Ivan Kander
As a short film curator, I have a distaste for “issue films”: heavy cinematic exercises that seem to relish in their own misery, sinking under the weight of their own lugubriousness. In lesser hands, it feels like Gina Hackett’s Beauty Marks could have skewed in that direction. After all, the “indie film” tropes are here: the emphasis on social realism, a depiction of white American working-class poverty, a focus on heavy topics like child abuse and violence against women, the ambiguous ending, etc. But, the film never quite allows itself to be overtaken by its dour subject matter, instead finding a compelling sense of mystery and danger that drives forward a nuanced cat and mouse interplay of power between its central characters.
So many films that depict abuse of any form, especially against women, are very much “about what they are about”—the goal being to paint the abusers as clear villains. But, this often makes for melodramatic and uninteresting storytelling. Hackett crafts something that is far more interesting and complex. As viewers, we are constantly questioning the motivations of everyone involved: who is lying? Why? When Zadie (expertly performed by Anna Cobb) so casually references her father’s physical abuse, we are left to wonder how honest she is being and her motivations for acting the way she does: is she seeking attention? A desire to build up her own mystique? Or, is she actually in an abusive relationship that she needs to escape from?
Lianna Morra as Ritchie
As our “innocent” protagonist (Lianna Morra) navigates her interaction with this mysterious girl, she is also forced to question the safety of her own mother, who is left back at the motel in the hands of a potential predator. The result is tense and uncomfortable, but not in an obvious way: Beauty Marks isn’t a conventional set-piece thriller, but rather a psychological, and at times, surreal, one that always keeps the viewer unsure of where allegiances align.
As Hackett relates to short of the week:
“My co-writer, Waleed Alqahtani, and I were interested in putting a female liar on screen. Women are often portrayed as having a responsibility to act as truth-tellers, but like any trope, this limits the scope of what female characters are permitted to do on screen. How bad they’re allowed to be. Because we experience the film through the eyes of the younger, more naive girl, we access the older girl as a mystery unfolding in real-time, and whether we believe the older girl or not is directly tied to whether the protagonist’s mother is in danger or not.”
I really like this idea of exploring a female-centric story with characters that can’t be easily compartmentalized: there are no obvious heroes here, and as such, the film never lets its characters off the hook, skillfully forcing us to decipher the ambiguous intentions and subtext of every action and piece of dialogue. I know the lack of a defined ending will irk some (and, admittedly, it did leave me a bit unsatisfied), but it’s a breathless and compelling 11 minutes that feels like a strong sample from a filmmaker to look out for.
Hackett has a one-hour dramatic pilot that is currently out for development and was recently selected for Columbia University’s annual Blue List. She is also working on a feature script that she is hoping to develop.