Sean Price Williams’ THE SWEET EAST Limited Engagement

ABOUT THE FILM: 

Smack in the middle of a high school trip to our nation’s capital, self-possessed teen Lillian (Talia Ryder) breaks off from her classmates, kicking off a journey straight down the rabbit hole of the New Weird America. In the rollicking feature debut for both director Sean Price Williams (known for his grotty-beautiful cinematography for films by Alex Ross Perry and the Safdie brothers) and critic-turned-screenwriter Nick Pinkerton, the Eastern seaboard becomes the site for a deranged and hilarious autopsy of contemporary U.S. life in which Lillian becomes an indifferent sounding board to all manner of loquacious, callous oddballs, including a sexually numb, white supremacist pedant (Simon Rex) and a pair of wildly excitable indie filmmakers (Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy O. Harris). Tying it all together is a performance of remarkable poise and confidence by Ryder (memorable in Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always), who provides the tender center to this cockeyed exhibition of all-purpose mockery.