30 year old Cassandra’s mother has just passed away suddenly. With the funeral two days away, she has to cope with helping to make the arrangements, and is insisting that she, as the writer in the family, be the one to give the eulogy.
The framework of the story of Mouthpiece is, sadly, commonplace. Almost all of us will have to deal with the death of a parent at some time and the process, while unique to each of us, is also one that will be, to a degree, universal. The way that Mouthpiece presents this story is what marks it out from many other films that have looked at how their characters process death. The central conceit here is that Cassandra is played by two actresses (Amy Nostbakken as ‘Tall Cassandra’ and Norah Sadava as ‘Short Cassandra). It’s not always quite this simple, but generally speaking Tall Cassandra...
The framework of the story of Mouthpiece is, sadly, commonplace. Almost all of us will have to deal with the death of a parent at some time and the process, while unique to each of us, is also one that will be, to a degree, universal. The way that Mouthpiece presents this story is what marks it out from many other films that have looked at how their characters process death. The central conceit here is that Cassandra is played by two actresses (Amy Nostbakken as ‘Tall Cassandra’ and Norah Sadava as ‘Short Cassandra). It’s not always quite this simple, but generally speaking Tall Cassandra...
- 3/15/2021
- by Sam Inglis
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Two actors play the same lead in this sometimes self-indulgent but ingenious story of a woman’s identity crisis following the death of her mother
Why have one actor play your lead character when you could have two? That’s the central conceit of this distinctive Canadian indie, written by the actors in question, Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, and adapted from their stage play. They are both Cassandra, a disorganised woman in Toronto thrown into crisis by the death of her mother. Unlike movies with similar conceits – Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, for example, where two actors alternated in a role – Mouthpiece keeps both women on screen at all times. As a reflection of a fractured mental state, it’s an effective device, although the relationship is not sharply defined. Sometimes they are like best friends or sisters, in playful internal dialogue; others they are in good cop/bad cop opposition,...
Why have one actor play your lead character when you could have two? That’s the central conceit of this distinctive Canadian indie, written by the actors in question, Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, and adapted from their stage play. They are both Cassandra, a disorganised woman in Toronto thrown into crisis by the death of her mother. Unlike movies with similar conceits – Luis Buñuel’s That Obscure Object of Desire, for example, where two actors alternated in a role – Mouthpiece keeps both women on screen at all times. As a reflection of a fractured mental state, it’s an effective device, although the relationship is not sharply defined. Sometimes they are like best friends or sisters, in playful internal dialogue; others they are in good cop/bad cop opposition,...
- 3/10/2021
- by Steve Rose
- The Guardian - Film News
“Mouthpiece,” Patricia Rozema’s defiantly experimental drama, gives voice to many conflicts. Most of these are cleaved bluntly down the middle: internal dichotomies, familial divides, generational gaps, gender inequality. But it’s the singular, and universal, pain of loss that proves most shattering.
Rozema (“I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”) was inspired to adapt the award-winning play of the same name when she saw it in Toronto, and she works in striking synchrony with her collaborators, Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava. Nostbakken and Sadava, who co-wrote the play and the screenplay, also portray simultaneously co-existent versions of our protagonist, Cassandra.
Confused? The approach is indeed destabilizing at first. As they move in perfect tandem or argue with evident intimacy, we wonder if the two women are lovers, or perhaps sisters. But their duality quickly comes to feel utterly normal.
Also Read: Top 10 Highest-Grossing Music Biopics, From Tupac to Queen (Photos)
Ultimately,...
Rozema (“I’ve Heard the Mermaids Singing”) was inspired to adapt the award-winning play of the same name when she saw it in Toronto, and she works in striking synchrony with her collaborators, Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava. Nostbakken and Sadava, who co-wrote the play and the screenplay, also portray simultaneously co-existent versions of our protagonist, Cassandra.
Confused? The approach is indeed destabilizing at first. As they move in perfect tandem or argue with evident intimacy, we wonder if the two women are lovers, or perhaps sisters. But their duality quickly comes to feel utterly normal.
