SXSW Film Festival 2023: SEW TORN

The title tells a prospective viewer a great deal about Sew Torn, a comedic thriller by first time director Freddy Macdonald: it’s a film about a seamstress in a spot of trouble and it’s a film about making choices; it’s also the kind of film with a pun for a title, and if that kind of cuteness turns you off, the film isn’t for you. 

“Choices, choices, choices.” 

The film (currently screening in the “Visions” category at SxSW) plays with time to examine the double meaning of its name. Following a three part structure, it’s hinged on a choice second-generation seamstress Barbara (Eve Connolly, River Wild) has to make when she stumbles across the scene of a drug deal turned bloody. It couldn’t come at a worse time–– Barbara’s “mobile seamstress” business, inherited from her beloved mother (recently deceased), is about to go under, her client list dwindling to an idiosyncratic few. In frustration, she deliberately misplaces a button to be sewn on a desperately needed but highly belligerent client’s wedding gown, only to instantly regret it. It’s as she rushes down an isolated road to get a replacement that she finds two incapacitated men, two guns, two bags of cocaine, and one locked briefcase lying in the road. Should she “commit the perfect crime” and possibly save her business with the contents of the briefcase? Should she call the police? Or should she run away? The rest of the film is dedicated to playing out those options, each in its own timeline. 

Sew Torn‘s greatest strength is Barbara. Eve Connolly‘s performance is engrossing, as is the woman she’s playing–– a character that turns out to be a delightful cross between the shy/”unassuming” female leads of 2000s rom-coms like Maid in Manhattan or Never Been Kissed… and Jigsaw. (An alternate punny title: Sew?) For this young spinster, sewing is a literal superpower. In every scenario, she turns needles, bobbins, sewing machines, and miles of colorful thread into elaborate booby traps that could make Kevin McCallister jealous. Each choice takes Barbara down a path riddled with coincidences, double-crosses, and, most importantly, intricate new ways to sew her herself out of a pinch. 

The film’s aesthetic sensibility draws heavily on real-world-set fables of all kinds, blending the whimsy of Amélie and Penelope with the grittiness of Fargo. Filmed on location in the Swiss Alps, the beautiful scenery surrounding this one-seamstress town and its small cast of character actors feels nicely (if lightly) lived-in as different versions of Barbara’s day proffer new angles to their small stories and new vistas to take in. 

Threading the Needle

The bland cinematography capturing these elements is somewhat less alluring. Rather than form a coherent palette with its varied aesthetic reference points–– either striking a contrast with the twee trappings of Barbara’s world with more hard-boiled camerawork, or visually leaning into the rarified air of Barbara’s shop to juxtapose the gangsters who have so thoroughly disrupted it–– the film’s shooting style lacks the imagination of its substance.

Perhaps the film’s biggest drawback is its inability to fully live up to its structural gambit. Thrillers with highly mechanized structures should teach the viewer how they work as they progress. Sew Torn‘s three-part structure hinges on the instant at which Barbara’s path crosses the gangsters’, but there’s a looseness to the points at which her story resets to this moment. Rather than snap into place, these hinge points hang slack. Ironically, the reverse is true of Barbara’s sew-traps. These sequences are so intricately structured and visually entertaining, taking up so much of the film’s runtime, that her emotional journey risks fading into the background. 

Conclusion

Still, premises like these are a tricky needle to thread. The kind of temporal experimentation (not to mention the motley cast of characters) risks falling into any number of smug film school traps. Admirably, though, Sew Torn remains winningly earnest in its treatment, aiming for Edgar Wright‘s shaggy dogs over Nolan‘s smooth criminals. The end result is an enjoyable yarn that spools out smoothly.