Mouthpiece
(Canada, 91 min.)
Dir. Patricia Rozema, Writ. Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava,
Patricia Rozema
Starring: Amy Nostbakken, Norah Sadava, Maev Beaty, Jake
Epstein, Paula Boudreau
 |
| Courtesy of TIFF |
Patricia Rozema delivers another winner with Mouthpiece. The film might be her most
ambitious and auteurist picture since her 1987 breakthrough feature I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing. It’s an
exciting reminder of why she’s one of the best voices in Canadian film. After
the literary romp of Mansfield Park and
the breathtaking dystopian vision of Into the Forest, Rozema looks inward with Mouthpiece,
tightening the scope while pushing the boundaries. The film stars Amy
Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, who join Rozema in adapting their play Mouthpiece, as Cassandra, a woman torn
between her two selves when she learns of the sudden death of her mother,
Elaine.
The conceit of Mouthpiece, however, is that Nostbakken and Sadava both play Cassandra. Rozema (spoiler alert) doesn’t give audiences a clue when it comes to determining which woman is the “true” character, as the actors share Cassandra’s interactions with other characters depending on her mood. There is no consistency in terms of which one their onscreen peers address. They split Cassandra’s lines, sometimes finishing one another’s sentences and sometimes engaging in dialogue together, and their movements are impeccably choreographed beats as they frequently play scenes with synchronized actions.
Tall Cassandra and short Cassandra voice the woman’s
insecurities by creating personalities that are often at odds with one
another—Nostbakken, the taller one, is the more confident and outspoken half of
the woman, while Sadava embodies Cassandra’s introverted traits—as she/they
reflect upon Elaine and the terrible argument they had shortly before her
death. The push-and-pull dilemma becomes twofold as the Cassandras weave
between past and present to look back at key moments they experienced with
Elaine, while some jaunts between reality and fantasy, including one thrilling
musical number in a grocery store, let the young woman’s creative energy thrive
as she finds the right words to pay tribute to her mother.
Elaine’s death prompts the Cassandras to consider their own
path. Somewhat irked by the family’s decision to have her brother Danny (Jake
Epstein) say the eulogy at the wedding even though she is the writer of the
family and the eldest child, Cassandra insists on taking the challenge in an
effort to make peace with Elaine. Cassandra looks back on her mother, who
struggled to find fulfillment after leaving her professional career as an
editor in order to raise her family. Played by Maev Beaty in a heartbreakingly
memorable performance, Elaine has a palpable hunger in the scenes that revisit
Cassandra’s childhood and watch the mother long to be able to fulfill both
roles she loves. Being a working woman or a mother shouldn’t have to be a
choice, though, and as Cassandra ages throughout the flashback scenes, Mouthpiece captures a stirring resentment
between the daughter and her mother. The younger woman sees her mother as
something of an antiquated failure, a woman who had some kids and resigned from
life, whereas Elaine clearly views herself as someone who was cheated and
robbed of her right to enjoy both roles at which she excelled.
The more time one spends in Cassandra’s head, the more one
might be inclined to side with Elaine’s interpretation of events. However, the
duality of the daughter’s struggle fully allows her to experience her mother’s
dilemma. Here’s where the ruse of Mouthpiece
comes together brilliantly: Rozema conveys how women are expected to live two
lives. They’re the mother and the professional, whereas a father’s occupation
is (traditionally) his only full time job. Women, particularly those of
Elaine’s generation, might have been expected to choose between pursuing a
career and having children, and Cassandra’s struggle with these two identities
gives her a reality check of the sacrifices her mother made.
Mouthpiece is a
risk that pays huge dividends as it fully realizes one woman’s interior life
and struggles. Rozema’s direction strikes the right balance with the source
material’s theatricality and the adaptation’s cinematic power. It’s stagy in
one scene and cinematic the next with big moments yielding their way to smaller
ones as the scope and vision of the film convey with inward/outward wrestling
match between Cassandra’s two selves as she finds inner harmony. The
performances by Nostbakken and Sadava are strong and the pair has excellent chemistry
and comedic timing as they play up the character’s duality with a spirit of
sisterhood. If there’s one fault to Mouthpiece,
it’s that Nostbakken easily gets the bigger and showier part while Sadava
makes do with Cassandra’s introspective moments; however, the bigger and better
Cassandra also challenges a viewer to look at two women and decide which might
embody one’s ideas of success and ambition. In taking viewers so intimately
inside one woman’s struggle, Mouthpiece is
one of Rozema’s best films yet.
Mouthpiece is now
playing in Toronto at TIFF Lightbox.
