Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: THE WORLD TO COME [Sundance Film Festival 2021 - Virtual]

The aspect of forbidden romance in period drama is nothing new. But it depends if the conceit of the structure is handled in a specific way. That is why the progression of "The World To Come" [Spotlight] works very well. However in the hands of lesser actresses, it might veer too far off into melodrama. What keeps it undeniably steady is that it is not overplayed. Katherine Waterston gives her best performance yet. In "Fantastic Beasts", she is that perception of perfection based in a wrapper that most of the time cannot break. In "Inherent Vice", it was the other end of the spectrum but bathed more in mystery. Her character Abigail here in "World" takes the best part of both of those and gives it an inherent sadness and joy. She is a wife in not the frontier in the 1800s but out in the country and isolated. The film was shot in Romania (I believe as was "Cold Mountain") so there is an inherent authenticity to it. Casey Affleck plays her connected and decent husband but he is still so far away from her and her needs (and yet they try when they can). A bright light that is Tallie (in the form of "Mission Impossible" scene-stealer Vanessa Kirby) comes into Abigail's life. They are electric but it is Katherine's tendency to almost pull back and then give almost a wisp of character work that is stunning.

One crucial scene in the kitchen is so beautifully acted by both as to not have them say anything. Kirby (sporting a ginger wig) is almost unrecognizable from her slick and cunning Mission ice queen. While her performance contains a little more 21st Century knowing, Waterston bathes and suffers in the coldness of the 1800s both internally and externally. The claustrophobia and the Romanian location does so much and yet the ease of moving through them in the settings just radiates the stillness with oneself. Granted the ideal of society, reputation, duty and many other aspects bubble beneath the surface...and sometimes overtly present themselves. It in a way takes certain aspects of what "Carol" did some years ago and wraps it in a slightly different package but with a sense of existentialism thrown in. Not lost also is the inclusion of Affleck whose picture "The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford" acts as an interesting companion piece to this. Both are explorations of identity and perception. But this is Waterston's dance. And while the voiceovers are a bit prevalent, their inclusion doesn't overwhelm the necessity of her feeling and the sorrow of being that, at times, rings through both in elation and in tragedy. B+

By Tim Wassberg