‘Pink Skies Ahead’: Kelly Oxford’s Debut Is Charming And Irresistible [AFI Review]

The blue-haired Winona (Jessica Barden), while driving, vents to an unseen man about living with her parents. She fumes, “I want to stick a fork into an electrical socket every minute that I’m there.” A recent-college dropout, the twenty-year-old Winona lives in arrested development with her parents in their Los Angeles suburban home. Winona is flirtatious and provocative. She tiptoes around her supposedly judgmental mom Pamela (Marcia Gay Harden) and works for her father Richard (Michael McKean), as an office assistant (a nepotistic position that requires little work of her). But her rudderless life comes with several caveats: She’s a writer who doesn’t believe she’s lived enough to be a good writer. And unbeknownst to her, she suffers from an anxiety disorder. 

Set in the ’90s, posters of L7 adorn her room, and Smashing Pumpkins needle drop color the soundscape’s warm tones. It’s sorta fitting that MTV Studios opted to acquire this punky coming-of-age story ahead of its AFI Fest premiere. It’s also a fitting subject for first-time director Kelly Oxford, who rose to prominence through her hilarious Twitter account, penned two best-selling collections of essays in 2013 and 2017, and even inspired Jimmy Kimmel’s hit segment Mean Tweets. She has worked through her own anxiety disorder. Her charming feature directorial debut “Pink Skies Ahead,” initially struggles to find a groove, but when it does, it’s beautiful in its honest brutality.

Barden, along with an assured veteran cast, pretty much carries the film’s tropey opening half. Consider Oxford propelling the story through Winona’s journaled narrations as one way she clumsily relates the character’s interiority. Other compositions, such as the overhead of Winona and her best friend talking to each other on the kitchen floor are too familiar with other works in the same vein. Oxford’s script also suffers from so much ungainly exposition, and so much telling and not showing. Take Winona and the mild-mannered Ben (Lewis Pullman), for example. Winona approaches the Ph.D. philosophy candidate in a bar and becomes smitten with him even though he’s quite boring. In fact, Winona describes him as a less funny Ross from “Friends.” When they meet for their first date, Winona rambles through backstories of how she met her friends Stephanie (Odeya Rush) and Hayley (Melora Walters) and how much they mean to her. However, we’re not treated to many heartwarming scenes of the trio together. Instead, it’s Oxford trying to accomplish quick character work in clunky spaces.   

“Pink Skies Ahead” operates smoothest in Barden’s hands. She delivers on the character’s quirky sense of humor, on her propensity to blurt out whatever’s on her mind. Winona has failed her driver’s test more times than she can count. And as a hypochondriac, with a medical file longer than her hair, she still visits her pediatrician Dr. Cotton (a sensitive Henry Winkler) as her primary care physician. He’s the one, who during her latest visit, suggests she might have an anxiety disorder. He prescribes her an appointment with therapist Doctor Monroe (Mary J. Blige). It’s a busy opening act with a character who’s so clearly a character in her exaggerations (though later some of the overplaying is redeemed) and yet Barden is so fully committed, she sustains our interests. 

But it’s the narrative’s second half, which sheds its many coming-of-age motifs, that sees Oxford operating in a space so personal, we might as well be inside her spirit. See, Winona’s parents are tired of waiting for their daughter. They want her to get a job. They want her to find a purpose. But between sighting her father with a suspicious other-woman, and her effort to fit into Ben’s homely life, though he makes her feel relaxed, she begins to crumble. She suffers from her first panic attacks. A high-pitch squeal, and blurred POV shots, initially signal the oncoming attacks and give way to Adrian Galvin and Ariel Loh’s vibrating score into a devastating performance from Barden. In the unnerving attacks, Barden cuts the threads that have held Winona together. And from her, bursts a gripping authenticity, that would worry us to exhaustion, if she weren’t so commanding. It’s the most real, most empathetic expression of anxiety in recent memory. And for Barden, who has assumed fine supporting roles in “Hanna” and “Jungleland,” and a lead role in “End Of The F***ing World,” it’s a star-making turn.

In her feature directorial debut, Oxford stumbles several times with her visual storytelling, the growing pain of a new director. Her capable cast, especially Michael McKean’s calm performance, steady her. But once she gets to her purpose — offering a humanizing portrayal of mental health — “Pink Skies Ahead” glides with unquestionable sincerity.  It’s a life-affirming coming-of-age story that’s as delightful as its irresistible subject. [B]

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Robert Daniels

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