SLAMDANCE 2020 FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW! Molly’s Single is a movie I love! I loved it for all of its unpretentiousness, its quirky and damaged protagonist, but most of all, for its brazenly raw truthfulness. Molly’s Single packs more honesty and heartache into just under 25 minutes than most mainstream movies do with longer lengths and bigger budgets.
The story, on the surface, chronicles the attempts of Molly (Magi Calcagne in what should be a breakout performance) to get back into the dating scene after a devastating breakup. But writer-director Ariel Gardner probes deeper and posits questions we’ve all asked ourselves concerning self-preservation and perseverance after a traumatic event.
“…chronicles the attempts of Molly…to get back into the dating scene after a devastating breakup.”
Molly is aware that, to a large degree, the reason for the breakup was her own and experiences tremendous guilt. However, she must accept that it’s over, really over. As he is breaking up with her, the boyfriend makes explicit to Molly that she never contact him in the future. “How do you keep loving somebody who hates you?” Molly wonders. It’s a fair question and one that will resonate with anyone who has endured a nasty breakup that was, more or less, one-sided.
The emotionally torturous breakup Molly endures at the beginning of the film (it’s a doozy!) compels her to examine the very depths of her chemical make-up as a human being. Her now ex-boyfriend thinks she is a horrible person, he even says as much to her, so Molly opines that maybe she is. Perhaps she is a bad apple or that she’s the “rotten tooth that he had to pull out.” That’s pretty dark stuff. However, when you are withstanding the mourning period of a breakup, these thoughts present themselves.
"…This film is a revelation."
