It’s a classic rule of storytelling: show, don’t tell! As the wisdom goes, rather than bogging a narrative down with heavy-handed exposition, the talented writer will instead use the actions and other details to communicate to the reader what is happening. However, director Kazik Radwanski’s latest film Matt and Mara proves that it’s possible to take it too far. If you lean too far into subtlety, you might almost totally obscure the truth of what’s happening on screen.
Matt and Mara marks Radwanski’s fourth feature, and his third full-length collaboration with Deragh Campbell, who stars as one half of the titular duo, creative writing professor Mara (she also starred in 2019’s Anne at 30,000 ft, and had a small role in 2015’s How Heavy This Hammer.) Joining the reunion is actor-director Matt Johnson (also an Anne alum), to play successful writer Matt Johnson.
Matt and Mara are old college friends who have fallen out of touch. Matt’s off in New York, writing acclaimed short story collections, and Mara, on top of her career, has become a mother, and wife to an experimental musician. Then one day Matt, recently back in Toronto, makes a surprise drop-in visit to a course Mara is teaching. Suddenly it’s like he never left at all. The two fall back into old rhythms, wandering the streets of Toronto while discussing ideas and writing and talking shit, just like they’re still in college. Of course, they’re not still in college. When other responsibilities start to encroach on the bubble of their recently rekindled relationship, tensions build and the facade of ease between them starts to crumble.
Matt & Mara is at its best, for me, in the way it observes the minute details and contradictions of a certain kind of prickly relationship. Have you ever had one of those friends with an undeniable magnetism, the kind that lets them get away with bad behavior and little consequences? Sometimes you might wonder why you still hang out with them – but you do, because they’re fun and charismatic and you just can’t seem to break free of their orbit. Matt & Mara is a movie about one of those guys, and it incisively captures the way someone can intensely get under your skin, and still be the person you want most to spend time with. Mara shows up to a work party with Matt in tow, and immediately confides to a friend and colleague trepidation over her choice of plus one. Sure enough, a scan of the backyard reveals Matt to have posted up by the hot tub, chatting up Mara’s department chair while she soaks. Mara rushes over to intervene, dragging Matt away while accusing him of embarrassing her. And yet, a week or two later, she’s inviting him to give a talk in her class. They seem to drive each other crazy, but they can’t stop. Maybe they don’t want to. And what, exactly, would they be stopping? Neither of them is asking, in a way that is recognizable to anyone who’s ever found themselves in a mysterious dynamic that they don’t want to ruin by defining it.
Mara’s relationship with her husband Samir (Mounir Al Shami), on the other hand, lacks the specificity of her time with Matt. This is a little bit the point, obviously – the film is called Matt and Mara – but I found that, at times, it felt like it was gesturing at something that would have been better off stated explicitly. I’ve read some summaries of the film that have stated that Mara is having difficulties in her marriage, and based on where Matt and Mara ends up, it’s a fair conclusion to draw. But the film never really gives you a reason as to why, or even a juicy piece of conflict to sink your teeth into. They have a beautiful apartment, a sweet toddler, and cool, fulfilling jobs in the arts. They don’t seem to be financially stressed, despite their artistic jobs. They’re hot and they own a car. And sure, even if you’re hot and own a car and have good jobs, you can still have conflict. But, then, what is it? Mostly, the vibes between Mara and Samir could be described as “vaguely off”. She tells him a weird story while they wash the dishes, and he asks her, confused, what made her think of it. At a party, she expresses that she’s disinterested in music, and her fellow guests question how that works, when her husband is a musician. On the the drive home, she tells him she felt uncomfortably scrutinized. Most of these scenes cut away before the couple can engage in any real dialogue about the issue raised.
This was, perhaps, my biggest frustration with Matt and Mara. At multiple points, a question was raised or an action was taken where I was excited for the response. “Yes!” I thought, “I too would like to hear the answer to that question! I am intrigued to see what this character does in the face of the other’s behavior! It will clarify points of conflict and character motivations in this film for me!” But then, before we could see what would happen next, the scene would simply… end. We would move on to the next thing, and I would be left with my lingering questions, never to be resolved. At one point, Mara and Samir go for a jog together, and although she’s previously told him it annoys her when he leaves her behind, when he stops to walk, she jogs on without him. Does he berate her? Does he walk home alone and give her the cold shoulder when he returns? We’ll never know, because Radwanski never shows us. I understand the desire, as a director, to not give away all your secrets, and to trust that the audience is paying enough attention to get to where you want them to go. But for them to do that, you have to give them something to work with.
This is particularly frustrating because the dialogue in Matt and Mara is pretty excellent. It has the lively, loose quality of real conversation; of the way people talk to their friends, and their spouses, and their colleagues, and the way each of those kinds of conversations has different energies. Exchanges between Matt and Mara, especially, are a pleasure. One scene where they trade verbal blows with a coffee shop owner stood out for both its humour, and the feeling that the film had managed to capture something that felt like real life, in that it’s messy, nonsensical, and feels very much unscripted. You get the sense that this was a project where the director and actors were totally on the same page about the vibe they wanted the film to have, and how they would go about bringing it to life. The performances are great, and the writing is strong – I just wish there was a bit more of it, and that it was used to explore some of the itchy, messy threads it instead dances around.
It’s moments like the one at the coffee shop, though, that encapsulate to me what works about Matt and Mara. These characters are people you know. There might be ways that they’re nothing like you, too, but I bet there’s something you recognize in their avoidance, their care, the patterns they fall into and out of. It doesn’t hurt, either, that this film is set in Toronto, in a way that’s unflashy but nevertheless resonated. The film is at its best when it looks at the all-too-real ways that people, even when they love each other, can make a mess by avoiding the tough questions. Ironically, it would be even better if it could find some of that directness for itself.
Matt and Mara will be playing at Toronto’s Revue Cinema from November 15th – 19th.
