Movie Review: 'What Comes Around'

What Comes Around (2023)

Directed by Amy Redford

Written by Scott Organ

Starring Summer Phoenix, Kyle Gallner, Grace Van Dien, Indiana Affleck

Release Date August 4th, 2023

Published August 1st, 2023

What Comes Around is a deeply divisive and boldly abrasive drama. Director Amy Redford and writer Scott Organ, adapting Organ's own novel called The Thing with Feathers,' are playing with some big emotions and big themes. The film is about age inappropriate relations that border on criminality. The film skirts close to the line of exploitation in how it uses inappropriate sexual relationships for melodrama. That the film doesn't tip over into an overwrought parody is some kind of miracle that can be credited to a group of terrific actors.

Grace Van Dien stars in What Comes Around as Anna, a teenager, 17 to be precise, who has begun a dangerous online flirtation with an older man. She thinks he's only college aged, but the reality is that Eric (Kyle Gallner) is 28 years old. He started this online flirtation on a message board for people sharing poetry, when Anna was 16. Then, on the day Anna turns 17, Eric, whom Anna believed lived several states away, shows up at her door. Though she's initially creeped out by Eric, she soon comes around and is eventually sneaking him into her house, under the nose of her mother, Beth (Summer Phoenix) and her soon-to-be stepdad, Tim (Jesse Garcia).

If this were the only lying going on, it might not be so transgressive. However, Eric has a very, very big secret that threatens to blow up not just Anna's life but her entire family. Eric has a connection to Anna's mother that he has failed to mention in the time they've been connecting via poetry and Facetime. Similarly, Beth has not talked about a traumatic part of her past, Anna was 4 years old at the time and Beth had not met Tim by this point. She'd hoped that her past would stay in the past. That was until Eric arrived.

You will need to see What Comes Around to find out the nature of the connection between Eric and Beth, though I imagine you have a pretty good idea. The film plays fast and loose with this and the dicey nature of the subject matter and how it is treated crosses the line several times between genuinely compelling character work and the kind of daytime television, soap opera melodrama that becomes high camp on the big screen. I was tempted several times to dismiss What Comes Around as lightweight trash masquerading as a movie of substance.

Then, one of the members of this superb cast would pull me back in. That's especially true of Kyle Gallner. I've always admired the frightening, borderline feral quality Gallner brings to his outcast characters. He's great at bringing a broad sort of actorly damage to his performances, most often in movies that don't deserve such a level of DeNiro-esque commitment. Here however, Gallner's bone-deep weariness and odd demeanor is fitting of a man who has been through far too much in his underdeveloped psyche. Gallner's face and physical presence do as much acting as any line reading or exposition he delivers. He looks as deeply damaged as the movie tells us that he is.

Summer Phoenix, a member of the Phoenix acting dynasty, is equally great at rescuing What Comes Around from camp melodrama. Phoenix portrays Beth with a placid surface that becomes more and more frayed and haggard for her attempts to keep things together. Scenes where she is opposite of Gallner are charged with incredible tension on multiple levels and because both actors are so talented, it gives the film an electric charge. Phoenix is also a great foil for Van Dien as her daughter as the two have a wonderful mother-daughter vibe.

What Comes Around is boldly melodramatic, willingly going to dramatic extremes and seeing if the the ship can hold water. That it does indeed not sink under the weight of a potentially trashy conceit is impressive. The film tips so close to the edge of trash that the tightrope walk becomes part of the film's overall charm. Director Amy Redford appears as if she is barely containing this material from becoming a soupy melange of gross sexual exploitation. The tabloid quality of the story is hard to overcome but the filmmakers and especially the actors, pull it off. Instead of being an off-putting story that exploits sexual relationships between teens and adults, What Comes Around is a strikingly original and bold drama populated by some terrific performances.

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