After an absence of a decade a 60 year old woman who is a recovering addict returns for a family gathering for the Thanksgiving holiday. The stress of the situation leads her to return to her addictions, resulting in an even worsening scenario.
Krisha is an unrelentingly depressing viewing experience. Its central character is well played but she is a person I found basically somewhat difficult to care about very much at all. What we know is she has allowed her personal habits to take precedence in her life and she has chosen them over her family, who she has abandoned. I found it quite easy to understand why the extended family members were reluctant to embrace her fully. So from the get-go I guess I had a problem with this one, as in a serious drama such as this it helps massively if you care for the predicament of the central character, at least in some way, but I found myself ambivalent at best. During the course of the film Krisha remains an outsider within the family unit. We never know exactly what she has done in the past exactly but it would be fair to assume she has messed up pretty bad. The film is quite successful, however, in presenting the anxieties that large family gatherings can bring about even at the best of times, and it does play upon this quite universal feeling quite well. The director and cast all seem to be actual family members themselves and all sport their real first names, so it's a pretty personal affair that is for sure and it does achieve a certain claustrophobia and intensity at times. The director also experiments with differing aspect ratios and a dissonant score, both of which I can't say I cared for too much. While this film does achieve a certain realism with its raw approach, I can't say I liked it very much. It wasn't what I would classify as either entertaining or informative really. Just a downer but not in a good way.
Krisha is an unrelentingly depressing viewing experience. Its central character is well played but she is a person I found basically somewhat difficult to care about very much at all. What we know is she has allowed her personal habits to take precedence in her life and she has chosen them over her family, who she has abandoned. I found it quite easy to understand why the extended family members were reluctant to embrace her fully. So from the get-go I guess I had a problem with this one, as in a serious drama such as this it helps massively if you care for the predicament of the central character, at least in some way, but I found myself ambivalent at best. During the course of the film Krisha remains an outsider within the family unit. We never know exactly what she has done in the past exactly but it would be fair to assume she has messed up pretty bad. The film is quite successful, however, in presenting the anxieties that large family gatherings can bring about even at the best of times, and it does play upon this quite universal feeling quite well. The director and cast all seem to be actual family members themselves and all sport their real first names, so it's a pretty personal affair that is for sure and it does achieve a certain claustrophobia and intensity at times. The director also experiments with differing aspect ratios and a dissonant score, both of which I can't say I cared for too much. While this film does achieve a certain realism with its raw approach, I can't say I liked it very much. It wasn't what I would classify as either entertaining or informative really. Just a downer but not in a good way.