Directors: Kelly O’Sullivan, Alex Thompson
Writer: Kelly O’Sullivan
Stars: Sophie Okonedo, Katherine Mallen Kupferer, Tara Mallen
Synopsis: In 2002, best friends Minnie and Callie’s relationship is upended on the eve of their senior year.
There are inseparable friendships where it feels like only the two of you exist. Then there are inseparable friendships where the hierarchy is obvious, that even though the two friends have this private world, their public one is strained by others. One is outgoing and personable and the other is quiet and unassuming. It could put a strain on the friendship and eventually break it, but Mouse seeks to answer the question of what happens when the friendship breaks through no fault of either party.
Mouse‘s inciting incident feels like a release valve for its characters. The air that used to keep them aloft, friendship and parenthood, is going out and making them sink into an untethered loneliness. Yet, the pressure the air created by needing to be felt and known is also released and it can feel good to let that go and to be unburdened by what may have felt like an obligation at times. It’s these two states of deflation that can coexist and coalesce into something unique and beautiful.
Writer Kelly O’Sullivan is a master at this weave of contradictory, yet complimentary emotions. There is such an empathetic competence in her writing that brings the roiling complexity of people to the surface. She doesn’t have characters that can be defined singularly, but who change and morph as they’re willing to show us more of themselves and as new circumstances arise. O’Sullivan builds layers into her story that create these sudden lightbulbs in us as we go along. It’s this translation of these complex ideas into a visual representation that makes the film so engrossing.
Co-directors O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson have a style that can only be described as intimate. This isn’t to say that they are always within extreme close up, but they always seem to capture something that feels like a character’s most personal moments. They find places where it feels like we weren’t ever meant to see this part of the character’s reality.
There’s a scene in the film as Mr. Murdaugh (David Hyde Pierce) calls his theater students up to do some warm ups and emotional exercises. It’s as he calls his students to act as they see themselves in public that we see Minnie (Katherine Mallen Kupferer) shrink into herself as her classmates make loud movements. He then asks them to represent themselves in private and as the rest of the class shrinks into themselves, Minnie does a motion where she reaches for the ceiling and her arms are wide apart. It’s in this moment as we are focused on Minnie that we suddenly see Mr. Murdaugh in the background. He’s not cut to, the shot is wide, but we can clearly see his face as he sees Minnie. His voice catches a moment and he regards what he’s seeing and has this recognition of Minnie’s personhood like he’s never seen her before. There are so many of these tiny intimate movements within the film that give it a heft.
The film’s connectivity and emotion is also in the editing by Mike S. Smith. Working with his directors, Smith has crafted fabulous scenes of big emotions. One of the best sequences is a juxtaposition of Minnie helping her mother, Barbara (Tara Mallen), at the veterinary clinic where Barbara works as she has to administer euthanasia that is intercut with Helen (Sophie Okonedo) attending a grief group for parents who have lost a child. These scenes are confronting the pain and loss these two women are holding in themselves and giving it a new form. They’re seeing loss from the outside for the first time and taking on another’s grief with their own, which makes each one draw a different conclusion about how things need to progress from then on.
The filmmaking and the writing are beautiful, but without the performances, this film wouldn’t have the impact it does. Sophie Okonedo has a tight grasp on the conflicting emotions of Helen. She understands Helen’s despair and her hope as well as her anger. She captures a passion and rawness that exceeds mere performance. Her equal in this is Katherine Mallen Kupferer as Minnie. Kupferer is able to make the introvert finally acting out as enthralling as it could ever be. She finds within Minnie that complicated mix of shyness with confidence that every introvert has inside of them. She’s so funny and bold and a great presence on screen.
Mouse deals with grief, but it’s also a funny film about how after death there will always be people who claim us and knowledge of us, but who only ever knew a small part of who we were. It’s a film that defies categorization and ascends into that pantheon of great humanist filmmaking. It’s a film that will wash a warmth over you as it mends the broken heart you didn’t even know you had.
