The team behind The East also created 2011’s stunning Sound of my Voice, which scrutinised an enigmatic cult with a charismatic leader. It was going to be tough act to follow. The East has many of the same elements: a secretive cult with a charismatic leader on a mission; co-writer Brit Marling in a lead role and weird, unexplained semi-ritualistic behaviour. Unfortunately, The East is a halfway house of compromises, tropes and characters following well-worn emotional arcs. Unlike Sound of my Voice, the film does not surrender itself to the world it depicts.
Marling plays Jane, an employee of a private security company, given hair dye and the undercover identity Sarah Moss to infiltrate an eco-terrorist group called The East. Its leader is Benji (a diffident Alexander Skarsgård). She finds the group with surprising ease and is initially locked up and kept at a distance. But she gets in deeper and, naturally and formulaically, develops a romantic attachment to him. She also questions her own beliefs. The group itself are a stock lot with their goth type and an über-nerd savant played by director/writer Zal Batmanglij’s brother Rostam (of the pop group Vampire Weekend).
The East is hobbled by its failure to pursue the more intense set-ups it presents. Jane/Sarah’s introduction to the group is at a strange dinner, yet nothing so odd follows later. At one of their terrorist interventions, members give in when it comes to the crucial moments of commitment. If this group was so steadfast, so underground - why were they only going to undertake four actions? Jane/Sarah herself closes the film in a monumental cop-out. The by-rote thriller music is intrusive and overbearing.
A fine, auteur-type film is struggling to escape from The East – especially so, given Marling and Zal Batmanglij’s prior research of the world they were depicting discussed in the DVD's extra – but although its polemic is to be applauded, the film unfolds as though major-studio hands (who include producer Ridley Scott) exerted the guiding influence. Perhaps Batmanglij and Marling will rediscover their own voice next time around.
Overleaf: Watch the trailer for The East
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