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Director: Anna Rose Holmer
Year: 2016
Rating: NR
Running Time: 1 hour, 12 minutes
A young girl joins a dance drill team at the local youth center. A short time later, members of this troupe suddenly start suffering from random fits and convulsions.
"The Fits" is directed by Anna Rose Holmer, who also wrote the film along with Saela Davis and Lisa Kjerulff. It stars Royalty Hightower as Toni, a young tomboy who joins her local youth center's dance drill team called The Lionesses. A short time later, the team is plagued by a string of unexplained physical fits.
The thing about this movie is that the summary in the above synopsis also happens to be the entire plot. There isn't much dialogue to add to this story, and as for the fits themselves, they begin in an unexplained fashion and they stay unexplained throughout the remainder of the film. It's mostly up to the viewer to determine what they believe is causing these bouts of convulsion. The acting is also left intentionally stoic and there isn't much of an emotional reaction from the protagonist when seeing her fellow dancers fall into seizure. Because of this, the audience is left to project whatever emotions they want onto Toni. The movie is left so ambiguous and so open for interpretation, it really depends on the story you personally imprint upon the film, which will ultimately determine how much you enjoy it. Is it a coming-of-age story about a girl desperately trying to fit in? It could be, but it could also just as easily be about numerous other things as well, like a Nocebo effect . Given how this story is written, a weird infectious disease or even aliens could all be equally valid interpretations of this material. It's super debatable, left up to the audience to decide what they want to see and interpret.
"The Fits" is methodically paced, but at least it is quite short, 1 hour and 12 minutes to be exact. Even then, the material seems better suited to an even shorter film format. It could have even been cut down to a 20 minute short and would have been just as effective. In the end, though this film is extremely technically proficient, the narrative relies too heavily on the fill in the blank aspects for us to get super invested in the material. We do hope to see more movies by Anna Rose Holmer in the future as it's clear she has an excellent vision for directing.
My Rating: 6/10
BigJ's Rating: 5/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 97%
Do we recommend this movie: Sure, why not?
BigJ's Rating: 5/10
IMDB's Rating: 6.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes Rating: 97%
Do we recommend this movie: Sure, why not?
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