The Sweet East: messy, luminous, unhealthy and irreverent (review)

ByLeila March 12, 2024March 12, 2024

America's fractures seen through the eyes of a runaway high school student. A story of baroque emancipation where young Talia Ryder sparks.

Lilian is bored between her life as a high school student and her blond friend, with whom she sleeps without conviction. Taking advantage of a school trip to Washington, she escapes from this busy daily life by passing through a mirror hidden in the toilets of a pizzeria. The Sweet East immediately assumes itself as a deranged fairy tale, a variation aroundAlice in Wonderland where the manure pit would replace the white rabbit's hole. Along the way, Lilian will invent new lives by exploring the United States through its sewers (the siphoned and armed conspirators, the neo-Nazis with pedophile tendencies, the Islamist kidnappers, etc.), rarely suffering what happens to her and escaping pretty much whenever she wants. Sean Price Williams, former cinematographer of the Safdie brothers (Good Time) and Alex Ross Perry (Her Smell), consider this coming of age story bizarre as a way of examining everything that is wrong in his country, distributing the blows equally. Exhausting, cynical, uncomfortable, messy, unhealthy, luminous, irreverent… We could list on a hundred lines the adjectives that best describe The Sweet East, an object so “indie” that it almost becomes parodic at times. Yet the film survives all its breaks in tone, thanks to fierce black humor and the incredible performance of its heroine: Talia Ryder hypnotizes the camera with the sole force of a few pouts and her gray-blue eyes. Already the revelation of the year.

By Sean Price Williams With Talia Ryder, Simon Rex, Earl Cave… Duration 1h44. Released March 13, 2024

Leila

Leila is the editor-in-chief at DTmovies, leading the charge with her team to deliver engaging cinema and series content. With a keen eye for emerging trends and a passion for the stories behind the screen, she is the creative backbone that drives the site’s editorial excellence. Her expertise and dedication have established DTmovies as a go-to source for film and series enthusiasts.