Softness of Bodies – Film Review

Director: Jordan Blady
Writer: Jordan Blady
Stars: Dasha Nekrasova, Morgan Krantz, Alexander Tschernek

Available on Amazon Prime from Feb 14

Charlotte Parks (Dasha Nekrasova) is a young American woman living in Berlin. She works as a Barista by day but by night she explores her first love; poetry! She has just been nominated for a prestigious award that will see her work published. She hopes she will finally start to get the recognition that she has fought so hard for. The arrival of her ex-boyfriend Oliver Ross (Morgan Krantz) from America starts to complicate things, that and her arrest for shoplifting!

This is the first feature film by writer/ director Jordan Blady. He directed a variety of documentaries and shorts before this point. This film falls nicely into the long tradition of American independent works, with a dreamy, disaffected main character trying to find her place in the world. Despite the various strands of the film, there is an incident about halfway through that forces it to lurch in an unexpected direction. It is surprising that they felt the need for such an event as there was more than enough in the story without.

The unusual aspect of this film is the setting in Berlin. The film makes great use of the location, with long scenes of Charlotte cycling through the city. Dasha Nekrasova is impressive in the part of Charlotte and looks suitable blasé and nonchalant throughout. The film last only 74 minutes and the ending is quite abrupt, almost happening mid sentence. It’s not a film that demands your attention or even one that will last particularly long in your memory, but despite this, it is quite charming. There’s more than enough interesting characters to draw the viewer into Charlotte’s world.