by Jon Partridge
American Fable manages to achieve that rare feat of cinema, being both familiar and unique. Echos of Spielberg, Malick, and del Toro are woven into a distinct coming of age tale. A rustic thriller combined with fantastical elements out of a classic children’s fable showcases the talents of first time writer/director Anne Hamilton and her wonderful young star Peyton Kennedy.
Set during the farming crisis of the eighties, the film unfolds from the perspective of 11 year old Gitty (Peyton Kennedy) who, while on one of her many adventures in rural Wisconsin, finds an elderly businessman named Jonathan (Richard Schiff) being held hostage in an old grain silo. She comes to befriend old man while promising to keep secret that she knows of his existence. As their bond strengthens, she becomes more aware of the kidnapping plot, orchestrated by a mysterious woman named Vera (Zuleikha Robinson) who has enlisted the help of Gitty’s father Abe (Kip Pardue) and older brother Martin (Gavin MacIntosh), forced to help due to the looming foreclosure on their property. Gitty soon finds herself faced with the choice of helping a stranger or staying loyal to her family and ensuring their future.
At its heart, American Fable is a tale about a girl on the cusp of womanhood, looking to become more knowledgeable of the world around her and understand life beyond the boundaries of her farm. Jonathan provides the perfect window into this larger world. This, coupled to the moral questions concerning his imprisonment by her father and his looming fate, puts Gitty into the perfect quandary. As things unravel through her eyes we get a unique perspective on what would in lesser hands be a more derivative film. But here Hamilton patiently builds the plot and our investment in this young girl and her family while working in a fantastical quality to craft a unique cinematic vision.
What inspired the piece and sets things in motion is the collapse of the American farming industry in the ’80s. Soaring interest rates and plummeting property values led to foreclosures, and in the worst cases people took their own lives. This darkness tinges the periphery of Gitty’s world; she doesn’t entirely understand it but senses its threat. The juxtaposition of the financiers and the farmers plays out in a personal manner, desperate times driving Abe to accept this “job” as a way to save his family. Subtle social undertones are injected, the devastation driven home by a series of funerals, estate sales, or Gilly overhearing a phone call between her father and bank manager. This lush, vivid film brushes with melancholy and decay sufficiently to imbue it with a sadness but not be overwhelmed by it. A mythological component is more fleetingly used than deftly worked throughout the narrative, but serves to underscore the inner-workings of a child’s mind while adding to the visual flourish of the film.
Peyton Kennedy puts in the performance of the festival, strong, smart and tempered with a genuine childhood naivety. These facets are used to push the other characters and draw details out of them. You’d be hard pressed to name many actors who could go one on one with Richard Schiff and emerge with with such credibility, let alone one this young. The bond with her father (Pardue) is equally well formed, and Marci Miller puts in a understated turn as Sarah, a mother picking up after her family, literally in many cases. Her performance serves as a pulse for the mood of the entire unit. Gavin MacIntosh comes across as spiteful and brutish with an arc that escalates a little too rapidly. But when you view such a boy through the eyes of a younger sister, it’s somewhat fitting for the piece. One curiosity is the Fargo-esque Ethel (Rusty Schwimmer) who, while lending the film an endearing element, only seems present to provide a transformative moment for another character.
American Fable is composed of a string of imagery that any director would be proud to have within their film. Hamilton, with cinematographer Wyatt Garfield, presents a vibrant slice of Americana, rustic and earthy, tinged at times with a vivid, ethereal quality. Imagine the fields you played in as a child, or ramshackle buildings you explored, inspiring equal parts awe and fear, distilled onto the screen, compounded by an evocative score from Gingger Shankar. Be it a tangible warmth stemming from a bedtime story, the wonder of a nighttime walk through a field where fireflies dance, or a family dinner that turns into a Lynchian nightmare. Perhaps the only thing more impressive that what’s in American Fable is what Hamilton chose to leave out, namely parts of the narrative or clarification of motives or plot. This is fitting for the child’s view of this escalating mess in an adult’s world. Gaps are filled in through Gilly’s imagination or left for the audience themselves to ponder, most notably a wonderfully ambiguous final shot, ensuring this enthralling debut is one that lingers in the mind.
