Movie Review - The East

The East (2013)

Starring Brit Marling, Alexander Scarsgård, Ellen Page, Patricia Clarkson, Jason Ritter, and Julia Ormand

Directed by Zal Batmanglij

My conservative mindset certainly doesn't necessarily sympathize with the ecological terror group known as The East who take it upon themselves to secretly invade the homes and offices of big businesses and cause great harm to those whom they believe are corrupting the American people and the US soil on which they live.  However, director Zal Batmanglij and his co-writer Brit Marling give us a lead character in Sarah (also played by Marling) who, upon infiltrating the group as part of her job, questions The East's integrity particularly as the anarchist collective revs up their attacks, elevating them to more serious and possibly deadly retribution events.  Through the character of Sarah, a former FBI agent now working for an elite private intelligence firm, the audience at least gets a modicum of moral questioning of the group who aren't quite given a free pass.

Admittedly (and anyone who disagrees with this just doesn't want to face the facts), The East certainly portrays its titular group as the more morally correct figures here.  The group's leader Benji (Alexander Scarsgård) is romanticized by both the lens and the character of Sarah herself.  However, the film doesn't necessarily let the members of The East get off scott free -- and they absolutely shouldn't considering some of the truly terroristic acts they inflict on others.

Brit Marling has been on my list of impressive up-and-coming actresses ever since her turn in 2011's Another Earth and she continued to showcase her talents in the fantastic and underseen Arbitrage (which is streaming on Netflix...so watch it).  It's obvious Marling is a smart cookie -- she co-wrote both Another Earth and this film, both movies that don't dumb down anything for their viewers -- and I love that she imbues her characters with the same intelligence she must carry with herself in real life.

However, once you move behind Marling's Sarah, the film doesn't give its other characters as much depth as they probably should have.  It also doesn't help that the film flounders a bit in its epilogue-like final fifteen minutes.  There's part of me that feels the film cops out a little bit and then there's another part of me that realizes it was really the only way the writers could've ended it without alienating one side or another of the political spectrum.  But then I ask myself, when has alienating one side of the political spectrum stopped Hollywood before?

The RyMickey Rating:  C+