What Lies West
Facing our fears is one of the most anxiety-inducing things imaginable. That goes without saying, of course, but when you have something that scares you, it’s only through a courageous act that you can get past it. In her debut as a writer-director, Jessica Ellis says this as simply, and engagingly, as anyone ever has on film with a story of genuine heart about three people who have fears they are facing, and by the end, are working through them in their own ways.
We begin with Nicolette (Nicolette Kaye Ellis). She has just graduated with an acting degree, and rather than just make her to Hollywood and go on auditions, she is going to try to build her image as an Instagram personality before going after success out west. Her parents have fixed up her room for her, but hopefully, with the help of Alex (Jack Vincenty)- who claims to have connections for her- she won’t have to use it for long. While Alex seems to drag his heels, though, she needs some money for her eventual move. One day, a friend of her mom’s comes over with a babysitting proposition for Nicolette; she wants Nicolette to watch her daughter Chloe (Chloe Moore) until she gets back to school, and she’ll pay her well. Nicolette agrees, but the job will not be as easy as she thinks.
The catch with Chloe is that she’s 16. When Nicolette comes over, she basically just spends the day in her room, and one day, forces Nicolette into a walk to the lake and back. Chloe’s mother Anne (Anna Peterson) would- and does- flip when she finds out; she’s worried that Nicolette is not taking looking after her daughter seriously, and actively putting her in harm’s way. After some bumps in the road, the two girls eventually build a rapport, and when Anne is out of town for a few days, Chloe wants to go on a 40-mile hike to the beach. Needless to say, this has to be done on the down-low, but when tensions arise on the trip, the pair are not sure if they can continue.
Ellis’s script follows some familiar mismatched pair/coming-of-age tropes while feeling like something genuinely fresh. That’s thanks to the themes of facing our fears, being oneself, and committing to something that matters to you, which she tackles head-on, and keep us engaged. With Nicolette and Chloe, we also get concerns about body image that have been forced upon women for generations, and it’s refreshing to see these two be themselves in spite of those when faced with people who might bully them because of it. For Chloe, she also has a mother who’s projected her anxieties about life onto her daughter, and while it’d be easy to dismiss Anne as simply an over-protective mother, Ellis has a surprise for us that is note-perfect in the moment, and resonates with all three characters moving forward.
One of the most deceptively profound pieces of dialogue I’ve ever heard about being adult is contained in “What Lies West.” While Nicolette is telling Chloe about her plan, and why she’s pursuing it, Chloe asks her why she wants to have an image consultant to basically tell her everything she needs to do- “How will that matter?” in the long-run. Nicolette tells her, “It doesn’t have to matter, it has to work. That’s what being an adult is, right?” It’d be easy to dismiss those words as simply something said by a young woman who hasn’t experienced enough of being an adult to know what that is, but as a 43-year-old myself, I’ve found myself thinking along those lines over the years when it feels like I’ve had to go down a particular path just to achieve some success. If you haven’t, I might say that you’re fortunate to have never had any real self-doubt in what you’re doing, but I would imagine everyone has felt this way over the years. Our journey is to get to a place where what we do not just works, but matters to us in the long run. By the end, all three of these women seem to have gotten to that point, in their own ways. In making this film, Ellis has certainly done that for herself.
