Austin Film Festival: American Fork

in

On Thursday the 2007 edition of the Austin Film Festival takes over the Driskill Hotel, the Paramount Theatre, and various other venues around town. Even if you're the kind of cinephile who balks at downtown parking or just driving in general, there's no excuse for missing the screenings near you. Whether you find yourself the converted ballroom upstairs at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel, the Regal Arbor, or the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek, there are great films to be seen. Here's the first installment of a few AFF previews coming your way at Slackerwood.

American Fork

American ForkOnly in independent film could a picture like American Fork get made. What studio executive in his right mind would greenlight a movie that plays a three-hundred pound protagonist for his sensitivity instead of broad laughs? A handful of indie favorites (Bruce McGill, Kahtleen Quinlan) and unlikely character players (including the unexpectedly wonderful William Baldwin, who also shows up at AFF 2007 in A Plumm Summer) populate a strong story supported by deft cinematography and a lively score.

If American Fork feels like a kinder, gentler Napoleon Dynamite, there's a reason -- they share a number of crew members, including producer/editor Jeremy Coon. The two films also share a certain quirkiness and a sense of tragic comedy, but I think American Fork may lose some Napoleon Dynamite fans for its refusal to camp things up. It will certainly win admirers for its sympathetic presentation of its main character, Tracy Orbison (Hubbel Palmer, who also wrote the screenplay) and on the whole I think American Fork is a better movie.

But while Fork offers a more complete story and a set of wholly believeable characters, it won't gain a cult status quite like Dynamite's. A lot of the fun in Napoleon Dynamite comes from its extreme turns between the cruel and carefree. Fork walks a more moderate road. The picture wallows in the mundane to great effect and occasionally delivers a heartbreaking bit of dialogue, but keeps its feet stubbornly on the ground where other films might veer off into fantasy.

The comparison to the earlier film is easy and natural, but a bit unfair: American Fork has more serious things to say, greater depths to plumb. It stands tall -- and wide -- on its own. American Fork is an easy festival favorite.

American Fork plays Saturday afternoon at the Alamo Drafthouse Lake Creek and Monday evening at the Bob Bullock History Museum.