Cannes 2009 Day 4: Go Get Some Rosemary reminds us We Don’t Get to Chose Our Parents

Such as Josh Safdie’s previous effort The Pleasure of Being Robbed, Go Get Some Rosemary is easy to get into and hard to follow. It may be easy to brush off the film for its lack of aestheticism (they have a style on their own and I’ve incorrectly labeled them in the past as part of the mumblecore movment), but it’s easy to get into because of the magnetic pull of the intriguing lead character (brought to life by director, projectionist and apparently now, actor Ronnie Bronstein) and the microscopic treatment of the details: the strong suit and the Safdie Bros. and their calling card.

Told from the point of view of the father who is overwhelmed by life, he has used everyone of his last favors and “get out of jail free cards” to the point that his judgment is impaired. Structurally, the story is fueled by one crisis after another, but it is not as if the narrative takes cheap shots at the main character (like a typical comedy would do), it does however make a point out of saying how crummy it can be for kids sometimes when parents don’t have the care-taking faculties somehow engrained from the start. The film rolls in the Director’s Fortnight, one year to the week that they preemed their feature length and short films respectively in the same section. What happened in a year was that a French producer came on board, Josh asked a former Sonic Youth member to lend his kids. Full review coming soon. Here are some pics from the press conference following the morning screening.