The Sweet East

Shot in a way reminiscent of classic ’70s cinema while commenting on the woes of the contemporary, Williams builds a timely film that still feels timeless, an expansive chronicling of a slice of America ripe for many a rewatch.

The Sweet East takes an admirably measured look at societal fracture in the modern age, and its use of arch provocation becomes a device to represent a highly recognisable vernacular of despair, where obscenity (both verbal and corporeal) is the only language that cuts through the chaff.

It all combines to make for quite the adventure, enjoyably uncanny if overly broad.

It’s a well-made, purposefully ugly treatise of America as a broken-down theme park. But its charm wanes whenever it’s just not as funny, smart, or edgy as it thinks.

The section where Lillian tumbles down a film-making rabbit hole is by far the most amusing.

The Sweet East ends up saying quite a bit, though little leaves any real impression.

Sean Price Williams’s solo feature directorial debut is pretty fuzzy on what it wants its national tour of brainless dogma to mean.