THE SOUNDING
Giant Pictures
Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten
Director: Catherine Eaton
Writer: Catherine Eaton, Bryan Delaney
Cast: Catherine Eaton, Teddy Sears, Harris Yulin, Frankie Faison, Danny Burstein, David Furr, Lucy Owen
Screened at: Critics’ link, NYC, 10/1/20
Opens: October 20, 2020
As a former high school teacher, I have this question for you. Shakespeare is probably taught in most high schools, and is an elective or part of required English literature in most liberal arts college. The aim of the folks who decide curricula is hopefully not simply to have students pass tests but to give them a love of literature, particularly the plays of the Bard. Then how come maybe one percent of adults go voluntarily, willingly, excitedly to performances of Shakespeare’s plays? Surely we should not be so elitist to think that every teen through 22-year-old must know at least one play, so as Joe Biden would say, here’s the deal.
Catherine Eaton, who directs “The Sounding” and serves as its star, might give you the impression that as long as you reach one person out of a hundred who becomes enamored with Shakespeare’s works, that’s enough. Eaton, in the role of Olivia or Liv, becomes the kind of fan beyond what anyone would imagine. First she refuses to speak for years; then when she finally lets loose, every word is a quote from Shakespeare that fits the occasion she’s in. Lionel (Harris Yulin), her grandfather, had home-schooled her on Monhegan Island in Maine where David Kruta films the action, a popular tourist destination for hiking and sailing. The place is nearly deserted with few year-round inhabitants, and that’s perfectly fine for Liv, though granddad, a psychiatrist, first tries to treat her silence, then gives up, realizing that maybe the young woman has no intention of communicating, of being what’s considered normal.
However, not ready to leave things be, he persuades Michael (Teddy Sears), a former pupil of his, to be her advocate, insisting that he not try to cure her nor, heaven forbid, to allow her to be hauled away to a psychiatric institution, even though one day she nearly drowns and is considered a harm to herself. She is sent on Michael’s insistence to a psychiatric hospital where she becomes a rebel, like “cuckoo” Jack Nicholson, entertaining the other inmates with Shakespeare’s quotes fitting each occasion and nothing else. Since she pushes back regularly, the shrinks believe she may have to be institutionalized for a long time. Goodbye ocean, hiking paths, freedom.
There’s a joke that the motto of the American Medical Association is “If it ain’t broke, we fix it until it is,” and this movie illustrates the saying—which, it turns it, is not a joke at all. Michael feels guilty, and despite enjoined by an order of protection, he determines to let nothing stand in the way of having her regain her freedom. The shrinks are the crazies here.
In some film festivals, for her performance in resisting the powers in the island’s snake pit, Catherine Eaton has won some best actress awards in a role that decades ago would played by Olivia de Havilland. The story is paced slowly, then picks up speed as she gathers into herself the emotions that the Bard himself must have felt. Wouldn’t it be a nice addition if we had subtitles each time Eaton delivers a quote, together with its source? So: brush up your Shakespeare: start quoting him now.
93 minutes. © 2020 by Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online
Story – B
Acting – A-
Technical – B+
Overall – B