The Plight of the Modern Urbanite

The fatal flaw of many indie films is the uninterrogated assumption that New York is a rarified place capable of instantly defining one’s self-worth. The dreams of those raised on Friends and Girls hinge on this delusion, which explains why millennial and Gen Z artistic output has gone out of its way to avoid grappling with it–barring a precious few exceptions. With her debut feature, The French Italian, writer/director Rachel Wolther proves herself unafraid to probe the contradictions and anxieties that have come to define the Age of Obama’s offspring. 

Starring comedian Cat Cohen and SNL alum Aristotle Athari, the film follows a thirtysometing couple stewing over their unrealized potential. In a moment of weakness, they decide to seek revenge on their noisy former neighbor (Euphoria star and newly anointed Nylon “It” Girl Chloe Cherry) through casting her as a fictionalized version of herself in a fake play and subjecting the seemingly oblivious iningénue to humiliating rehearsals.

The result is a droll depiction of nationalized East Coast ambition in post-pandemic America with a refreshing refusal to absolve its central characters of their bad behavior. In its portrait of not-quite young adults overcoming their arrested development and finding their calling, The French Italian separates itself from the navel-gazing slush pile by uncovering its own uncomfortable truths. 

Before the film’s Southeast premiere at the Nashville Film Festival on Friday and her stint as a panelist for the event’s “Navigating the Indie Film Journey” workshop, Wolther talked to The Pamphleteer about making a movie that screened at Tribeca, the reality of indie filmmaking. and the challenges of life in America’s urban centers.

📩 Rubber Stamping Red Tape After declaring war on racism, the council passed all four of the mayor’s contentious public safety bills on second reading. Two weeks ago, after their passage on first reading, O’Connell welcomed robust conversation. “I am legitimately interested in hearing public comment on those, which I imagine there will be some,” he told the press. “I'm very interested in council member deliberation on those because what we heard from several council members, lots of Metro employees representing different departments, people participating or trying to participate in [the] public comment hearing when we had disruption in this building was that a lot of these steps would be very welcome.”

The first to speak out on Tuesday was Robert Wynkoop, who found O’Connell’s solution to “political violence” and “unrest” a bridge too far. “For about the past two weeks, I've been engaging various members of the council about BL2024-511,” said Wynkoop during public comment. “I believe that it is going to infringe upon the First Amendment rights of our citizens.” 

Bristling at how members have defaulted to citing Metro Legal to calm his concerns, he appealed to the council’s sense of duty. “I would just like to remind everyone here that no one elected Metro Legal,” he said. “The lack of intellectual curiosity about these bills and the way that they've been rubber stamped through committee, the way they've been rubber stamped from first reading…they're going to be rubber stamped tonight, I really encourage you to look inside. You know, today is Constitution Day. We have a Bill of Rights, and we want to protect the right to protest. And this bill is overbroad…. It will be challenged to its constitutionality and it's going to result in the city being sued.”

Meanwhile, the council’s pushback wasn’t quite as robust. Councilmember Mike Cortese abstained from voting on the buffer zone bill, and Councilmember Clay Capp voted no on BL2024-512, which would prohibit people from hanging “unauthorized signs” over the highway. Councilmember Porterfield did speak up and ask Legal how law enforcement plans to identify those in violation of the mask ordinance. “I believe in most cases it will be very apparent if someone is wearing a mask on a sincerely held religious belief,” replied Director Wally Dietz. “I suspect that there won't be a lot of argument about that, but it's also conceivable that there may be a case where someone is using that as a pretense to hide their face. So, it will require some training by the police.” MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

❌ Spreading Anti-Hate On Tuesday, Metro Council declared racism a public health issue in Nashville. “These disparities are rooted in systemic racism,” reads the resolution, which cites North Nashville’s high incarceration rate as evidence of historical injustice. “This is the council speaking out, taking a stand, recognizing those disparities and that systemic racism is a problem,” sponsor Kyonzte Toombs explained.

The legislation describes a myriad ways Nashville is working toward “dismantling systemic racism” through health, noting Bloomberg Philanthropies’ gift of $175 million to the historically Black Meharry Medical College and a federal grant to the Metro Nashville Health Department aimed at “reducing child and maternal mortality.” In the same vein, the council later recognized September 21st through the 27th as United Against Hate Week. Coordinated “to stop the hate and implicit biases that are a dangerous threat to the safety and civility of our neighborhoods, towns, and cities,” the observance, already passed by several other cities, was approved by the council. MEGAN PODSIEDLIK

DEVELOPMENT

• Downtown office building to be listed for sale (Post)
• Inglewood commercial building listed for $899K (Post)

✹ REVIEW: REAGAN (2024)

When I was covering the Republican National Convention in July, I got a firsthand view of the disconnect between the party’s self image of itself and the society around it. Milwaukee is a predominately blue city. Walking around the security fence, I noticed that dozens of Reagan posters had been torn down and littered the streets—likely by local pedestrians. I couldn’t tell exactly why they’d been torn down, but it was clear they didn’t appreciate the convention’s intrusion into their daily lives. 

The blue didn’t like affirmative positions from the red. This tension has been over the past two weeks since the release of Reagan. The independently produced ($25 million budget) Dennis Quaid biopic is the latest film caught in a massive gulf between critics and conservative audiences, with Rotten Tomatoes critics trashing the film (18%) and audiences pouring love upon it (98%).

I was recently asked about this divide between audiences and critics by a reporter from The Washington Times and gave a fairly measured statement as to why. “It’s no secret that progressive critics aren’t going to be enamored by a Ronald Reagan biopic,” I said in a statement. “Despite being the most popular elected president in living memory, he’s still got a negative reputation in Hollywood and among the left. I wouldn’t say that critics are necessarily brigading the film on principle. Their worldview will definitely affect their analysis, but most of them are willing to admit when a conservative film is good. Reagan has genuine filmmaking and screenwriting problems that make it easy to dismiss.”

THINGS TO DO

View our calendar for the week here and our weekly film rundown here.

📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.

🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.

👨🏻‍🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide and yearly festival guide.

TONIGHT

🪕 AMERICANAFEST 2024 @ Multiple Venues, $125, Info
+ feat. Waxahatchee, Neko Case, MJ Lenderman, Hiss Golden Messenger, Greensky Bluegrass and more...

🪕 TWANG CITY Hoedown Happy Hour @ The Underdog, 4p, Free, Info

🎭 Steve Martin and Martin Short @ Ryman Auditorium, 7:30p, $59.50+, Info

🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info

🎸 Kelly’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info

🎸 Open Mic @ Fox & Locke, 6:30p, Free, Info
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📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.

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