previously published on Cineuropa
Is starting afresh ever an option? Can we simply reset our lives? Is it up to us and only us, or does it actually depend on the environment? These are the questions that filmmaker Nejc Gazvoda (known for 2011’s A Trip and 2013’s Dual, as well as for collaborating on the script for Rok Biček’s award-winning Class Enemy) asks in his third fiction feature, Role Model, which premiered recently at the Festival of Slovenian Film, while its domestic distribution is scheduled for this autumn.
The recently divorced Maja (Mojca Funkl, glimpsed in Miroslav Mandić’s Sanremo and Matevž Luzar’s Orchestra) and her 15-year-old son Jan (newcomer France Mandić, the son of famous Slovenian actor Marko) come from Ljubljana to an unnamed small town on the Croatian border. It is spring in the pandemic year of 2021, and the schools are about to re-open after months of online teaching. Maja and Jan have to “go” to the same school, she as the psychologist and he as a final-year student, and it presents a challenge for both of them, especially after it becomes clear that they are not the types that fit in easily and that they had something of a posh life back in Ljubljana.
During her first week at work, Maja strikes up a rivalry with another newly appointed psychologist, Neja (Klara Kuk), over their differences in opinion on how to approach the problematic suicidal ninth-grader Jakob and his impulsive mother Marina (Marina Redžepović, of The Staffroom fame, in an impressive turn here). On the other hand, Jan, being the “new guy”, gets hazed and bullied by his class, especially when he unwittingly takes over the title of “Sunshine” from Jakob in an especially brutal “game”. Both mother and son meet people in the neighbourhood who may potentially offer them a chance to escape – for her, it is a slacker named Gregor (Matej Puc), who lives next door, and for him a mysterious, awkward, slightly older dude also named Jan (Jure Henigman), who fancies himself as a musician and martial artist. But as Maja succumbs more and more to alcohol, Jan thinks of ending things for good the only way he can think of…
Gazvoda establishes a beautiful and functional cinematic language early on, relying on static, usually long-distance shots in the cinematography of Jan Šuster, which suggest observation, and a foggy colour scheme that hints at the confusion of moving into a new environment. While the abundant use of classical music ramps up the tension, the script co-written by Gazvoda and Tomislav Zajec also offers some relief in the awkwardly humorous moments hinging on Maja’s nature as being stuck up and snobbish, and the neighbour Jan acting weird. Also, Gazvoda’s work with France Mandić is stellar, but it also shows that the latter is a natural-born actor capable even of micro-acting in his first role.
Unfortunately, Role Model loses momentum and breaks its own “rules”, directing-wise, as the script raises the stakes constantly and becomes more of a standard-issue film about bullying and the reaction to it – and it almost falls apart completely in the final section. While the filmmaker’s matter-of-fact attitude that teenagers can be cruel bastards (as is also the case with most of the adults) is quite refreshing, the influences of other, better films on the same topic are pretty transparent here. In the end, it seems that the helmer proverbially bit off more than he could chew, so he ended up being on the trail of something, but not quite catching up with it.
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