Showing @ Cineworld, Edinburgh, Thu 19 & Sat 21 Jun
Paul Harrill / USA / 2014 / 88 mins
When Plato stated that the unexamined life is not worth living, he foretold a future where material wealth is often the substitute for deeper fulfillment. Something, Anything is, in part, an exploration of what happens when all our dreams come true and it’s still not enough.
Peggy Montgomery (Ashley Shelton) is a case in point: a successful real estate agent, she is engaged, married and pregnant before the credits are over. But when she suffers a miscarriage before she has even opened all her wedding gifts, it proves to be the thread that slowly and methodically unravels the predictable pattern of her comfortable life. Within a few months she has left her husband (Bryce Johnson), moved into a small apartment, and abandoned her career to work in a library.
As Peggy (now calling herself Margaret) works through her grief, she begins to wonder whether perhaps there is more to life than the well-trodden path she’s been following. The discovery that a childhood crush (Linds Edwards) has become a monk inspires her to delve into the spiritual. “Every day is a choice,” says the abbott of the monastery, echoing Peggy’s own dawning realisation.
Writer-director Paul Harrill’s debut is an impressive accomplishment, and one particularly remarkable for the deftness of touch with which it addresses such profound issues as religion, identity and personal fulfilment.