The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		5.0
Overall		4.0

The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Brian Orndorf June 28, 2024

A longtime cinematographer, Sean Price Williams is best known for his work with Alex Ross Perry, favoring unsteady imagery for indie offerings about emotional breakdowns. He takes on a greater professional challenge with “The Sweet East,” accepting directorial duties on the endeavor, working with screenwriter Nick Pinkerton on a picaresque concerning a teenage girl and her quest to escape her everyday life, heading through a series of misadventures with potentially predatory people. “The Sweet East” is a free-flowing viewing experience suited to Williams’s artistic interests, and he brings a loose energy to the effort, which attempts to swing through various moods with humor and oddity. It’s not a particularly satisfying picture, but it does have appealing moments of strangeness to keep it interesting.

Lillian (Talia Ryder) is a teenager on a class trip to Washington, D.C., and she’s become bored with the whole thing. While dining at a pizza restaurant, Lillian uses a moment of violence to escape with Caleb (Earl Cave), a punk activist squatting in a filthy Baltimore apartment building. When anarchy at a local nature preserve doesn’t go as planned, Lillian finds her way to Lawrence (Simon Rex), a schoolteacher and Neo Nazi who offers the young woman shelter inside his New Jersey apartment. They develop an undefined relationship, with the “well-wisher” soon gifted a red bag by a group member, sent to the city to complete a mission. Lillian takes the opportunity to run away from Lawrence, soon meeting moviemakers Molly (Ayo Edebiri) and Matthew (Jeremy O. Harris) on the street, and they love her look. Pushed to audition, Lillian is turned into an actress, joining star Ian (Jacob Elordi) on a period production, with the pair making headlines as a couple. Trouble finds Lillian once again, and crew member Mohammad (Rish Shah) is ready to protect the celebrity, hiding her in a cabin on the grounds of an Islamic camp run by his brother, Ahmed (Mazin Akar).

Lillian is not someone who fears the unknown. She goes on a journey in “The Sweet East,” initially to escape the mundane details of her life, including a trip to Washington, D.C. where she’s surrounded by classmates she doesn’t like. Her break from the system is provided by a conspiracy theorist hunting for sexually exploited kids in the basement of a pizzeria, using the chaos of the moment to escape with Caleb, who doesn’t think twice about taking the teenager to Baltimore, accepting her as a new recruit for a poorly managed uprising. Pinkerton creates vivid characters in “The Sweet East,” and the film’s first half generates momentum as Lillian falls into weird situations with strangers, with the picture locating as much dramatic stability as it will ever find with Lawrence.

A teacher loving any shot to share his knowledge, even to those who don’t want it, Lawrence is looking to disrupt American order with his fellow Nazis, but he’s also taken by Lillian, who pops up during a meeting in the middle of a nature preserve. She’s looking for something to eat, and he’s offering a sense of guardianship, bringing her home to New Jersey, where they live together for a short amount of time. “The Sweet East” toys with the uncomfortable atmosphere of this paring, as Lawrence is trying to pull back on his lust for Lillian, and she explores her power, using sexuality to motivate the middle-aged man. Manipulations begin to form in Pinkerton’s screenplay, and Williams enjoys exploring the charged relationship, which eventually takes the pair to NYC for something horrible involving the contents of a red bag delivered by a skinhead.

“The Sweet East” changes its direction again, this time into moviemaking, as Lillian is “discovered” by directors desperate to possess her screen presence and beauty. Williams plays around with the humor of this experience, and he also begins to lose control of the endeavor, which wanders off into the ways of celebrity relationships and media attention, and ends in a massive shootout on the set, which merges ugly violence with silly visuals. Chaos enters the picture, and Pinkerton starts to run out of gas with the arrival of Mohammed, who also desires Lillian, bringing her to a place where women aren’t allowed. It’s a stretch of cabin imprisonment for the teenager, and “The Sweet East” loses contact with its initial inspiration, ultimately leading to a disappointingly anticlimactic conclusion. Such loss of enthusiasm is actually quite surprising, as the film opens with a seemingly endless appetite for mischief and oddity.

The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The AVC encoded image (1.78:1 aspect ratio) presentation handles the softer cinematography of "The Sweet East" well. Colors maintain authority, preserving glowing primaries and natural skin tones. Costuming brings out bolder hues, and greenery is distinct. Detail goes as far as possible, exploring skin particulars on the varied ages of the cast. Various interiors retain dimension and a look at decorative additions. Exteriors secure depth with urban and rural tours. Delineation is satisfactory. Grain is heavy and film-like. Source is in good condition.

The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA is a largely frontal listening event. Dialogue exchanges are crisp, securing performance choices. Scoring delivers clear instrumentation, and the musical number provide defined vocals. Surrounds offer some appreciation for scoring and atmospherics, delivering occasional immersion with crowd activity and dramatic emphasis. Low-end isn't challenged, but provides some heavier electropop beats.

The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Booklet (18 pages) offers an essay by film programmer Eric Allen Hatch.

• Commentary features director Sean Price Williams, writer Nick Pinkerton, and editor Stephen Guirewitz.

• Production Diary (70:06, HD) is a fly-on-the-wall overview of "The Sweet East" shoot. It's comprehensive and insightful, capturing on-set camaraderie and professionalism, and it follows the journey from the making of the movie to its premiere at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

• Q&A (22:40,HD) was recorded at the 2023 New York Film Festival, featuring director Sean Price Williams, writer Nick Pinkerton, and actors Simon Rex, Jeremy O. Harris, Rish Shah, Earl Cave, and Talia Ryder.

• Image Gallery #1 (3:48) collects photos from the New York Film Festival premiere of "The Sweet East."

• Image Gallery #2 (1:23) collects photos from the Cannes Film Festival premiere.

• And a Theatrical Trailer (1:42, HD) is included.

The Sweet East Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

"The Sweet East" isn't an epic, with Williams keeping things intimate, maintaining attention on Lillian as she takes in male behavior, delivering her own faux sense of worldliness while aiming to move away from the life she once lived. There are ideas in Pinkerton's script the helmer clearly struggles to realize, including Mohammad's subplot, but Williams works to generate a real odyssey for Lillian as she bounces around the area, getting into bizarre situations, and a few potentially dangerous ones. There's some dark humor and shock value in the feature, and characters certainly get their fill of cigarettes and vaping, with smoking an unofficial co-lead of the movie. "The Sweet East" doesn't find a way out of its maze with gracefulness, but the effort is appropriately handled by the cast, who commit to Pinkerton's heightened characterizations, and Williams delivers grainy visual dreaminess to best support this specific viewing experience.