Film Review: ‘The Grotto’

Exploring trauma, grief, and sorrow in a campy and humorous way

Another film we got a chance to check out during the Annapolis Film Festival is Joanna Gleason’s feature directorial debut, The Grotto.  The film’s story centers around Alice Kendall (Betsy Brandt) who discovers that her fiancé has died by taking his own life.  In his will, he leaves her The Grotto, a nightclub he partially owns located in the middle of the desert in Joshua Tree.  While parsing through her own grief and trauma over this tragedy, she meets an eclectic group of people while making her way to The Grotto.  It’s during her time at The Grotto and being with these people that she discovers herself and her path forward all while coming to terms with the death of her fiancé.

The Grotto can be described as a film with a lot of heart. The film’s plot, although heavy in nature, is performed in a way that shows the lighter side of grief.  Alice, who’s fiancé has passed away, is filled with immense sorrow and confusion over his death.  However, the way that she channels that pain is through humor and sarcasm.  Throughout the film, Alice is perpetually using her dry sarcasm to get her point across and communicate with the other characters in the film.  In fact, there are fewer moments of seriousness with Alice than there are moments of humor and sarcasm.  And the way that Alice’s character plays with other characters in the film helps bring a very lighthearted feel to the film.  Some of our favorite moments was when Alice was interacting with her new friend Kip Gorman (played by Dan Bucantinky).  Alice’s dry sarcasm almost melded perfectly with Kip’s upbeat playfulness and created a beautiful chemistry that felt believable and earnest.  In fact, the acting from the entire cast helped bring life to each character to the point where it felt like there were no small roles.  When every character was in the room, the scenes were vibrant and full of energy.  You as the audience have the rare opportunity to discern the uniqueness of each character and fall in love with their nuance and quirks.  And it helps that the way that the characters were written and brought to life make it so that each character is lovable in their own unique way.

Another component we loved about the film was how it centered queerness.  The Grotto is in fact a nightclub, but the twist is that later Alice finds out it is a queer nightclub.  And one of the biggest twists of the film is that Alice finds out her fiancé was hiding his sexuality and living a double life.  What surprised us is that Alice was less mad and upset and more confused as to why he felt the need to live his life like this.  Although she does have the anger inside of her, she is more filled with confusion that is centered in compassion around his life and death.  Part of the reason Alice is able to reconcile this shocking news is because many of the characters at The Grotto are queer themselves.  She is able to immerse herself in queerness, and the different facets it has in order to better understand her fiancé and the life he lived.  And one thing that this film does wonderfully is center queerness without making it the butt of the joke.  The characters here are written to be primarily queer and have eccentric personalities, but crafted and cared for where they aren’t a walking stereotype or gag.  These character were made in inspiration of real people that we have all met at one point of our lives.  This was a refreshing take on queerness and helped make everything in the film feel more real and genuine.

Our last topic we wanted to touch upon from this film is the directing style.  For those unfamiliar with Joanna Gleason, she is a performer like no other.  Having accolades and awards across the board, including being a Tony Award-Winning actress, she brings all the experience from her life and work into this film.  The way that this film is shot reminded us of something along the lines of how you would watch a musical theatre.  There was one moment where the camera pans out to show all the people that work at The Grotto and it felt so picturesque and resemblant of how the stage opens for musical theatre.  Additionally, the theatrical styles leveraged helps bring home some of the campier sides of the film.  Gleason hoped to showcase some the other sides of grief and some of the absurdity that comes with it while directing this film.  And with the interwoven styles of film and theatre, those themes and ideas land perfectly.

Our lasting impression of this film is that The Grotto is a story that has a lot of heart and warmth under the guise of pain and grief.  Exploring the complexity of sorrow using elements of humor and camp was done masterfully.