Photograph: CinephobiaPhotograph: Cinephobiaplucky microbudget indie, Brightwood is a masterclass in what is achievable with hardly any money whatsoever: just a premise, a couple of actors, and a writer-director who doubles as cameraperson. It’s also an illustration of the limits of the form, because it would be starry-eyed and untrue to claim that money makes no difference to what can be achieved.
We open on a couple, jogging in the woods and fighting as they go. Jen and Dan have evidently been married for long enough to really get to know and dislike each other. She’s listening to a podcast about how to divorce, he’s irritated she won’t take her earbuds out long enough for them to have a conversation, she’s furious about his drinking and flirting and, on top of everything else, he’s wickedly hungover.
Here’s where the film enters into more surreal territory: Jen and Dan find that there is seemingly no way out of the circular path around a pond in the woods which they’ve been navigating. They keep finding themselves back where they started, quite literally.
Unfortunately the characterisation is also trapped with the limitations of microbudget film-making, which requires that the script and two actors carry the entire weight of the film. There’s nothing especially wrong, per se, with either the writing or the performances, but a film with more resources has more options; you can support the actors and dialogue with other elements, say, a juicy turn from a favourite character actor, or add some knockout set pieces or production design.