Late Bloomers
From SIFF alum and Audience Award winner Lisa Steen comes this dark comedy about a depressed Brooklyn slacker (Karen Gillan, Dual) who breaks her hip and goes into physical therapy, where she begins an unlikely friendship with an 86-year-old Polish immigrant.
Director Lisa Steen, Producers Alex Barreto and Taylor Feltner, and Cast Member Michelle Twarowska scheduled to attend.
Somewhere betwixt the ageless act of cantankerous rebellion and the crushing reality of aging lies this naturalistic, feature-length debut from Lisa Steen (a previous SIFF Audience Award winner for her short film Stepdaddy). Louise (Karen Gillan) is a struggling musician forced into reassessing the trajectory of her life after obstinate impulsivity leaves her nursing a broken heart and broken hip and checked into a hospital ward shared with Antonina (Margaret Sophie Stein), a surly Polish woman 54 years her senior. Louise finds it hard to escape Antonina, who begins to pop up in her life almost cosmically. As their orbits spin closer together, perspectives shift, fusing them in an unlikely camaraderie. Soon, the pair must rely on each other to adjust to the simultaneously humorous and begrudgingly miserable nature of existence. To quote the Polish author Hanna Krall from the book "What Happened to Our Fairy-Tale," "Nieodczuwany smutek, przed ktorym udało nam się uciec, i tak dopadnie nas poźniej…" loosely meaning that there is no way to run from our sadness; we have to experience all that we're given. I'd like to add that joking about it also helps.
—Marion Bailey
- Director: Lisa Steen
- Principal Cast: Karen Gillan, Margaret Sophie Stein, Jermaine Fowler, Kevin Nealon, Talia Balsam
- Country: USA
- Year: 2023
- Running Time: 92 min.
- Producer: Alexandra Barreto, Taylor Feltner, Sam Bisbee
- Screenplay: Anna Greenfield
- Cinematographers: John de Menil
- Editors: Anisha Acharya
- Music: Osei Essed
- Website: Official Film Website
- Filmography: Debut Feature Film
- Language: English, unsubtitled Polish
- International Sales: UTA