Thornton Wilder’s meta-play Our Town, a staple of high school productions and English-class readings, has been used countless times onscreen—from its own adaptations to a memorable episode of The Wonder Years—as an entry point for talking about life on an earth that, as protagonist Emily Webb famously says, is “too wonderful for anybody to realize it.” Directed by Kate Aselton, written by her husband Mark Duplass, and starring their daughter Ora Duplass as Abby (who is playing Emily Webb in an upcoming high school production in Bangor, ME), Their Town is a smart, tender, beautifully acted, and somber look at life in a small city.
Abby is on the outs with her boyfriend, Tyler (William Atticus Parker), who has one foot out the door of high school. While they are technically still together, Tyler dropping out of the play they’re co-starring in is a sign he’s already thinking about college. Seemingly at random, director Mr. Elliot (Jeffrey Self) picks Matt (Chosen Jacobs), a shy scenic painter, to be the new lead when no one else comes forward. It is a moment that feels a little out of place with the rest of the material, but perhaps theater teachers are always the oddballs in any strait-laced community.
Leaving to go run lines, they arrive at Abby’s home and find her single mother, Janet (Kim Shaw), with Tyler. Janet, emotionally jaded by bad decisions and a limited dating pool, tries to steer Abby toward doing whatever she needs to keep Tyler from wanting to see other people when he takes off for college. Poor Matt is forced to listen to this before they head to his house. He lives alone in a large home owned by his father, Anthony (Daveed Diggs), whose marriage fell apart after he came out; Anthony now lives in Japan with his new partner, Wei (Leonard Nam), and video chats with his son daily. At Matt’s home, we learn he and Abby were once pre-K classmates with a funny history. As they reminisce over an old yearbook, we learn why Matt left and came back to Bangor years later, and why the fact that they were in the same class together didn’t initially click for either of them.
With notes of Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy, Their Town takes place largely over the course of a day and night as they prepare for their first rehearsal. Eventually they jump a fence and revisit their old pre-K as Abby and Matt commit to the adventure of getting to know each other’s strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and sense of humor.
As with Linklater’s trilogy, a big part of why this film succeeds is the chemistry between its two leads. Ora Duplass—growing up in a family known for making small, intimate, raw movies as pioneers of “mumblecore”—and Chosen Jacobs are brilliant together. Duplass’ script flows naturally rather than shoehorning artificial plot points to dial up the emotion, as so many YA shows and movies tend to do. This isn’t to say there are low stakes; the film is quite candid about the realities of depression, self-harm, imperfect parenting, and the pressures of young adulthood, letting its actors do the heavy lifting and earning its ambitious final scene. Most of the notes land perfectly as Aselton and her small crew work in a style similar to the mumblecore ethos, allowing performers the space to be vulnerable and authentic. Their Town also recalls Kelly O’Sullivan and Alex Thompson’s brilliant Ghostlight, another work made by a family of actors about the creative process while processing trauma and grief. Here, as Abby and Matt get to know each other, they navigate the feeling that the world is ending; with hindsight, they will realize those are the moments that build character.
Their Town premiered at SXSW.