#Annie baker the flick movie#

I am delighted that Annie Baker has won the Pulitzer - though wish it had been for one of her other plays, such as Circle Mirror Transformation. (It would have been better an hour shorter, though.) “The Flick” is a play about movie-lovers that theater-lovers can love, if they’re patient enough.

The characters argue over movies, and play games about movies, in ways that are hilarious, touching, and even informative. Interspersed with this development is much talk about movies.

#Annie baker the flick movie#

Slowly, with painstaking care, we eventually see the three develop over one summer into what could be called a love triangle, although that implies the kind of swirling, romantic action that happens in the movies, not the awkward, unrequited, half-articulated desires and fears that happen among them in this movie theater while they are sweeping up in-between (unseen) movies – interaction that feels so real that it’s nearly painful. Even those theatergoers who wind up agreeing that the play should be shortened may not mind much, but to me, the excessive length indicates something of a breakdown – in Baker and Gold’s exquisite sense of timing, even in the bond between these great theater artists and the audience. “The Flick” is three hours and 15 minutes – 195 minutes (including intermission.) On hearing the length, devotees of their work may think it inconsequential, and the truth is “The Flick” is wonderful in all ways but this one. Ok, not really it only starts to feel that way.īaker’s previous plays have all been no more than two hours. The cast is exceptional, and the play is just as quietly breathtaking as their previous efforts.īut it also runs longer than their other plays, much longer – since the characters talk about films all the time, I’ll say Heaven’s Gate longer, reaching towards Andy Warhol’s Empire State Building film longer. Those who have seen the previous gently-paced, meticulous, near miraculous collaborations between playwright Annie Baker and director Sam Gold - “Circle Mirror Transformation,” “The Aliens,” their adaptation of “Uncle Vanya” – may be similarly entranced by “The Flick,” which has now opened at Playwrights Horizons, focusing on three employees of a run-down movie theater in Worcester County, Massachusetts. My mixed reaction to The Flick is evident in this excerpt from my review: Noah Hinsdale, Griffin Birney, and Sydney Lucas in Fun Home, Pulitzer finalist Watson, a member of the Dweeb Team, in The Curious Case of the (Watson) Intelligence, Pulitzer finalist (Buyer and Cellar is running at the theater through the end of August.) FinalistsĪlso nominated as finalists in this category were “ The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence,” by Madeleine George, a cleverly constructed play that uses several historical moments – from the 1800s to the 2010s – to meditate on the technological advancements that bring people together and tear them apart and “Fun Home,” book and lyrics by Lisa Kron, music by Jeanine Tesori, a poignant musical adaptation of a graphic memoir by cartoonist Alison Bechdel, exploring sexual identity amid complicated family constraints and relationships. Update: Barrow Street Theater plans to produce The Flick in the near future, according to a spokesman for its producer, Scott Rudin, although all details are to be announced. Annie Baker’s The Flick has won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.Ĭitation: “Awarded to “The Flick,” by Annie Baker, a thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.”