As I’m sitting here trying to write this review for Krisha, I’m finding that I don’t even know where to start. The experience of the film is, for lack of a better term, emotionally devastating. Simply put, it’s one of the most honest and brutal portrayals of addiction and the toll it takes on the ones around you since Requiem for A Dream and possibly of all time. However, what makes Trey Edward Shultz’s debut picture truly effective is the central performance by Krisha Fairchild in the title role. In a single, crushing scene, she makes the audience understand her character, brings you onto her side, then ravages your emotions with an incredible monologue performed with grace and passion. It’s one of the best scenes from a 2016 film and the single best performance in years.
Made on a microbudget and using his friends and family as actors — including his aunt Krisha Fairchild — Trey Edwards Schultz tells the story of the homecoming of Krisha, a recovering drug and alcohol abuser whose son was raised by her sister Robyn (Robyn Fairchild). Her return to the family, which takes place during Thanksgiving, is met with both trepidation and hope that Krisha has finally made a recovery after alienating herself from her relatives. However, as she realizes the time she has lost and the relationships she has broken, Krisha slowly loses her grip on her sanity.
The opening shot of Krisha is an extreme close-up — the movie is filmed in a 4:3 aspect ratio, which allows the actors’ faces to fill the entire screen — it begins with an image of the title character as she stares intensely into the camera. It is accompanied by a crescendoing piece of score that feels like it’s pulled out of a horror movie. It’s a jarring way to open a movie about a family dinner, but so appropriate. The discombobulated score, which continues throughout the movie, and harsh smash cuts add tension to the movie. It turns a typical family gathering filled with food, football, and cooking into an anxious affair. Even the cinematography uses horror movie tropes like a long take down a dark hallway or framing characters from behind a corner. In fact, Krisha made me feel more anxious than some thrillers have made me feel. This is because we watch the movie squarely in Krisha’s point of view. We feel what she feels. And what she feels is terrified and alienated.
As the night trudges on and Krisha feels increasingly paranoid, the movie tightens the tension until it finally all comes to a head in an intense final act that would make any genre film lover come to their knees. However, as played out as the premise is, Schultz wrote and directed the movie with a flair that is so rare. For a movie so beholden to the past, it’s completely devoid of messy exposition. Instead, we have to infer and build the events before the movie. Because of this, it’s difficult to determine the good people from the bad. The result is one of the most compelling character studies ever committed to film. It’s brave and breathtaking.
The vision that Shultz had for the film is so abundantly clear and it feels as if what we see on screen is exactly what he intended. Whether he accessed some deep personal emotion to create this film or simply thought it up, I’m both ecstatic and disturbed that a movie of such boldly human destruction was conjured up by him. It’s a story of destruction and redemption and the lengths to which we will forgive the ones we love and the energy we put into forgetting them. Krisha is purely visual and cinematic poetry that will cut to your core and deliver you an emotional blow. But in the end, it’s one that you will feel glad you experienced because it will make you want to be a better person to the people closest to you. It will make you reevaluate the number of chances that people are willing to give and that you are willing to give. Most importantly, Krisha is a chilling reminder that old wounds don’t easily heal. It’s a dark truth of being a human, but its one that is bravely depicted here.
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