"At the Sea', a great actress for a small film
In competition at the Berlin Film Festival is Kornél Mundruczó's swinging feature starring Amy Adams
Amy Adams is always a certainty and it revolves around her (excellent) performance in 'At the Sea', Kornél Mundruczó's new film presented in competition at the Berlin Film Festival.
The American actress plays Laura, a woman who returns to her family after going through rehabilitation due to alcoholism.
Her return home, however, is different from what she expected: her husband Martin seems undecided whether to trust her again; her teenage daughter Josie treats her with strong hostility; her young son Felix remains detached from her at first. The days at the beach will be a way for Laura to try to understand who she really is and how important relationships with those around her can be.
At the Sea is a film about trauma, in which Mundruczó returns to fathom female psychology as he did in one of his most famous (and overrated) works, Pieces of a Woman.
Traumas that in this case are only partly connected to motherhood, but instead originate in the protagonist's past and in particular in her conflictual relationship with her father figure, a dance celebrity, whose presence is emphasised by the continuous and often irritating flashbacks with which Mundruczó constantly interrupts the narrative. Through fragmented editing, the Hungarian director tries to piece together the puzzle pieces that make up Laura's life and the existential reflections she is carrying around.
