LOVESONG – QFest St. Louis Review

Review by Stephen Tronicek

LOVESONG screens Wednesday, Mar. 29 at 7:00pm at the .ZACK (3224 Locust St., St. Louis, MO 63103) as part of this year’s QFest St. Louis. This is a FREE screening.

LOVESONG which opens QFest this year is an almost perfect little love story. Following Sarah (Riley Keough) and Mindy (Jena Malone) as they go on a road trip with Sarah’s young daughter. The film then jumps ahead three years to Mindy’s wedding. The women’s budding relationship is cataloged throughout the film.

LOVESONG’s emotional palette resembles that of the euphoric last act of Best Picture winner MOONLIGHT feeling at once calming in its emotionality but also intensely charged with passion. Each glance hits you like a freight train. Each touch holds a connotation of intense longing. Each word feels joyous, yet crushing. LOVESONG is a film that plays with the similar emotions of unrequited love but it works around them by never overstating them. There’s so much more in the body language of the characters than can be found in complex exchanges of dialogue. This is longing, this is love.

Keough and Malone being two of the best actresses of their generation is a perk, and the two have a chemistry for the ages. Keough is playing a shyer character than usual, and Malone is playing the free-spirited one as usual, and both seem to ache onscreen creating a rush of almost unparalleled emotion. The actors smartly seem to drop their character’s shielding personalities and subvert them, but only for a moment, showing strength where shyness once was and vulnerability where a free spirit was, suggesting the true dynamic to the relationship and bolstering the characters of this simple, short, poignant love story.

LOVESONG might be manipulative, but all film is and LOVESONG for being the small production that it is, takes you to some places you may never want to come back from. This is a touching ode to the way that love manifests itself not in large gestures, but in beautiful glances of true connection.