This weekend, Toronto is hosting it’s lovely little Pendance film festival, premiering U.S. made movies getting their first Canadian releases. While they’re all very fantastic, nothing stands out to me more than Friday’s Child.
Living life as a drifter is never easy. What is that life like? We find out in the movie Friday’s Child, which introduces us to Richie (Tye Sheridan). He’s finally gotten out of foster care and has moved into a home of his own, working as a construction worker and general labourer. The perfect type of work for the shady individual. Living life on his own, Richie learns to enjoy his freedom as his foster care instructors have told him what it’s like to live as a free person. During his newfound living out of foster care, Tye makes friends with another guy simply known as Swim (Caleb Landry Jones), and dealing with incoming debts. When his landlady (Brett Butler) dies, he chooses to escape to elsewhere only to help out a woman named Joan (Imogen Poots) get home in a car she is unable to drive. He moves onto yet another job doing service for hotel guests. But once Swim comes back around, it’s not bad before hanging out with him starts to develop an even worse influence on Tye then there already is. Tye slowly gets into a shady life, and develops a romantic interest in Joan as the two get to know each other better. However things don’t exactly work out in either of their favour as his crime life somehow clashes with her family in a very unexpected freaky way. Things escalate further just as Tye gets further tied up in delinquency, as being with Swim only makes him sink deeper in despair.
It’s a dark film, both dark in plot and dark in visuals. The story is one of the most grimmest tales ever told, accompanied by small details indicating how a simple crime can cause so many misunderstandings among so many people. But even though something intense has happened, there at least is somewhat of a chance in making peace depending on how one feels about what you did. The colours and shots themselves are dark with minimal brightness, only bright in the whites while everything else seems to be a slighter shade of dark. The characters are extremely well played by some amazing actors I have seen do a stellar job before. Being a shady fellow myself in my younger days, I feel I can relate to a film like this. Not everything can end well, if you’re a troublemaker, but there still is a chance of hope.
