Sew Torn

Huh, looks like I lost the Alamo order card I took my notes on, so while I can tell you that's writer/director/editor Freddy Macdonald on the left, I forget the name of the person on the right asking the questions. Macdonald described him as the film's CFO, and I'll bet everyone else could remember his name because it was a sort of odd screening - I feel like just about everyone else in the theater knew Macdonald or someone in the production, if not being actual family, and Q&A was added to to this show because this was the day most folks could make it even though it was only scheduled for Saturday when booked.

Kind of fun, if mostly kind of chatty, like everyone mostly wanted their favorite stories retold. They were fun stories, from how Freddy is actually Fred Macdonald V, and his co-writer "Fred" is Fred IV; I gather Fred III was either in the audience or watching remotely. The folks in rural Sweden were, apparently, enormously accommodating: The cute little car in the movie is something Freddy's mother saw while her own was in the shop there, the asked the garage owner for the owner and asked her if they could use it, back in 2020 or so when the original proof-of-concept short was shot, and they re-used it again in the feature. But, also, the owner of a small shop was very excited to have it blown up for a movie. Apparently, if you've got a good pyro crew, you can basically replace the windows a couple of times and do this with very little damage!

So, this movie is booked through Wednesday at the Drafthouse in the seaport, and not a lot of tickets sold for most of the non-Q&A screenings. Monday to Wednesday are matinees, because heaven forbid a small movie booked for a week get some word-of-mouth (a problem with both Alamon and AMC, locally), so jump on it if thread-based Rube Goldberg action sounds good to you (although, thinking about it, I wonder whether bringing it out the same weekend as a Final Destination movie is canny or a way to get it overlooked).


Sew Torn

* * * (out of four)
Seen 16 May 2025 in Alamo Drafthouse Seaport #3 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available) , or get the soundtrack at Amazon

Sew Torn basically has one trick, but its makers are really exceptional at executing that trick. Plenty good enough to make up for anything else that might be wobbly, at least.

After a number of contradictory flash-forwards, the audience meets "Mobile Seamstress" Barbara Duggen (Eve Connolly), who has inherited the shop her mother started and the apartment above it, and it's going about as well as specialty retail does these days, with no walk-ins and just one appointment, to make some final alterations to the wedding dress of Grace Vessler (Caroline Goodall), whose third marriage has to be perfect. On the way back to the shop, she encounters a drug deal gone bad, both buyer (Calum Worthy) and seller (Thomas Douglas) crawling along the road to reach guns and a bag of money. She figures she has three choices - commit the perfect crime, call the police, or just drive off - and the film shows the audience each of them, including how the buyer's gangster father (John Lynch) shows up to potentially ruin everything.

The first of these three alternative possibilities is wobbly as heck, just full of moments where the viewer asks themselves why Barbara would do this rather than just about anything else, at least within the movie. This was the core of the original short, per the Q&A, which makes sense; that probably only needed the high concept of a master seamstress committing a crime with her highly specialized skills, positioning needles at various points and stringing threads through them so that a tug will trigger a whole series of improbable actions. The execution is terrific, but it doesn't exactly fit in a story.

Happily, the story built around it is pretty good and told well visually at that. The early scenes suggest Barbara as an insect caught in the spiderweb her mother had spun before dying, quite literally - it's not just that there are elaborate bits of stringwork dangling about a foot from the ceiling, but they integrate the mother's trademark embroideries with pull-string analog sound clips, full of words and memories that are no longer as inspiring. It widens to reveal a more human sort of desperation as the only life she knows is falling apart, even if she kind of hates it. The later alternatives, where she had to plot some sort of escape with just a little string, are maybe more sensible and resonant even if the thread-based antics aren't quite so clever. They benefit from the exposition in the first piece, but they develop who she is as a personality and benefit more from lining Calum Worthy's Joshua is her photographic negative.

That said, the first bit gambit is worth the price of admission itself, a deliciously elaborate setting up of a Rube Goldberg machine that doesn't quite make sense until it's triggered. This sort of creation is the sort of thing that either has a grin slowly spread or makes one's eyes roll, and that's going to be how the rest of the movie goes for you, because you've got three or four more coming. Macdonald is not looking to give Barbara bunches of different skills, and that first act locks the audience into a specific problem-solving place whenever danger appears. I, personally, love this sort of nonsense, but can see why others might find it repetitive or not entertaining after the first go-round.

It works in large part because Eve Connolly nails Barbara's disappointed savant nature and peels it back without making what's underneath drastically different. Macdonald makes a specific choice to have Barbara alone and not speaking with anyone else or even to herself for long stretches (ignore the short, repeated bits of narration), and there's something very striking about how she seems diminished before getting the chance to show her fierce intelligence. On the other hand, I like that there's something very hollow about John Lynch's gangster; he's dangerous and ruthless but not compelling for it, just a perilous obstacle to be avoided if possible and thwarted if necessary. K Callan's part as the local law enforcement who is also notary and justice of the peace is concentrated in the middle, but is great, wry and given the chance to describe how picturesque little towns can drain you dry before Barbara is ready, smart and by-the-book enough to be an adversary when she could have tipped all the way into villain or mother-figure territory.

The film is so specific in its eccentricity that it may not be to all tastes, and even those of us who go for it might not find it hitting our exact sweet spot. I found it enjoyably odd and appealing for just how its intricate set-pieces feel more like close-up magic than bombast, a fun break in the middle of the large-scale blockbusters.