There’s an moment from Zoe Lister-Jones’s Band Aid that I’m not going to forget anytime soon. In the film, Zoe Lister-Jones plays Anna, a struggling writer-turned-Uber driver whose marriage to a graphic designer named Ben (Adam Pally) has degenerated into one fracas after another. Life isn’t going their way, and it hasn’t for a very long time. Their careers and their marriage are, in no uncertain terms, failing.
“Failing,” Anna argues, “makes you a failure.”
“I don’t think so,” Ben replies. “Failing makes you an artist.”
Band Aid is a film about failure. It’s a sweet and funny and likable film about failure. Because failure is never the end of anything, it’s a means to an end. You can’t fail unless you’re genuinely trying, after all. Even though they squabble and spat, Anna and Ben don’t seem to be giving up on their marriage. They aren’t even giving up on their art. They’re just slowly remembering that art isn’t just a means to make money, even though that can sometimes be a pleasant by-product. More than anything else, art is the means to keep your sanity.
IFC Films
Also: Sofia Coppola is the Second Woman to Win Best Director at Cannes
And it ain’t easy, that sanity. Zoe Lister-Jones wrote and directed Band Aid from a very intimate place, deep inside of a marriage at one of its most difficult moments, in which Anna and Ben are overcoming personal obstacles that extend well beyond their stymied careers. They’re coming face-to-face with the fact that they confront life’s biggest problems in completely different ways, and they’re realizing that they’re not necessarily compatible. What Anna and Ben go through would be enough to ruin most relationships, and with good cause.
But there’s an impressive, down to earth nobility about the way these two charming heroes confront their plight. Even their fights are, in some way, about trying to connect. They want to be friends, they want to be lovers, they want to make something of themselves and they want to do so together, positively and productively. Adding a rhythm and a melody reminds them that their conflicts are an unexpected, kooky sort of unity. So they write kooky songs about it, and the songs are – to the film’s great credit – soulful, funny, and pretty darned good.
Band Aid is a momentary movie, the sort of personal expression that might have to come along at exactly the right time in your life to make you cry and laugh and sing. It’s about problems that young people won’t understand and that older people might be wise enough to handle more gracefully. But if you’re struggling, if you feel like a failure, and if you’re fighting with somebody you love, this be just the band-aid you need.
11 Exciting Movies You Didn’t Know Were Coming Out in June 2017:
Top Photo: IFC Films
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
11 Exciting Movies You Didn't Know Were Coming Out in June 2017
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Band Aid (June 2)
Zoe Lister-Jones wrote, directed and stars in Band Aid, a comedy about an unhappily married couple who decide to turn their arguments into music.
Photo: IFC Films
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Dean (June 2)
Stand-up comedian Demetri Martin wrote, directed, stars in and provides the illustrations for a comedy about an artist coping with the death of his mother.
Photo: CBS Films
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My Cousin Rachel (June 9)
Enduring Love director Roger Michell adapts Daphne du Maurier's gothic novel, about a man who plots revenge against his cousin, played by Rachel Weisz.
Photo: Fox Searchlight
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The Book of Henry (June 16)
Colin Trevorrow took a break between filming Jurassic World and Star Wars: Episode IX to direct this coming of age drama, about a boy with a plan to rescue his neighbor from her abusive stepfather.
Photo: Focus Features
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I, Daniel Blake (June 16)
Ken Loach's latest film stars Dave Johns as a man who is denied financial support, even though he's unable to work. The acclaimed drama won the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.
Photo: IFC Films
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The Bad Batch (June 23)
Ana Lily Amirpour's follow-up to the horror hit A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a dystopian nightmare about cannibalism, revenge and drug use.
Photo: Neon
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The Beguiled (June 23)
In the midst of the Civil War, an all-girls school takes in a wounded soldier, played by Colin Farrell, and fall prey to their fears and desires. Nicole Kidman, Kirsten Dunst and Elle Fanning co-star, and filmmaker Sofia Coppola just won the Best Director award from Cannes, making her the second female recipient in history.
Photo: Focus Features
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The Big Sick (June 23)
A young couple is tested when, shortly after their break-up, she falls extremely ill. The acclaimed romantic comedy was co-written by Kumail Nanjiani (who also stars) and Emily V. Gordon, who based the screenplay the story of their own relationship.
Photo: Lionsgate
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The B-Side: Elsa Dorfman's Portrait Photography (June 30)
The latest documentary from celebrated filmmaker Errol Morris takes a look at Elsa Dorfman, a portrait photographer who uses a rare, gigantic Polaroid camera.
Photo: Neon
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The Little Hours (June 30)
A young, handsome man has to take refuge in a nunnery in the Middle Ages, but the nuns are not what he expected at all. Dave Franco, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza and John C. Reilly star.
Photo: Gunpowder & Sky
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13 Minutes (June 30)
In 1939, Johann Georg Else attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, but the bomb went off 13 minutes too late, and killed civilians instead. His story is told by Oliver Hirschbiegel, who previously directed the acclaimed Adolf Hitler biopic Downfall.
Photo: Sony Pictures Classics
