Writer-director Sophy Romvari’s “Blue Heron” is a deeply personal feature debut. Romvari has been making shorts since 2011, which would indicate she has been ready to make the leap to features for a while. Most filmmakers would use a few well-received shorts as their launchpad to feature filmmaking, but “Blue Heron” feels like Romvari needed to make the film when the time was right for her.
When something as personal as “Blue Heron” gets put into the world, it can be an uneasy task to evaluate such a movie. Who is a critic to say whether a writer or director got something right or wrong when it comes to a creation that so closely reflects the filmmaker lived experiences? Fortunately, “Blue Heron” is well-deserving of the praise it has received since it debuting on the festival circuit late last year.
In fact, “Blue Heron” is the best film of the year, so far (and by far). It’s a tiny marvel of a movie, small in presentation but mighty in execution. The movie isn’t traditionally structured nor does it concern itself with plot; the emotional experience is the reason for witnessing what Romvari has done.
The movie opens in the late 90s, as a family is moving into their new home on Vancouver Island. At first, it’s easy to let the nostalgia of the setting take over. Young Sasha (Eylul Guven), along with her siblings and other kids in the neighborhood, enjoy the simple pleasures of growing up in the 90s before screens and trends made running through a sprinkler for hours on end extinct. Romvari delicately unlocks those memories.
Sasha is the stand-in character for Romvari. The movie is often observed through her point-of-view, where things are fun and carefree, but Sasha is at an age where she begins to sense there’s some discontent in her family. The mother (Iringó Réti) and father (Ádám Tompa) are dealing with their eldest son Jeremy’s (Edik Beddoes) increasingly concerning and erratic behavior. And whether he is being brought home in handcuffs or laying on the front porch making the neighbors concerned he’s dead, it’s clear Jeremy is crying out for help.
Young Sasha starts noticing something is going on with Jeremy, but at such a young age it’s impossible to articulate what she’s witnessing. When the movie introduces Sasha later in life (Amy Zimmer), the entire movie gets re-contextualized — and Romvari isn’t afraid to knock her audience off-balance and quickly reset. It’s a daring move, executed with precision.
“Blue Heron” is an emotional wallop of a movie, one Romvari made by revisiting childhood memories. Did writing and directing “Blue Heron” bring Romvari a sense of healing? That’s for her to say, not for her viewers to know. But she should feel a great sense of achievement in knowing watching this film will likely bring some audience members to a place of healing. That’s the power of “Blue Heron.”
Matthew Passantino is a freelance film critic and a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Greater Western New York Film Critics Association.
