I AM A GOOD PERSON/I AM A BAD PERSON (Ingrid Veninger). 82 minutes. Opens Friday (June 15). For venues and times, see Movies Rating: NNNN
Shoestring writer/director/producer Ingrid Veninger once again does a lot with a little, casting herself as Ruby White, a Toronto filmmaker who takes her new movie to festivals in England and Germany, bringing her teenage daughter Sara (Hallie Switzer, Veninger’s actual daughter) along as her assistant.
But each woman is dealing with her own issues, and when Sara forsakes Berlin for a solo jaunt to Paris, they find themselves emotionally adrift. Ruby struggles to validate herself as an artist at Q&A sessions, winding up in a spiral of insecurity that lands her in public parks wearing a sandwich board, trying to drum up interest in her movie.
Veninger’s trademark emotional minimalism is balanced by a streak of self-aware wit, mostly directed at her own character. (There aren’t many filmmakers who’d introduce their screen selves the way Veninger does here.)
After the coming-of-age dramas Only and Modra, i am a good person/i am a bad person demonstrates considerable range the issues are different, and the tone considerably lighter. But the characters are still dealing with unexpected transformations, which is clearly what drew Veninger to them in the first place.
