Starring: Christopher Abbott, Scott Mescudi, Cynthia Nixon, Makenzie Leigh.
James White, follows a self-destructive twenty-something, as he tries to deal with the life changes he is faced with.
A raw and emotive story perfectly brought to life by Christopher Abbott.
The two main take-backs from this film are immediately the acting and the cinematography. Abbotts and Mescudi's onscreen brotherly chemistry seemed genuine and almost like a fly-on-the-wall perspective. They made it seem as if they had really known each other for years and managed to keep the balance between nice and nasty, that true best friends have.
Abbotts himself brought the screen to life with the many emotions he was able to portray. You could really feel and believe his anger and genuine lostness. Whilst there is a want to sympathise with him, Abbotts enables us to also have a more open opinion about him with a more introspective view.
The cinematography definitely had the indie tone to it. Filtered long shots and New York, red room, party scenes. It was a beautiful background for a beautiful story. There were scenes where the camera moved with the character, following his every move. This was usually when there were quite tense scenes such as a fight or internal rage and this definitely helped to bring the emotions to another level and almost made you feel as if you were this character.
Script wise, Josh Mond, did a great job. He was able to bring a real honesty to the subjects of grief and being a twenty-something, who doesn't quite know where their life is going. It's clearly not a story everyone will relate to but there are a lot of aspects which people can draw from... such as grief, alcoholism, love or unemployment. At the base of the film, it seemed to be about relationships and emotions. James's relationship with his father, mother, best friend, girlfriend, alcohol and himself were just some of the few.
Overall, James White was an excellent film. It made you care and drew you in but also didn't fill you with too much drama or information. It was simple yet intense. Mond managed to create a very captivating film both script and screen wise.
