The best movie I’ve seen at the festival so far is Matthew Porterfield’s I USED TO BE DARKER. Though more conventionally structured than PUTTY HILL, the writer-director’s improv-driven previous effort, this quietly devastating family drama feels like a major step forward. The story is bare-bones simple: Fleeing her job and boyfriend in Ocean City, Maryland, a […]

A movie of careful entrances and exits: Matt Porterfield’s I USED TO BE DARKER chronicles the dissolution of a marriage through the eyes of a runaway cousin who drops in unannounced. This outsider presence, catching only fragmented snatches of the overcharged emotions engulfing the family, allows the film ample room to distance One might think loved […]