“For want of a nail …”
Choices upon choices upon choices are what bring you to this review at this moment in your life. Maybe you signed up for notices when a new one publishes from EoM, maybe you follow one of our various social media accounts, or maybe you stumbled upon this as you scrolled through the internet. However you arrived at this moment, you got here because of all the choices you made before. This concept, causal theory, butts up against free will because the presumption is that because an action took place, another action occurs as a result. If one only looks at the timeline of one’s own life, keeping themselves as the main character, then, yes, it can look like free will is absent; except every choice *we* make does impact the choices of others, therefore meaning that free will is interlocked with causal theory as it’s the choices we make in the moment, actively or passively, that determine the next choice to be made. Take director/co-writer Freddy Macdonald and his brand-new comedic thriller Sew Torn which recently premiered at SXSW 2024 and is, itself, an expansion on his 2019 short film. Choices, choices, choices – and all of Macdonald’s bring us to this darkly hilarious examination of the connective tissue of choice as a reaction to grief, loss, fear, hope, and freedom.
In a small town in Switzerland, still-grieving seamstress Barbara Duggen (Eve Connolly) juggles closing down her mother’s failed business with the few jobs she’s able to maintain. When the latest gig involving a bridezilla goes unexpectedly, Barbara finds herself stumbling across a drug deal gone wrong and an opportunity to save her mother’s business. But the choice comes with consequences and each thread will be explored before the final stitch is sewn.
Eve Connolly as Barbara Duggen in SEW TORN. Photo Credit: Macdonald Entertainment Partners & Orisono GmbH. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Sew Torn is an exercise in style healthily fed by substance. From the opening, the audience is told through dialogue and imagery that the whole of the film is going to be broken up into thirds wherein each third will lead to a specific outcome. A smart move by co-writers Freddy and Fred Macdonald (Sew Torn (2019)) as this does two things: establishes the overall tone of the film by making it heavy with implications while also darkly comical and makes it clear how the rest of the film will function as a philosophical exploration of choice through the active use of craft as symbol. Speaking on the latter first, the use of craft permeates the whole of the film. It’s not just that Barbara carries her box of tools everywhere, or that she drives a business vehicle labeled with the business name and a giant spool on the back, or that each of the three segments are introduced by way of a pattern being made within a piece of fabric, the sound of needle and thread being worked by a machine is incorporated into Jacob Tardien’s (Quarantaines) music, conveying the sense that each action by Barbara in a scene is thoughtfully conceived and constructed in the moment, indicative of the precision required by her profession. It’s an auditory motif similar to the infusion of a clock’s tick-tick-tick in Christopher Nolan’s Dunkirk (2017), an audio cue of the unrelenting passage of time that the characters of Nolan’s World War I tale sought to survive. With Sew Torn being a thriller, the added sounds of a needle punching thread enhance the already heightened situational tension whether Barbara is navigating her own ethical conflict. Add in the sublime editing by Freddy and Sebastian Klinger (Zoe) which gives energy and intensity as Barbara develops one of several Rube Goldberg-esque thread-based machinations in an effort to secure her future and one has all the technical pieces necessary to place the audience on the edge of their seats in delightful dreadful anticipation.
This last bit leads us to the former and the execution of tones. One doesn’t expect a film which opens on a montage of seeming death and destruction to possess both comical execution and thoughtfulness. Part of the way in which humor is found in the film is through the performances in contrast to the situation – laughter being the only appropriate response to such perceived ridiculousness. But then the Macdonalds create situations in which the only way out for Barbara seems to be to use her skills as a seamstress. Don’t mistake this to mean simple embroidery or crafting, but complex systems in which creativity is key in achieving her goals. This not only demonstrates who Barbara is (her choices of tools, her desire to keep the shop open, her tethered existence to the legacy of her mother), it creates moments which are both brilliant in concept and also comical in their overproduced nature (that in no way impacts their effectiveness). But in each bit of brilliant work, Barbara is making a choice, actively and decisively, thereby making what follows an extension of the choice, creating a fascinating inevitability as all thread runs out eventually.
The individual stories are, themselves, a bit repetitious, but never enough where one might feel like we’re revisiting too much. The repeating is a touch necessary as it continues another thematic element which is the sense of being stuck. Now, at no point do we get the sense that the Barbara who is exploring the three threads of her life knows how any of them play out; this is not a time loop scenario wherein she must learn from her mistakes. Barbara does narrate the opening and the bits in between, but that’s to create a smooth transition from one idea to the next with her voice serving as the connection tissue, the thread that holds the film together. Treating Barbara as a real character experiencing each choice (and not just thematic tool), affords the audience new pieces of information about the town and the people who exist there and how the circumstance Barbara finds herself in correlates to them and their own lives. It goes back to the ways in which our choices impact others and Barbara’s choices aren’t the only ones being made which have a severe impact on her and the town. One of the most interesting pieces of information comes from K Callan’s (Knives Out) Ms. Engel who serves as police officer, marriage officiant, and town notary. She describes their town as a trap in which tourists come and never leave. When one considers that the bulk of the characters don’t appear to be native to the town and the film itself is a tale told in portions to explore choices, one starts to feel as though the town itself is the physical manifestation of the things holding you back from moving on. That this place is something you come to visit, like a season in your life, but are ultimately forced to stay for some reason, the catalyst for freedom feeling like it must come at great personal cost when, in fact, you might benefit far more than you’d lose by leaving. One could write an entire other essay exploring the significance of the production design in conveying the inherent trap that is the town, but also the trappings of Barbara’s life as its own thread-based web that locks her in place. (There’s also a little bit in here about the reward of kindness over greed and fear, but that’s for a different review when details can be addressed without fear of spoiling the fun.)
SEW TORN director/co-writer Freddy Macdonald. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Sew Torn is a brilliantly executed darkly comic thriller that uses every piece of fabric, every piece of thread, every piece of available material to construct a tale that’s equally entertaining and emotionally thoughtful. The framing device becomes more than motif as it’s inherently important to who Barbara is, as well as the ways in which she finds herself into and out of trouble. Connolly (The Other Lamb) herself brings incredible depth to the character, making Barbara at once confident and determined as well as fearful and drained. In each new thread, Connolly finds new areas from which to draw from in order to convey just how far Barbara is willing to go to achieve, what she presumes, is the easy way out of her situation. Though there’s some obviousness in the closing moments of the film, a decision that makes a specific statement on how important choices are in our personal outcomes, Freddy sticks the landing to a satisfactory degree. So much so that one realizes that what comes next matters very little given the extraordinary journey we’ve gone on with Barbara up to that moment.
Screening during SXSW 2024.
In select theaters May 9th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official SXSW Sew Torn webpage or Vertigo Releasing Sew Torn webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Films To Watch, In Theaters, Recommendation, Reviews
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