A family man endures a mid-life crisis in Everything Strange and New, Frazer Bradshaw’s drama that simmers beneath middle class life in North Oakland, California. The film was nominated for Best First Feature at the 2011 Spirit Awards. It's now streaming online.
Jerry McDaniel is Wayne, a husband and carpenter yearning for the carefree days before his two sons were born. Wayne and his homemaker wife Renee (Beth Lisick) enjoyed each other much more then. Wayne didn’t yet know that she had a mood disorder. Renee lashes out at him often, usually about money. He reminds her to take her meds.
Their mortgage is now higher than what their home is worth. Adulthood becomes a monotonous struggle. Yet when Wayne takes his family to a restaurant, or reads a bedtime story to the frolicking four- and five-year-olds who ignore him, he seems like the perfect dad.
Everything Strange and New shows house after house in a low income neighborhood along Martin Luther King Junior Boulevard. Wayne stands on a rooftop, looking out over other rooftops like Larry Gopnik in A Serious Man. For a brief moment, I feared that he would jump.
Set in a liberal, economically depressed area, the film is punctuated by sudden, exultant strains of a post-modern jig. Melancholy is lightened with daily routines. Kent Sparling wrote the outstanding score. Saxophonist Dan Plonsey performs.
Where’s the excitement, the sense of new possibilities? Wayne goes out with his buddies for beers after work.
It’s “easy to forget” how much he loves his wife and sons, and how much they love him. Meanwhile he renovates a Victorian home for another unseen family. The camera lingers at a window. Outside is a tree. You can imagine how beautiful the space will become, and sense the memories it will hold.
Bradshaw finds hope and possibility in everyday images, startling you with the avant garde. When Wayne opens the front door one day, he hears Renee talking to the kids. Like a stranger, he stands and listens. The eerie, alien moment lengthens. Who are they? Who is he? He turns to leave.
Wayne tells his friends Manny (the late Luis Saguar) and Leo (Rigo Chacon Jr.) that he wants to study electrical engineering. “I think I missed my calling,” he says. “It’s not about being happy all the time,” Manny tells him. “It’s about being happy more than not.”
Each friend faces his own crisis. Wayne discovers Manny in his car getting a cocaine fix. Not long afterwards, Wayne is surprised when Leo comes on to him as they watch the game. Divorced father Leo says he’s not gay.
McDaniel’s heartfelt, quiet voice-overs reveal modern angst. Arms and legs swing from his tall, lithe frame. Playing the sad clown at a birthday party, he wears baggy overalls.
Bradshaw weaves experimental elements into the narrative in a natural, enigmatic way. Families pose for portraits. Traffic moves backwards. Wayne appears in his clown makeup, imagining what he would really like to be doing. The gently surreal, futuristic feeling.
McDaniel also played a clown in the video Sonata (2004). Lisick has directed, written and acted in several short films including Sinking State and Diving for Pears.
Bradshaw also served as cinematograper, writer and editor for this film.
If you like Everything Strange and New, you might enjoy: A Serious Man; Barney’s Version.
Everything Strange and New 2009 / NR (language, sexual situations) / 1 hour, 24 mins
Cast Overview: Jerry McDaniel, Beth Lisick, Luis Saguar, Rigo Chacon Jr., Oliver McDaniel, Finnegan McDaniel
Director: Frazer Bradshaw
Genre: Drama, Indie
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