REVIEW: ‘The Plagiarists,’ now available digitally
Photo: Lucy Kaminsky stars in The Plagiarists. Photo courtesy of Automatic Moving Co / Provided by KimStim with permission.
The Plagiarists, the 2019 movie from director Peter Parlow, is a quiet and effecting piece of cinematic satire, one that feels important and necessary to watch. It’s simple and somewhat DIY, but underneath that simplicity are many messages and considerations on race relations, privilege, art and culture.
First off, there’s the look of the film. Parlow is able to achieve a run-down, washed-out atmosphere throughout the narrative, almost as if he is using a camcorder from the 1990s or a smartphone from today. There’s a graininess to the feature that feels oddly authentic and bracingly intimate.
The protagonists of the piece are Anna (Lucy Kaminsky) and Tyler (Eamon Monaghan). They are both creative types who are eternally aspiring, but never quite able to land the career they had hoped for when they started out. Anna is an up-and-coming novelist, while Tyler is a cinematographer with hopes of finding more success and artistic satisfaction. They are on a trip in upstate New York during the winter months when their car breaks down. Clip (Michael “Clip” Payne, of Parliament Funkadelic) pulls over and offers them some help. They jump at the chance to get out of the cold, so they head to Clip’s nearby house and stay the night.
Anna and Tyler, who are white, do not initially know what to make of Clip, who is Black. They are thankful for his generosity, but in the back of their mind is an uneasiness. Eventually some alcohol is passed around, and everyone loosens up a bit. Then the real conversations start — about art, about Clip’s past, about this young couple’s future, about life, about the young child who lives with Clip. Throughout these talks, one senses the privilege that is attached to many of Anna and Tyler’s words, privilege they seem ignorant of, either willfully or not.
After they leave the next day, the narrative jumps ahead a few months when the couple heads back to upstate New York and stay over in their friend’s cabin (Emily Davis). There they talk about their previous wintertime experience and what they thought of Clip, in particular their shock about a revelation involving this kind man who brought them into his house.
Many of the shots throughout The Plagiarists are zoomed in, with an individual character filling the entire screen. Also, and this only became apparent after reading the press release for the movie, there’s a distance amongst the characters, which was achieved during the filming process by isolating the couple and Clip. In fact, they never share the screen together, and the group discussion scenes were filmed when Clip was alone and when the couple was alone. That type of experimental filmmaking, woefully absent in today’s cinema, is so much appreciated, and it pays dividends in the final product.
The discussion in The Plagiarists is always interesting, and that’s a credit first to the writers — James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir — but also to the cast, who are unanimously excellent in making the dialogue feel real and natural. They never directly address racism and privilege, or artistic topics like a writer’s voice and creative ambition — and yet these topics hover over every word. There are inferences made, preconceived notions laid bare and unfair assessments bubbling to the surface.
These conversations, which are the hallmark of the film, will lead viewers into interesting thoughts and deductions about how they respond to these characters. Most of these fictional creations seem like nice people, liberal and accepting, and yet there’s an uneasiness with how flippant and passive they can be about important topics that impact so many lives.
The Plagiarists, now available from KimStim, will produce wonderful head-scratching and endless considerations about motivations, emotions and inherent, deep-down bias. It tells a tale that is so important to hear in 2020.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Plagiarists (2019). Directed by Peter Parlow. Written by James N. Kienitz Wilkins and Robin Schavoir. Starring Lucy Kaminsky, Michael “Clip” Payne, Emily Davis and Eamon Monaghan. Running time: 76 minutes. Rating: 
