The core elements of Brightwood are shockingly simple: a woman called Jen (Berger), a man called Dan (Woertendyke), and a path around a pond. However, it’s clear that the couple has been running in circles a long time before they put their jogging shoes on that morning. That Jen is constantly trying to outpace Dan, and furious that he keeps interrupting her track-time listening – a podcast on the pros and cons of divorce – makes it pretty clear that she’s determined to take a new route by herself.
But the universe seems hell-bent on keeping them together, as all the exits from the track seem to have disappeared, and Jen and Dan are stuck with each other, looping round and round, back over their own tracks, and rehashing the same moments – quite literally, as their circular path reveals itself to be a physical manifestation of a time loop.
Writer/director Dane Elcar (who also served as his own cinematographer in this microbudget indie) originally developed this shadowy version of the time loop conceit for his award-winning single-actor 2018 short, “The Pond.” Yet the addition of the warring couple does more than simply extend the run time. It provides a dark and savage twist, one that has as much in common with Strindberg, Cassavetes, and Baumbach as it does with H.G. Wells and The Twilight Zone. The Baumbach comparison is at its strongest when Jen finally cracks and unleashes her ire on Dan with every fault and criticism that has been festering inside her. Berger delivers a line about his breath that carries the same cathartic cruelty with which Adam Driver bawled, “Every day I wake up and I hope you’re dead,” to Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, while Woertendyke tries to ignore the suppurating wound that was once the heart of their relationship.
That Brightwood takes place in real time (or something like it) makes the accelerated collapse of their relationship even more disturbingly realistic. But that’s not all that’s accelerating, and Elcar takes full advantage of the horrifying ramifications of the couple running through and into their own paths. Their final destination via the torture they go through – emotionally, psychologically, and physically – comes into view through a sick, slick, and elegant logic. It’s the tragedy of watching two awful but beautifully portrayed people who are destined/damned to always be together. And somehow, in possibly the most disturbing reveal of all, there’s a glimmer of romance, twisted as it may be. Elcar’s setup may be minimalist, but Brightwood turns that simple idea into a well-crafted baroque puzzle box.
This article appears in August 25 • 2023.
