Jump on it! South Bay Film Society screens “Donald Cried”
Tickets for “Donald Cried” at the South Bay Film Society go on sale early Wednesday. Pictured, Kris Avedisian as Donald and Jesse Wakeman as Pete
“Donald Cried” – film review
Since it regularly sells out three auditoriums with each screening, the South Bay Film Society probably doesn’t qualify for “best kept secret” status, but among younger filmgoers it still needs to be discovered. Despite showing art house, independent, and foreign cinema, the audience is largely comprised of people in their, ahem, golden years. Why that is, I don’t know. If I was a betting man I’d have lost all my money, thinking that the theater would instead be filled by 30-somethings. Maybe, with “Donald Cried” that can begin to change.
“Donald Cried” is a quirky, low-budget picture about a New York City banker named Pete (Jesse Wakeman) who returns to the working class community in Rhode Island where he grew up… and where he hasn’t been for 15 or 20 years. The reason for his visit now is that his grandmother, who has been in a nursing home for several years, has passed away and Pete seems to be the only surviving relative.
Pete arrives by taxi, and discovers that he’s lost his wallet, and what follows really goes back to this mishap (so keep an eye on yours). Somewhat at loose ends, he runs into Donald (Kris Avedisian), an old friend he hasn’t seen since high school. Where Pete seems conservative and uptight, Donald seems to have aged rather than matured: He still has KISS figurines and rock posters on the walls of his bedroom, and a loser job at a bowling alley.
Pete really wants nothing to do with him, but he does need a few bucks so he can catch a bus out of town once he’s visited the funeral parlor and the nursing home to collect his grandmother’s few and meager belongings. Donald, on the other hand, seems genuinely glad to see Pete, and we realize that at one time they both had similar interests (Metallica, I think, comes up). It’s just that one moved on and the other didn’t or couldn’t.
With his mismatched clothes and the worst haircut ever, Donald seems like a total nerd, but at times he has a childlike sensitivity and at other times seems oblivious to proper behavior. In the course of just a day or two he’ll embarrass Pete several times, but we also see a very noble side of him as well, especially in how he (almost literally) took Pete’s place in visiting the now-deceased grandmother. There is a bonding here, eventually, but the course it takes is quite something, and perhaps all the better for that.
The title of the film refers to a cruel prank or joke played upon Donald many years earlier. It’s a telling, crucial scene, and yet nicely underplayed. At first I didn’t warm to this film (partly because it takes place in the dead of winter), but later found it a bit endearing. It’s no masterpiece, but it does have its merits. One surprising thing is that Kris Avedisian, who plays Donald, also wrote and directed the film. Not quite the nerd after all!
Tickets for “Donald Cried” are going on sale early Wednesday, March 8, on the South Bay Film Society’s website. The film itself doesn’t screen until Wednesday, March 29, at the AMC Rolling Hills in Torrance, but you’d be surprised how quickly these movies sell out. Details can be found at southbayfilmsociety.com/event/donald-cried/. ER