Jason Sondhi
The First Men, Benjamin Kegan’s MFA film from Columbia University, is remarkable drama, touching upon drug abuse, parenting, and the education system, but doing so in a firmly character-centric way. An intimate and uncomfortable portrait of a Millennial high school teacher in the throes of a self-destructive cycle, the film’s plot builds and builds until it displays the tension and dread of a top-notch thriller.
What the film does so well is cobble together these various threads into a terrific structure, yet not lose sight of the interesting dynamics within its disparate parts. Rebecca is an anxious, acerbic, self-involved young woman touring a local suburban mall with her mother one day. Her constant entreaties for money eventually overwhelm, and after a blow up, her mom calls out her selfishness and leaves. Rebecca, now alone, connects with a student of hers loitering in the shopping complex, introducing a second stage to the film and a new inter-personal dynamic to explore. A third stage follows as Rebecca and her students leave the mall, and by then the story has progressed to a far different place than one expects from the opening few minutes.
Richly realized in terms of dialogue and visual language, each of these individual stages are well-realized enough to sustain a film, and the specificity and drama within each of them allows the plot to guide you to its unexpected destination. Rebecca is a familiar figure in contemporary indie, a young woman with issues that manifest in entitlement and a reflexive lashing out to those close to her. Like a character from Girls, hers is a lack of self-awareness verging on denial. The dynamic between her and her taken-for-granted mom does not present Rebecca in best light, but through intimate steadicam work our perspective is fixed on Rebecca, and as our protagonist, we attempt empathy.
Potential for empathy seemingly presents itself in Rebecca’s interaction with her student, played by Bo Mitchell. By this point we recognize Rebecca’s problem, but like in another famous NYC-indie, Half Nelson, perhaps Rebecca can see outside her own situation to provide mentorship and connection. Nope! Instead like Brick, we’re slowly introduced to a shady underworld of teenage crime that draws Rebecca in. It is dark and inevitable, and the continuation of Rebecca’s delusions, and traversing from a place of inter-relational fuck ups to a place of real danger is the film’s neatest trick.
Kegan’s direction is assured and thoughtful, his handle on the themes astute, and the way he continually draws out the developments of the plot, hiding his hand for the transformations in genre to come, is a rare talent. Much credit must be given to Stacey Richter, the author of the Pushcart-winning short story upon which the film is based however. It is a remarkably layered piece in the juxtapositions it presents—Rebecca as a dependent to her mother, yet an authority figure to her students, the artificiality of the mall versus the outdoors setting of the film’s conclusion, and for the way it mashes up genres. The film is definitely a good showcase for the potential of literary adaptations in short film.