FORT TILDEN (review)

Review by Elizabeth Weitz

In Fort Tilden two Brooklyn hipster twenty-somethings, Allie and Harper (Clare McNulty and Bridey Elliott) go on a quasi-road trip (via bikes and cabs) to the beach where they hope to embark on a Molly-fueled fuck fest with two guys they met at a party the night before.

Like most movies in which the characters go on a quest, the girls are plagued by various WTF issues (including almost running down an infant in a stroller, watching one of their bikes get stolen and putting kittens in a garbage can “to protect them”) while passive-aggressively dealing with the fact that their friendship is breaking apart due to Allie leaving for the Peace Corps.

While the premise is a good mash-up between Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion and a Noah Baumbach/Neil LaBute film, there is a certain likability issue with the characters that is hard to accept at times.

Both Allie and Harper are horrible solipsistic Millennials who are incapable of living outside their Williamsburg neighborhood.

Their insular lives (which are protected by this artisanal enclave) has caused a certain blurriness when it comes to empathy and understanding of human nature, making it almost impossible for them to navigate the crossroads of change which naturally occurs when people start to grow up.

The only saving grace of these characters lie in the performances of McNulty and Elliot, who somehow imbue Allie and Harper with a weirdly sweet vulnerability which makes you want to keep watching their escapades even though in less capable hands, you’d probably walk out of the theater (and there’s still a chance you will if you happen to find self-absorption and obsessive texting hard to move past).

Regardless, both writers/directors Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers need to be commended for their deeply caustic and cutting script (which manages to appeal to their target audience of Generation M while still skewering the culture at the same time) and their ability to capture the boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens in a way that makes them feel thousands of miles apart both culturally and distance-wise.

So is Fort Tilden a good movie?

I still don’t know. There are moments of brilliance and sharp humor that I appreciate but there is also a feeling of separation that can only be blamed on being almost twenty years older than the characters.

This is a generational movie and I am old and no longer interested in the level of narcissism that seems to be in style right now, but still, there’s something about Fort Tilden that appeals to me in a socio-cultural way that I can appreciate.

I guess what it comes down to is this: If you enjoy a show like Girls, there’s a good chance you will enjoy Fort Tilden, and if you’d rather set fire to your face than deal with anything similar to Girls, well, this isn’t the flick for you.