Starting with In the Family’s discreetly told story of a family trauma, Wang’s films, seen together, showcase a civically minded vision that demands attention
Fittingly for self-distributed works by a true
American independent, Patrick Wang’s four features to date stand tall with a graceful and tenacious outsiderdom. Their handmade quality and occasional rough edges may have made them a hard sell, but this seems unfair. There’s a collectivist spirit, moral conviction and self-taught experimentalism at work here – the latter given increasing room to express itself as Wang has gradually untethered himself from realism – that demands attention.
Especially impressive is Wang’s 2011 debut In the Family (****) – starring Wang himself as Joey Williams, a Texan interior designer whose partner Cody (Trevor St John) is killed in a car accident. Cody’s will, written long before their relationship, states that his sister Eileen (Kelly McAndrew) should act as guardian to Chip (a beautifully instinctive performance by Sebastian Banes), his six-year-old son by his previous heterosexual marriage. This leaves the devastated Joey, himself a foster kid, flailing for legal options to preserve his relationship with Chip.