Something, Anything - no easy answers, much to dwell on, just like life.

Something, Anything was a really interesting start to my 2014 EIFF experience, a fascinating study of character and role, which is both involving and confident enough to leave much to the viewers own perspective and judgement.

The central protagonist Peggy (later Margaret) is, for a lead character, unusually voiceless, but still a fully realised and believable character.  She opens the film seemingly passively accepting the role in life laid out for, just like everyone around her - financially successfully career, married, first baby on the way.  Then two things shake her belief in this life for her. The first is a personal tragedy, when she suffers a miscarriage, the second is a sympathy card from one high school acquaintance who has shaken off the 'expected' route through life and role. These two events shake Peggy's acceptance of her role in life and she sheds various elements propping it up one by one while she tries to work out what exactly it is she wants.

Peggy's journey, just like a real person's isn't predictable or formulated to fit a preconceived arc for the film, and the film examines her development in several interesting and fresh ways.  One thing that particularly struck me is for much of the film, we don't really hear from Peggy - people speak over her or ignore what she is trying to impart, she is unsure what to say, or the scene is edited before she is able to speak.  She can only express her innermost thoughts by writing them in a notebook, and even this is then written on the screen rather than voiced by the actress.  It is a testament both to the writing and the acting that the little that Peggy does say, and how she comes across silently, are strong enough to make this a character that the viewer can invest in and care about. Her reticence is a symptom of her uncertainty and a powerful symbol of how she has been put into a box that only allows her limited ways to express herself.

Another element explored by the film in a thoughtful way is how people filter another person's tragedy through their own perspective in a way that can alienate or take it away from the person who suffered it.  The story is driven by Peggy's reaction to her miscarriage and the film-makers' empathy is shown by the way that she is allowed as a character to deal with this in her own way and on her own terms.  But for the other characters, many are almost resentful or offended that she doesn't deal with it in a way that fits their idea or perspective of how it should be done.  Her husband makes vague attempts at support and sympathy but is annoyed that this doesn't instantly snap her out of her sadness.  Her friends want to paper over it with shopping and nights out to make her feel better, probably kindly meant, but the last thing Peggy needs. They then are annoyed that she lets it impact on her marriage in a way they don't see is fitting.  It is another aspect to Peggy's voicelessness and of the roles she is expected to fulfill - she is not allowed to express or experience the grief in a way that makes sense for her.

A driving force through the film, one of the things that is most successful, is that it presents Peggy's story in a way that lets her experience shape the story and through that develops the character, but also does it in a non-judgemental, reasonably ambiguous way.  It allows the audience to develop a relationship with Peggy and the changes in her character (which always feel believable) on their own terms, where many film-makers might have scripted it in a way to tell us how we should feel about Peggy's choices.  And even though, because we are focused on Peggy, the people around her are a little less sympathetic, the film does not feel judgemental towards them either.  The film does critique materialism and a certain conforming type of society, without being scornful to people who exist in a world where sometimes the more comforting solution is just to buy something to fill the gap your feeling or to go along with what's expected of you.  It also doesn't suggest that by just casting off the things that are restricting Peggy that she will somehow find some magical answer to life or "find herself", it shies away from these cliches. This is a film that knows there are no easy answers or solutions to hard situations and also understands that people aren't a series of tropes and characters aren't just created by what they say, but that people are complicated and characters should have nuance and ambiguity to be real.

So it should come as no surprise that I found this a really memorable, fulfilling,, thought-provoking and engaging film. It wouldn't be to everyone's taste, and many people may not quite have enough patience for Peggy especially when some of her choices aren't the one the viewer has chosen as the "right" one. But in letting this character make her own mistakes and choices, on her own terms, and for her own reasons, the film does what her friends and family are less keen to do - choose her own role and find her voice.