Michelle Pfeiffer’s latest is a tale that’s both tragic and timeless.
Where is Kyra? had such huge prospects upon it’s premiere at Sundance in January 2017. The film came from one of the indie world’s most acclaimed directors (Andrew Dosunmu), starred three-time Oscar nominee Michelle Pfeiffer, who at the time was on the precipice of a career resurgence, and had a plot that documented the ever-present plight of the disenfranchised in America. Where is Kyra? seemed like the kind of art-house property many well-known indie studios would have been chomping at the bit to add to their slates. Still, even after a number of other festival appearances, the film lay dormant before being picked up by Paladin. It’s a telling reaction from the studios who passed on Where is Kyra? and shows that just like the people in the film who encounter her, Kyra also remains invisible to movie execs in the real world. Admittedly, with a sometimes jarring score and a lack of dialogue, Where is Kyra? isn’t the easiest of sells. Still, Kyra’s story is one which deserves to be told; and told in just this way.
In Where is Kyra?, Pfeiffer stars as the titular character; a middle-aged divorcee who has moved back into her elderly mother’s (Suzanne Shepherd) Brooklyn apartment. Still jobless after being downsized two years prior, Kyra spends her days pounding the pavement looking for new employment, but finds herself being constantly dismissed because of her age. Once her mother dies, Kyra has little time to grieve as the bills keep mounting and the threat of becoming homeless looks like it will soon turn into a reality. Even a blossoming relationship with her neighbor Doug (Kiefer Sutherland) can’t stop the impending doom Kyra is facing. However when a mistake on her mother’s death certificate means the disability and pension checks keep coming, Kyra embarks on a dangerous scheme to keep herself from going under.
From a technical standpoint, Where is Kyra? could well go down as one of the most stunning films of the year. Bradford Young’s cinematography, rich in dark earth tones with slight flashes of brightness, creates a New York both sumptuous and desolate. Even as Kyra’s fears and worries mount, one can’t help but be taken by the way she is lit; almost as if she’s in a moving Renoir painting with every single frame a work of art in its own right. Dosunmu’s photography background is a plus here as his eye for striking composition results in a variety of far-off angles and overhead close-ups, giving an intimacy rarely felt on film. This is so incredibly in tune with the movie’s production design which transports audiences to a Brooklyn devoid of hipsters and spilling over with the sort of people wanting nothing other than to just get by. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the apartment Kyra shares with her mother, which exists as a sort of time-warp, keeping the pair captive by way of the past. Adding to it all is the free-flowing narrative that comprises Where is Kyra?, which takes its cues from the kind of stirring, cerebral character studies popular in the 1970s. Even the film’s score; loud, alarming and frankly unpleasant as can be, is instrumental in showing the sort of internal screaming and yelling the mostly silent Kyra is experiencing inside her head.
Where is Kyra? may also be one of the most thoughtful and telling exercises in cinematic desperation to come along in some time. Dosunmu and co-writer Darci Picoult do a good job at showing just how easy it is to spiral down the social ladder and the lengths some will go to in order to rise even just a little bit higher. In Kyra, the audience may perhaps see themselves. The character is someone who felt life was where it was meant to be, yet still managed to fall through the cracks. Showing Kyra relentlessly trying to pick herself back up only to be shunned at every turn by a society who has little use for her, cannot help but resonate on some level with the majority of individuals, regardless of who they are or the kind of life they have. The film proves its points best in two key instances. The first is the shot of an old woman with a walking stick shuffling throughout the city streets. It’s an image which pops up time and again throughout Where is Kyra?; haunting the film and reminding us that figures like her are all around us, whether we want to realize it or not. The second shows a harried Kyra changing in a bathroom stall as someone knocks on the door to see if it’s occupied, to which Kyra responds: “I’m in here.” When the knocking continues, Kyra herself bangs on her side of the door and yells once more: “I’m in here!,” showing that she’s still there fighting to exist and stay alive in a ruthless society. What happens to these people? How can they get up and stay up? Where is Kyra? doesn’t have an answer for this, because to put it simply, there isn’t one.
Following the film’s premiere at Sundance, Dosunmu stated that when it came to casting, he could easily have gone down the “Tilda Swinton route,” but that casting an actress with such a movie star shine like Pfeiffer’s could only make Where is Kyra? all the more powerful. Indeed, it’s emotionally painful at times to watch the ever-gorgeous icon of Scarface, Batman Returns and Hairspray inhabit this dark and broken soul. It’s a pain that’s only heightened by Pfeiffer’s remarkable work. The actress hones in on Kyra’s fears of being swallowed up by the coldness of the outside world and the maddening frustration of trying to fight against it. Pfeiffer’s greatest asset has always been her knack for physicality and the way she lets a character inhabit her soul so thoroughly, that she cannot help but be overtaken by them. With its minimal dialogue, Where is Kyra? is the greatest testament to that aspect of her craft. When moments do come which force the weary, on-edge Kyra to speak, she unleashes a plethora of anxiety and anger that brings forth yet another side of Pfeiffer’s considerable talent. Sutherland, meanwhile, gives the kind of performance which is the definition of vanity-free. Stripped away and as natural as can be, the actor gives a great many layers to Doug, showing him as a man who has fought tooth and nail get away from his own despair and is now looking for some possible brightness in the world.
There are many different ways to interpret the title of the film. One can be in the form of an imagined conversation between two friends wondering whatever happened to the Kyra they knew from years before, while another notion suggests that the title describes the fragility of our heroine’s mental state and how even though she may be in front of you physically, emotionally she’s far away. Yet it’s the film’s final scene, which sees Pfeiffer’s face shrouded by the bright lights of the city to the degree where one must literally squint to make out her features, when the title really begins hits home. Where is Kyra? Who knows? The city made her disappear. To the dismay of some, the end to the film is suspenseful on both a practical and emotional level, yet eventually leads to a lack of resolution. This is incredibly fitting since individuals in Kyra’s position rarely find resolution after unwillingly becoming part of the disenfranchised. There are no easy solutions to problems like Kyra’s and although the movie can rightfully be called a “beautiful downer,” it nonetheless shows that anyone can become lost, discarded and forgotten; even someone who looks like Michelle Pfeiffer.
