Image: Royalty Hightower in The Fits; photograph courtesy thefitsfilm.
An enthusiastic din — busy, buzzing and bustling — draws 11-year-old Toni (debutant Royalty Hightower) to an auditorium within her local community centre. Inside, dance drill ensemble the Lionesses strut their stuff, and while the shy tomboy is compelled to watch, she’s not yet willing to anything else. Even peering on is a break from the status quo; her presence within the gymnasium stems from her penchant for hanging around her older brother’s (Da’Sean Minor) boxing sessions. Usually, Toni trains with the guys, sparring stoically and staying largely silent. Today, she’s fascinated by the ladies, their camaraderie and the accompanying excited cheers.
In her feature filmmaking debut (with documentary Twelve Ways to Sunday also on her resume), writer/director Anna Rose Holmer relays Toni’s early but influential encounter with the all-girl group through four specific, meticulous shots. First, both the character and the film glimpse through a small rectangular window, spying only a sliver of the action. Next, the helmer looks over her protagonist from behind, with Toni’s tentative frame pushed against a door. Sights from inside the room follow, initially offering a closer view of the energetic routines on display, and then looking back at Toni through the same tiny pane of glass.
It’s a brief sequence; however even as it unravels, it stands out as one of the movie’s most meaningful. With cinematographer Paul Yee (East of Main Street: Taking the Lead), Holmer makes plain the crux of her co-written screenplay (as scripted with editor Saela Davis and producer Lisa Kjerulff): the distance Toni feels from her peers, the longing to belong and the fear of stumbling beyond her comfort zone. The girl identifies as an outsider looking in, and assumes that she’s seen that way by everyone else. As The Fits charts her entry into this world — first trying out her own moves alone in the same room, then nervously auditioning for the squad, and finally finding her way forward — it unpacks these feelings. That Toni’s arrival at the Lionesses coincides with af spate of epileptic seizures and fainting spells inflicting her new teammates adds a further layer to her alienation, apprehension and anxiety, and matches her inner emotional tumult.
Indeed, though it can be characterised as both a coming-of-age effort shaped by and partially told through dance and movement, as well as an enigmatic mood piece that offers an effective manifestation of the uncertainties of being an adolescent on the cusp of womanhood, The Fits is a precise work of intimate, internalised drama above all else. Ensuring audiences see the film’s events through Toni’s eyes is one of its main aims; ensuring they share the conflict and confusion raging inside her heart and head is as well. Accordingly, Holmer favours a somewhat abstract style, including exacting framing that knows when to envelop its lead with space and when to constrict her within the image’s boundaries, shifting focus that mirrors the limitations of her perspective, selective sound levels that often place her out of earshot of conversations, and a woodwind-heavy score that bristles with subjective intensity. Each may seem myopic on paper, as might their combination, but in anchoring the feature within its protagonist’s plight, they prove expansive on screen.
As does Hightower’s masterful performance, a portrayal as successful in detailing Toni’s psychological state as Holmer’s striking and poetic approach, and as expertly choreographed and yet naturally rhythmic, too. With her face continually placed in the centre of the screen, she provides a largely non-verbal portal into a particular mindset — and with the film preferring to watch her physical reactions to her situation, as well as her corresponding transformations, rather than simply rely on point-of-view shots, the smallest of gestures remain revelatory. When a friendship organically blossoms with fellow drill newcomer Beezy (Alexis Neblett), the tiniest sparkle in Hightower’s eye is unmistakable; when awkward practising results in an assured dance breakthrough, so is the confident squaring of Toni’s shoulders. In fact, Hightower’s presence so commandingly conveys the convulsive storm her character doesn’t realise she has inside her that, in every impressionistic aesthetic choice, The Fits feels like it was made in her image.
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
The Fits
Director: Anna Rose Holmer
USA, 2015, 72 mins
Rating: 15+
Essential Independents: American Cinema, Now
Sydney: 17 May – June 1
Melbourne: 18 May – June 1
Brisbane: 19 May – June 1
Canberra: 19 May – June 1
Adelaide: 26 May – June 8
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