Black Bear

At a remote lake house in the Adirondack Mountains, a couple entertains an out-of-town guest looking for inspiration in her filmmaking. The group quickly falls into a calculated game of desire, manipulation, and jealousy, unaware of how dangerously convoluted their lives will soon become in the filmmaker’s pursuit of a work of art, which blurs the boundaries between autobiography and invention. The lives and sentiments of three artists (played by Aubrey Plaza, Christopher Abbott, and Sarah Gadon) interlock and are pushed to provocative limits in this enthralling drama that rejoices in subverting expectations and exploring the layers of a fragmented world. Writer-director Lawrence Michael Levine lures us into a tense and intrepid tale of gender dynamics and temptation, using the complexity of relationships to detonate the thin line separating art from life. Gadon, Abbott, and Plaza star as ideal players in this dark game of deception, navigating self-awareness and vulnerability as stakes pile higher and the suspicion grows that victory may elude all of them. (Sundance Film Festival)