Movies you might have missed: Blue Jay

Sarah Paulson is finally getting the recognition she deserves. After small roles on television in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the actress has become something of a household name in recent years thanks to appearances in American Horror Story (playing different characters in each of the show’s seven seasons) and as Marcia Clark in The People v. O. J. Simpson, a role for which she deservedly won an Emmy and a Golden Globe.

While she’s yet to make the transition to bona fide movie star, Blue Jay (2016, available of Netflix) is an impressive addition to Paulson’s body of work.

In an era in which independent filmmakers are increasingly struggling to get their voices heard, Mark Duplass makes low budget films with complete autonomy. Blue Jay was financed by Netflix before the company had even seen a script and, indeed, much of the dialogue was improvised.

Shot in just a few locations in and around the tiny town of Blue Jay in California over a period of just seven days, the cast used an outline of ten pages as the basis for their work. Alex Lehmann, directing his first fiction feature, was the ideal choice according to Duplass since “first-time directors over-prepare, are super eager and there’s very little ego”.

Duplass plays Jim Henderson, a man returning to his hometown with the intention of selling his late mother’s property. He runs into his girlfriend from high school, Amanda (Paulson) and the pair begin to reminisce about old times. As the hours pass, the intimacy of their adolescence returns, secrets are revealed and tears are shed. The film is the antithesis of the big blockbuster with its focus on a small, human story and the emotions of those involved. Better still, it clocks in at just 80 minutes.

Lehmann, a cinematographer who also served as the film’s director of photography, opted to shoot in black and white and the result is a timeless feel. When Amanda discovers a letter Jim intended to send her in their teens, the tone becomes genuinely suspenseful and the revelations fly thick and fast.

To say too much about the plot would spoil things but this is a film full of heart that evokes the best work of Mike Leigh. Duplass, as writer, is obviously close to the material but Paulson is a revelation in the kind of role she’s allowed to play all too rarely.