Also Read: Top 10 Highest-Grossing Music Biopics, From Tupac to Queen (Photos)
Ultimately,...
- 5/30/2019
- by Elizabeth Weitzman
- The Wrap
Following its world premiere at Tiff last year, the first trailer for the unique experimental film Mouthpiece has arrived for Mouthpiece, coming from director Patricia Rozema. The film delves into the conflict surrounding a young woman named Catherine (Amy Nostbakken) and her personified inner conflict, which is embodied by another woman also named Catherine (Norah Sadava). She struggles with heartache and contemplation after the death of her mother (Maev Beaty), who gave up her career to have children, a facet that dispels Catherine’s worldview as a headstrong single writer playing by her own rules.
Jared Mobarak wrote in his Tiff review, “Rozema does a great job adapting things to the needs of a cinematic medium. She keeps them close, but not always together. While they ride her bike on two seats, they can also find themselves watching the other make a fool of herself or speak a necessary truth...
Jared Mobarak wrote in his Tiff review, “Rozema does a great job adapting things to the needs of a cinematic medium. She keeps them close, but not always together. While they ride her bike on two seats, they can also find themselves watching the other make a fool of herself or speak a necessary truth...
- 5/23/2019
- by The Film Stage
- The Film Stage
Cassandra (played by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava) reminds her mother (Maev Beaty’s Elaine) that we (humans) used to only live until forty. I think we often forget this fact—subjectively rather than objectively. The disparity between my generation and my parents’ is a veritable canyon as far as notions of domesticity, parenthood, and identity as a whole. Boomers were married with two kids by the time they exited college and now it’s not unusual to wait that long just to pick a major. We don’t move as fast as we used to both because we don’t have to and perhaps because we shouldn’t. And we certainly shouldn’t believe we have just one chance to get it right. It takes years to find a single semblance of self that’s worthy of unleashing upon the world let alone the series of reinventions necessary for our very survival.
- 9/8/2018
- by Jared Mobarak
- The Film Stage
“Grief manifests itself in unexpected ways,” muses an extraordinarily understanding mortician in Patricia Rozema’s “Mouthpiece,” as a grieving client climbs into a cedar casket. But the most unexpected way grief manifests itself in the film is that the bereaved heroine is played by two actresses, Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, who aren’t entirely in sync about the best way forward.
Based on Nostbakken and Sadava’s stage play, this metaphysical two-hander about a young woman’s struggle to write a eulogy for her mother roils in guilt, resentment, sadness, and thorny notions of feminine identity. The conceit isn’t a natural for the screen, despite Rozema’s attempts to give a strong visual dimension, but it’s a thoughtful interrogation of modern womanhood, leavened by gallows humor. A warm reception in Rozema’s native Canada seems assured, but its intimate scope and semi-experimental device presents a challenge in other territories.
Based on Nostbakken and Sadava’s stage play, this metaphysical two-hander about a young woman’s struggle to write a eulogy for her mother roils in guilt, resentment, sadness, and thorny notions of feminine identity. The conceit isn’t a natural for the screen, despite Rozema’s attempts to give a strong visual dimension, but it’s a thoughtful interrogation of modern womanhood, leavened by gallows humor. A warm reception in Rozema’s native Canada seems assured, but its intimate scope and semi-experimental device presents a challenge in other territories.
- 9/7/2018
- by Scott Tobias
- Variety Film + TV
The Special Presentations section of Tiff is always a highlight, featuring a wide range of films from established directors, and this year looks to be no exception. The section will open with veteran Canadian director Patricia Rozema's Mouthpiece, adapted from the award-winning two-woman play by Amy Nostbakken and Norah Sadava, about an aspiring writer attempting to reconcile her feminism with the conformist choices of her mother following her mother's sudden death. It will close with Shoplifters, the Palme d'Or winner, which follows a small band of marginalized misfits struggling to make ends meet in a merciless urban environment. Highlights include Barry Jenkins' If Beale Street Could Talk, adapted from the novel by James Baldwin, about a woman trying to get her husband our of prison;...
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- 7/25/2018
- Screen Anarchy
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