Thou Wast Mild and Lovely is a 2014 experimental thriller film written and directed by Josephine Decker and starring Joe Swanberg, Sophie Traub, and Robert Longstreet.
Cast
Joe Swanberg as Akin
Sophie Traub as Sarah
Robert Longstreet as Jeremiah
Kristin Slaysman Drew
Matt Orme as Caren
Geoff Marslett as Richard
Production
To raise money for the film's post-production, Decker ran a crowdfunding campaign on the website Kickstarter with a goal of $15,500. The campaign closed on August 22, 2013, having successfully raised $18,517. Decker has cited John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden as inspiration for elements of the film, though David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter has compared the visuals of the film to the works of Terrence Malick. The visual style continues some of the experimental camera techniques Decker and cinematographer Ashley Connor had used in their previous collaboration, Butter on the Latch, including some shots that were recorded without a lens on the camera.
Release
Media
In September 2014, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely was picked up for theatrical and VOD distribution by Cinelicious Pics along with Decker's 2013 film Butter on the Latch with a release set for November 2014. The films are now available on iTunes, Fandor, Amazon and Vimeo-on-Demand in the US, on Amazon and iTunes in the UK and on VOD in Italy.
Reception
Critical response
Thou Wast Mild and Lovely received a positive response from critics. Richard Brody of The New Yorker highly praised the film, saying "Like most classic stories, this one is simple, but its realization is so surprising in its details, so original in its visual invention, as to make most other movies seem shot by the numbers." and "Normally it would be an insult to say that a movie that runs a mere hour and a quarter feels as if it were much longer, but here it’s both accurate and high praise: vast realms of emotional experience are condensed into the movie’s brief span." In a subsequent piece for The New Yorker, Brody named Thou Wast Mild and Lovely the second best film of 2014, just behind Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel. Brody also listed Robert Longstreet as "Best Supporting Actor"; Ashley Connor in "Best Cinematography". Decker's other 2014 film, Butter on the Latch, also made the Brody's top ten, clocking in at tenth place. Subsequent to its Berlinale 2014 premiere, Peter Knegt of Indiewire called Thou Wast Mild and Lovely "The talk of the Berlin International Film Festival… with tense eroticism and experimental, largely free-form filmmaking". Josh Slater-Williams of Sound on Sight called it "one of the strongest, most striking American Gothic works of recent memory." In his review of the film, Eric Kohn of Indiewire gave the film a B+ rating and commented, "Its labyrinthine characteristics suggest the unholy marriage of Ingmar Bergman and David Lynch" and "Decker concocts a wholly enveloping vision of isolation told with a grimly poetic style that wanders all over the place but never stops playing by its own eerie rulebook." Jenni Miller of The A.V. Club moderately praised the film and described Sophie Traub's Sarah as "fascinating", despite noting "There are a few too many experimental flourishes to effectively build the sort of tension that’s necessary to really make the ending pay off." Nicolas Rapold of The New York Times gave the film a more mixed review, noting "The setup's clichés grow harder to ignore, despite a welcome mischievous streak and some bucolic imagery." David Rooney of The Hollywood Reporter stated, "It's not uninteresting but too self-consciously arty to rank Decker as a mature filmmaking voice."
