The Drowning, directed by faculty member Bette Gordon and co-written by adjunct professor Stephen Molton, screened at the Lisbon and Sintra Film Festival in Portugal late last month.
The Drowning is a psychological thriller, starring Josh Charles (The Good Wife), and Julia Stiles CC ‘05 (Jason Bourne), and tells the story of “Tom Seymour (Charles), a psychologist who, while walking with his wife Lauren (Stiles), jumps into an icy river to save a drowning man, only to discover that he’s the same boy he put away for murder twelve years earlier. When the boy reappears in Tom’s life, Tom is drawn into a potentially dangerous reinvestigation of the case.”
The film has received strong critical praise: David Edelstein, of NPR’s Fresh Air and Vulture Magazine, called it “a gripping study of male weakness” and “a prime specimen of ‘the paranoid style’”; Glenn Kenny writing for The New York Times said the film “distinguishes itself by applying a depth of psychological observation that yields a genuinely unsettling vision.”
The film has spent most the year playing at prestigious festivals nationwide, following its release by IFC Cinema in May, including the Los Angeles Women’s International Film Festival and the Woodstock Film Festival and is now available to stream on Netflix, iTunes, Amazon, and on DVD/ Blu-Ray.
Bette, who was profiled in the Metrograph last year, also served on the jury for the short film competition at the festival and her acclaimed debut feature, Variety, had a special screening.
