Doron Max Hagay’s “She Keeps Me Young” is an odd bag. It’s a film billed as a comedy, but I found it contained more liminal sadness than laughs. The film, playing at this year’s Tribeca Festival, follows a middle aged woman, Michelle (“Pluribus’” Blair Beeken), trying to navigate her life four years after her fiancé mysteriously disappeared. She works at an eyeglass repair store and shows a savvy with customers that makes her easily likable. Yet her life is stultified. She spends her lunch breaks with her friend Kelly (Katy Fullan), another woman who seems unfulfilled in life. However, unlike Michelle, she is in denial of it. She’s a hygienist in her husband’s dental practice, their marriage is frustrating, and Kelly feels diminished. And yet of the two best friends, this is Michelle’s movie. To me the film commented on realities of middle age and feeling unheard with the same kind of sadness that accompanied the excellent “Another Round,” and not with the comedy I feel Doron Max Hagay intended.
The writing of “She Keeps Me Young” is well-done, especially the dialogue between its two leads. The dialogue flows naturally and inquisitively. Both Michelle and Kelly are tentative and often look to each other for permission to exist. There’s all sorts of hints that Michelle spends too much time in her head, analyzing herself and her friends with a love of psychology she thought she abandoned a long time ago. Yet a chance occurrence at a hip hop class the two go to weekly — they both, but more Kelly, have a crush on their instructor (AJ Troup) — starts to bring Michelle out of her shell. A high school senior there (a good Shay Rudolph) wants to take her photo for the ‘strength of her form.’ Timid Michelle at first shies away, but then agrees. It starts a friendship between the two that helps both — but more Michelle — let go of past hurt and move on with her life.
A Film that Comments on Middle Age ‘Stuckness’
Yet from here, “She Keeps Me Young” (a designation to describe Shay Rudolph’s ‘Bridget’ in relation to Michelle) sort of meanders into jealous territory as a) Michelle starts to bond and heal through her friendship with Bridget and b) Kelly judges it and lashes out, likely out of fear of being replaced. She will go on about Michelle needing to “focus on adult relationships” — especially the ‘hot’ Rocky (Mike “Mitch” Mitchell) who she wants to set Michelle up with. There’s also an underlining here that Michelle’s friendship with Bridget is ‘wrong.’ And while the film is not intimating pedophilia, it’s clear Kelly is leaning that way. She even asks Michelle — kind of aggressively — if she’s a lesbian. But the whole time, all I saw going on was Michelle being listened to for the first time in a long time and her supposed best friend who wanted to shut that down.
The film, written by director Hagay and his two leads, Beeken and Fullan, is full of complication. It’s good, in that we don’t get enough films like this, ones that study female midlife crises. Yet the picture seems more intent to show the ways these women are forced to stay stuck rather than progress. Kelly becomes quite toxic as she works to sabotage Michelle’s friendship with Bridget. Meanwhile Michelle’s other options — her adult friends — aren’t exactly solid themselves. Kelly clearly has a disappointing marriage where she feels minimized, another friend (Ayden Mayeri) is a recovering addict, and Rocky drinks too much, ordering a pitcher of margaritas on he and Michelle’s first date that felt odd. And the whole time, Kelly criticizes Michelle for hanging out with Bridget. But Bridget is young. She’s a kind soul who likes photography and art and is not yet cynical as are Michelle’s friends. Her friendship with Michelle encourages the latter to apply to grad school and believe in her life again. When Bridget ghosts her — mostly because of Kelly’s machinations — it crushes her. This is the second person to vanish from her life (first her fiancé). And I feel the film skipped over that pain in lieu of the fact that “Bridget is a kid.”
Wanting Us to Laugh Rather than Understand
There’s also the fact that this film didn’t feel like a comedy to me. It’s billed as a dark comedy — and some parts offer chuckles — but to me those moments were subtle. Yet many of the people in my screening room cackled at some of the film’s bits I didn’t find especially humorous, and I started to ponder if that was the point of this film: are we supposed to laugh at Michelle? I don’t think so, but others’ reaction made me wonder. Comparing once again to “Another Round,” I feel the films have much in common. Yet the former wants to comment on the sadness of its subjects who can’t feel full versions of themselves without drinking, while “She Keeps Me Young” wants to trivialize its leads’ emotions. As the film ends — with a very passive aggressive move from Kelly — I was kind of left scratching my head.
All-in-all, I enjoyed watching this film. I feel it would have worked better as a thoughtful drama, as its indie parts are its best. The dialogues and delivery are slow and introspective, and both Beeken and Fullan are great here. But at the end of the day, I feel it was a misfire. It doesn’t empathize with its characters’ pain and emotional isolation, but rather demands that they ignore their emotions and press forward with ‘adulthood.’ There was deep material present throughout “She Keeps Me Young;” but by using it as comedic fodder rather than emotional discovery, I left the film feeling sorry for these women instead of understanding them. It’s a mark you can overlook and still enjoy this picture, but at the end of the day I can’t help but think what the film could have been without it.
“She Keeps Me Young” had its world premiere at Tribeca Festival in the U.S. Narrative Competition on June 4th. It’s playing again on June 9th. Follow us for more coverage.
