Review: 6 Years

There are two reasons to watch the slight and excruciatingly directionless romantic drama 6 Years: Ben Rosenfield and most especially Taissa Farmiga. Much like her older sister Vera, Farmiga is a terrifically expressive actress who has a knack for elevating even the most mediocre material. That knack is well-exercised here but even Farmiga's efforts are defeated by the lackluster execution, rendering the film a dedicatedly frustrating watch.

Largely improvised and presented in an unvarnished, naturalistic style, writer-director Hannah Fidell's fifth feature focuses on Farmiga's Mel and Rosenfield's Dan, who suddenly find their six-year relationship challenged by a series of often petty arguments and the more serious considerations of defining their futures. Everyone around them finds it odd they've been together for so long despite the many shots of the two twentysomething Texas sweethearts in idyllic bliss.

Nevertheless, there is a simmering dissatisfaction that turns silly arguments into unexpected outbursts of physical violence. Dan doesn't think much of Mel's friends, who are constantly drunk; Mel feels out of place with the slightly older, but no less drunk, group at the record label where Dan interns. Dan shares an impulsive kiss with his co-worker Amanda (Lindsay Burdge, who appeared in Fidell's last feature A Teacher), who exists as yet another melodramatic wrench in the couple's life. Fidell shoves a lot into this 80-minute film - endless drunkenness, unfaithfulness, near-rape, drunk-driving, several rounds of breaking up and making up - but it's all too clichéd and clumsy to generate any real substance.

One isn't quite sure how Fidell's tale is bereft of any forward momentum given that similarly-themed films like Like Crazy and Blue Valentine deployed the less-is-more approach with infinitely more rewarding results. Every scene in 6 Years is undone by predictability and an uncoordination in production. There should be intrigue to be found in the lovers' emotional confusion as they navigate their way through the realisation that life will not be how they planned it, and especially in Mel's desperation to balance her instinct to hold on even as she knows it's time to let go.

6 Years

Directed by: Hannah Fidell

Written by: Hannah Fidell

Starring: Taissa Farmiga, Ben Rosenfield, Lindsay Burdge, Joshua Leonard, Dana Wheeler-Nicholson