Butler's Cinema Scene

Jessica Barr

“SOPHIE JONES” My rating: B+ (In select theaters and on VOD)

85 minutes | No MPAA rating

Asked how she’s dealing with the recent death of her mother, 16-year-old Sophie Jones has a canned response.

“I haven’t been cutting myself,” she reports matter-of-factly. “Or drinking. Or taking drugs.”

Which doesn’t mean that she’s dealing well with the trauma.

Sophie has met a devastating family tragedy with ironic detachment. Rather than weeping or moping she she embraces snarky humor and a mockingly defiant attitude. Hanging out with the other theater kids at school, she appears unchanged and unruffled.

Yes, she has embarked on a course of sexual experimentation, though she retains her virginity. “We’re only dry humping,” she assures her best friend.

“Sophie Jones” is a study of grief, but its approach is so tangential and minimalist that the film is almost totally lacking in big dramatic moments. This, interestingly enough,  is its great strength.

We learn about Sophie and her interior world through the accumulation of small details over many months; our girl almost never talks about her feelings, but her actions speak volumes.

This is the first feature from director Jessie Barr (she penned the screenplay with her cousin Jessica Barr, who plays Sophie), and  with its quiet wisdom and backhanded narrative approach the movie is a revelation. We’re told that the film was inspired by the Barrs’ own family tragedy…maybe that’s why it all feels so authentic.

There’s no plot to speak of, just a series of episodes as Sophie makes her way toward graduation and college.  But there are moments here so beautiful (and shocking) that the viewer is pulled up short.

Skyler Verity, Jessica Barr

“Sophie Jones” is a coming-of-age film,  but even when it deals in overworked  subject matter it finds its own distinctive voice.

Take the cliche of Sophie finally losing her virginity to fellow drama geek Kevin (Skyler Verity). He is remarkably cautious and respectful (at least for a teenage boy) and senses the disturbing currents of angst roiling beneath Sophie’s insistent — almost desperate — demands for sex.

The act itself is a hugely uncomfortable letdown. “This is...sex?” a disappointed Sophie mutters. “This is it?”

Some of the finest moments here are dialogue-free.

In the middle of the night Sophie crawls into the bed of her younger sibling (Charlotte Jackson), who is as emotionally open as Sophie is closed down. The intrusion is accepted without a word; they’re sisters in suffering, after all.

Sophie discovers a cache of her late mother’s prescription medications, soberly reading all the labels before flushing everything down the toilet. In another gut-twisting moment she quietly sniffs her mother’s sweater, still hanging in a closet.

Her dad (Dave Roberts) is a decent guy who tries to make life normal for his two daughters…though that means spending most of his time in the kitchen rather than talking about their shared loss. Sophie is offended when he announces he’s ready to start dating.

Among her peers Sophie is starting to get a reputation for, well, sluttiness. She bristles: “I don’t care what people think about me.”

The film has been performed with a disarming naturalism that defies the usual conventions of teen melodrama. The results are both sad and inspiring.

And Jessie Barr establishes herself as a filmmaker to watch.

| Robert W. Butler