The Exploding Girl

I really wanted to like The Exploding Girl, a moody tale of two college-age friends slowly—and I mean, slowly—acknowledging the romantic spark between them. Employing a long-take aesthetic that owes a stylistic debt to such international auteurs as Hou Hsiao-hsien and Tsai Ming-liang, writer-director Bradley Rust Gray admirably attempts to capture the diffuse rhythms of twentysomething speech and gesture through the lens of his assiduously distanced yet always empathetic camera. When so many films about my “generation” succumb to cliché and rote cynicism, such an earnest effort to get at the cross-currents of insecurity, desire, and frustration that course through young relationships is nothing if not appreciated.

So why did I walk away from The Exploding Girl feeling so indifferent, even irritated? All the ingredients necessary for an effective character drama with a strong streak of art-house ambiguity are present: lengthy, carefully-composed takes; long stretches of pause-pocked small talk; a few evocative shots of birds flying over Brooklyn apartment buildings. Yet Gray’s use of them often feels more appropriated than organic. One never doubts his enthusiasm and commitment to exploring these formal strategies. The question becomes whether technique itself becomes privileged over its relation to the story Gray is telling. Too often, the answer is yes.

Home for spring break in Manhattan, Ivy (Zoe Kazan), a pensive college student prone to epileptic seizures, makes frequent attempts to connect—both literally and emotionally—to her boyfriend via cell phone, though the results are either missed calls or brief, strained conversations. Meanwhile, her best friend, Al (Mark Rendall) is also on break and has asked to crash with Ivy and her mom (Maryann Urbano) after discovering that his parents have turned his bedroom into a guest room. Ivy and Al spend much of their time simply hanging out: picnicking in Central Park; traveling around the boroughs. Any mutual attraction remains largely under the surface, however, until Ivy’s relationship begins to quietly deteriorate over the course of the break. What follows is a tentative, halting journey toward romance—a half-confession of feelings here; a passive-aggressive bit of relationship advice there—and one that Gray thankfully keeps character-specific. (Which is to say, there is precious little commentary on the difficulties of connection in today’s youth world of ironic distance, technological detachment, blah, blah, blah.)

It’s a simple story in many respects; not without its ambiguities, but fairly straightforward in how it observes the delicate steps by which relationships blossom. One understands to a point Gray’s impulse to film these encounters through artfully protracted takes; the camera’s constant presence makes it that much more effective in catching the physical and verbal nuances that pass between Ivy and Al. He must have also realized that Kazan and Rendall have a truly lovely and lived-in chemistry, and that recording it in as naturalistic a manner as possible would be essential for the film’s emotional resonance.

Too often, however, Gray’s aesthetics works to highlight exactly what’s tiresome about The Exploding Girl. Much time is devoted to Ivy’s growing ennui, complete with scenes of her lying in bed, staring out the window, and walking forlornly through noisy, impersonal Manhattan streets. Kazan is always a vivid presence, but Gray gives her little to do beside gaze languidly into the New York twilight. Without a more specific sense of Ivy’s emotional dissatisfaction, his long takes begin to feel less introspective than indulgent. That goes for Ivy and Al’s scenes as well: one can only watch so many affable, tension-tinged conversations in observational long shots before your eyes begin to glaze over.

This is a shame, because Gray, working with DP Eric Lin, occasionally creates some intriguing moods through a combination of dreamy compositions and ambient sound. A shot of Ivy and Al at a party places them in the background of the frame—their bodies becoming indistinct outlines as they lie on an empty bed and chat with fellow partiers—while the foreground remains sharp and bathed in the warm light emanating from the bedroom. We listen to their conversation as other festive sounds (laughter, bottles clinking) drift around us, creating an atmosphere of loose, hazy disconnection. Yet even his most memorable images have a slightly clinical, studied quality.

Some would argue, of course, that any director employing such rigorous and self-conscious formal choices inevitably creates a wall between the viewer and the film. But when I watch a movie by Hou or Tsai, for example, the effect of the former’s languorous tracks or the latter’s meticulously-composed static long shots is not disengagement, but the fostering of a searching, open quality that complements their often-oblique narratives. Because they keep their images still, they give me the opportunity to scan the frame, pick up details, and consider a range of thematic and narrative connections—not to mention appreciate whatever aesthetic pleasures the image holds in its own right. The visuals both enhance these films’ complexity and offer the space to try and make sense of it.

And this is where The Exploding Girl stumbles most. The lack of depth in Gray’s screenplay ends up being unfortunately enhanced by his long-take aesthetic. What’s obvious to begin with becomes that much more obvious when the camera lingers on it for minutes at a time. So when Ivy has the umpteenth tense conversation with her boyfriend, we aren’t engaged in the complexity of their relationship. We’ve known, from moment one, that he’s a jackass, and wait with growing impatience for the moment when she will come to her senses. And when Gray uses his umpteenth long take to film said conversation, it proves doubly discouraging. We may want to connect with these characters, but they remain trapped behind formal choices as distancing and transparent as a pane of glass.

                                            Matt Connolly