palpable. To copy and paste my previous capsule review:

Saint Frances follows Bridget (Kelly O’ Sullivan), a young woman who has just gotten a nanny job watching over Frances (a revelatory Ramona Edith Williams). As their friendship develops, Bridget must deal with her own problems following an abortion. It’s a charming, socially aware film that could make for one of the biggest crowd pleasers of the year.

Thompson and O’ Sullivan provided an insightful Q&A afterword, eventually bringing up the real star of the movie Ramona Edith Williams, who plays the aforementioned Frances. Williams, being a seven-year-old girl, seemed slightly daunted by the 500+ people presented before her, but with the help of Thompson and O’Sullivan held up to the questioning. The interview was more perfectly defined by O’Sullivan’s deep descriptions of the way that Saint Frances, breaks taboos and becomes unlike any other romantic comedy that you’ve seen (hopefully, that’s not more than I can write).

After the audience and actors stampeded through the lobby, while I tried to charge my phone in order to make sure I had a place to stay, the next show got underway.

Greener Grass, written/directed/starring former Chicago suburbanites, Jocelyn DeBoer, and Dawn Luebbe, was introduced as a “documentary,” which given the film’s absurdist charms is probably closer to true than anybody in the audience realized. What’s effective here is the way that DeBoer and Luebbe capture the spirit of John Waters, telling the same entertainingly sick joke over and over again for 90 minutes. You can’t really elaborate on that without giving away what that joke is, so I’ll stop right there, but needless to say, people were cackling in the aisles throughout the entire movie.

One night down and five to go, I’m optimistic. The coming lineup is some of the biggest festival movies of the year and some great looking studio fare, all delivered to the Midwest by the Chicago Critics Film Festival.