I Used To Go Here | Kris Rey | August 7, 2020
As 2020 has proven, life doesn’t always go according to plan. Even if you do everything that you thought you were supposed to do, the world finds a way to humble you accordingly. This is a tough lesson that is the core theme in director Kris Rey’s new film I Used to Go Here, her follow-up to 2015’s Unexpected.
35-year-old writer Kate (Community’s Gillian Jacobs) has finally released her first novel and is excited to go on her first proper book tour. Only it has generated so little enthusiasm that her publisher has pulled the plug on her book tour. As if that wasn’t bad enough, she’s been abandoned by her fiancée while all her friends are soon-to-be moms, leaving her feeling completely abandoned and alone in every aspect of her life. So when her old college professor (Jemaine Clement) invites her to come read a passage of her novel at her old stomping grounds in Carbondale, Illinois, she finds a bit of newfound hope and a well-needed ego boost.
Rey, who also penned the screenplay, treats the film as a coming of (middle) age story, with Kate finding less in common with those her own age, and bonding with a bunch of college students at her old house, occupied by aspiring writers (played by Josh Wiggings, Forrest Goodluck and Brandon Daley) that remind her of herself way back when. She ends up spending more time with them and rediscovers herself, just as every other aspect of her life starts to slowly crumble.
While some aspects cross in that familiar indie territory, it’s propped up by the sharp and kind writing/directing from Rey and Jacobs’ charming performance. She’s so capable of toying the line between humor and drama, doing it in a way that always feels even-keeled and genuine. You can understand why she is hanging out with kids nearly half her age and why it isn’t weird at all. It’s a necessary weekend of retreat and her old college stomping grounds once again serve as a new place of self-discovery that she needed.
What’s most impressive is the way that Rey is able to bring all the supporting characters to life. While Clement’s play on the college professor spending time with his students isn’t anything new, it’s the way Rey actually paints the college kids that is a genuine triumph. So often movies just slap stereotypical traits on college kids who feel more like ideas than real people. But everyone feels like a unique individual who is written with thought and care and has something to them. That’s not to say that Rey doesn’t have some fun with them (such as the delightful Rammel Chan playing student guide Elliot), and there are some strange quirky moments, but it ends up being a part of this warm-hearted film’s charm.
The world is a weird place right now and although Rey’s film is a sobering call to being stuck at life in middle age, it also provides a bit of hope and respite, that we can better ourselves at any time, at any age, at any place. Sometimes it’s ok to go back to that familiar level of comfort in order to take that next risky leap of faith.
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