The Sweet East - America Through the Eyes of a Teenage Girl
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With a hopeless America comes a wave of cinema that depicts the modern hellscape in different fonts. How to Blow Up a Pipeline (2022) - a representation of twenty somethings resorting to Ted Kaczynski antics due to a careless government (as well as narcissism); Spree (2020) - a journey with the internet pilled crazies; and The Sweet East (2023) - a look at modern America through the eyes of a zoned out teenage girl, hazy and indifferent.
Now that every other person you know runs a Substack, it can seem pointless to tune in to most cultural criticism, which feels like a toss up between Joan Didion if she were chronically online or Hunter S. Thomson if he had social anxiety. Yes, the alt right is bad and the world is ending, most get it. For that reason, I’m always in the state of craving something new. A fresh take from outside the echochamber. Introducing Lillian: the indifferent teenage girl of The Sweet East.
Played by Talia Ryder, South Carolina high school senior Lillian embarks on an adventure across the East Coast after disbanding from her school trip to Washington D.C due to an active shooter. From here, Lillian follows crust punk Caleb (Earl Cave) through the rabbit hole and begins a new chapter of being an underage nomad. Lillian’s adventures range from taking on a Lolita type role for neo-nazi Lawrence (Simon Rex) to being the muse of film producers Molly (Ayo Edebri) and Matthew (Jeremy O. Harris). Ultimately, Lillian gets a taste of all that real America has to offer: white supremacists, squatters with rich parents, media moguls, homoerotic male compounds and different flavours of terrorists.
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We see all this through the eyes of not just Lillian - with her constant shrugging and apathetic willingness to get involved with anything as long as it results in somewhere to sleep and something to eat (and new clothes via creepy older men) - but also the vision of director and cinematographer Sean Price Williams.
Williams is one of the forces behind the otherworldly look of Safdie brother’s Good Time (2017), a film that really represents all that A24 is fawned over for today: a whirlwind story through a dreamy lens and a beautiful protagonist. The Sweet East is this, too, but with more apathy from our lead. Although smart enough to not get herself killed or worse - despite the close calls - there’s no criminal schemes or erratic behaviour from her part. Something the Safdie brothers thrive on through Good Time and, of course, Uncut Gems. These films give us anxiety, The Sweet East gives us nothing (in a good way); The Sweet East has a feminine touch. Lillian has the level of unbothered-ness only a teen girl can portray so cleanly. The naivety of being okay, whatever whilst almost being an accomplice and/or a victim.
When watching The Sweet East during the London Film Festival, which ultimately felt like a Jacob Elordi festival (not complaining), it stood out. A contrast against any film that had a narrative of hope, purpose, and care. It wasn’t as earnest as Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days or as thematically complex as Todd Haynes’ May December, but it was undeniably enjoyable to see a piece of cinema so confidently unbothered in every sense. The film also made me realise I despised the Jacob Elordi flick that I saw at the beginning of that day, Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn. Fennell’s heart was in the wrong place, creating a satire that was on the nose and ugly (except for Elordi). Just like Fennel’s debut Promising Young Woman’s ending of the police saving the day, Fennell is scared to get dirty. You can envision Fennell shouting ‘ah ha!’ when writing Rosamund Pike’s dialogue: The kids are going to love this, eat the rich! But the kids, at least the smart kids, disagree. The Sweet East is for the people who know that the rich can’t be eaten.
What makes The Sweet East so enjoyable is that many of us are Lillian. I’ve never felt so much like a high school senior from South Carolina in my whole life. If we squint our eyes and well up, our environment also starts to look like the visual style of The Sweet East; hazy, surreal, and 35mm. In her world and our world, actions mean nothing, attempts to change the narrative yourself are futile. Insane things still happen, we are still finding ourselves in back alleys with strangers in the middle of the night, but it never feels like it's from our own doing.
Words: Charlotte Amy Landrum
