FORT TILDEN (Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers). 98 min. Opens Friday (August 21). See listings. Rating: NNNN
Where to watch: iTunes
Fort Tilden starts out like every other American indie production about 20-something urbanites. Harper and Allie (Bridey Elliott, Clare McNulty) are roommates in Williamsburg who live in oblivious privilege. We meet them at a Brooklyn rooftop party where twin -sisters are doing a terrible Garfunkel and Oates act. So, yeah, those people.
After wrangling an invitation for a day trip to the beach, Harper and Allie decide to get there by bicycle – except they only have one bike between them, which leads to the first of a series of increasingly bad decisions.
Writer/directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers have cast their movie perfectly: Elliott invests Harper with a wilful cluelessness that becomes increasingly tragic, and McNulty gives Allie an open-hearted empathy that leaves her utterly unmoored in any difficult situation.
These characters aren’t just unprepared for the beach, but for adult life, which makes for a complicated, surprisingly bittersweet comedy.
See our interview with Sarah-Violet Bliss, Charles Rogers, Bridey Elliott and Clare McNulty here.
