Lucien and Regina Echevarría (Jason Cortlund and Julia Estep) live a self-sufficient lifestyle foraging for wild mushrooms, which they sell at the trendiest restaurants in New York. Theirs is a hand to mouth existence, scraping together $3 just to buy petrol. They find themselves at a crossroads when Regina is offered a job that will provide more money and security in contrast to Lucin’s desire for a simple life.
From the first minute we meet them, it’s obvious the Echevarrías have come to just exist with each other rather than truly live. Despite the increasing tension between the two, there’s never any chest beating or throwing vases against the wall. Instead, there’s a quiet melancholy that runs deep in our protagonists’ love that makes us spur them to on to solve their grievances. Whilst this is in part to the strong performances of our leads, it’s the script that truly makes the film stand out. Even characters that grace our screens for a few minutes are fully realised.
Written and co-directed by Cortlund, Now, Forager is a bittersweet drama about the disintegration and rebuilding of a relationship that echoes the kind of films the studios should be making.
Early Bird Film Society 