There’s something to be said for the power of belief. No matter what the object is, choosing to believe or not believe has tremendous ability to alter the course of our lives, in ways both big and small. STAG, now playing at the 2023 Panic Fest, explores the idea of belief as a tool of power in ways both common and unexpected.
Written and directed by Alexandra Spieth, STAG tells the story of two women, former best friends who have been estranged from one another for years, living entirely opposite lives, who reconnect under the backdrop of a bachelorette party. With layer upon layer of awkward tension building at every possible interaction, it’s easy to pass the film off as faltering altogether. And while it does have it’s issues as it goes, mostly when it comes to tonal shift, I think it is trying for more than meets the eye. The awkwardness is unrelenting—almost smothering, in fact—it feels intentionally so. The conflicting dynamics of the friend group serve to remind us all of our most embarrassing attempts at reconnection, when the only version of a person we thought we’d know our whole lives is the version of them frozen in the same stage of life they last saw us. If years have passed since then, well, they’re a whole other person now, someone we’ve never even met. Life is transformation, and if we miss out on any one stage there is the ever-present possibility we’ve missed something vital.
So it is with Jenny (Mary Glen Fredrick) who flounders through navigating her estranged best friend Mandy’s (Elizabeth Ramos) varied friend group. What drove Jenny and Mandy apart is, of course, not revealed until far into the film, but all the same no matter which way we turn the dynamics feel odd. Female friendships—and particularly those in film—are of course constant exercises in power hierarchies, yet something under the surface here just feels off. Positioned somewhere between WE SUMMON THE DARKNESS and SISSY, STAG‘s overly-bright smiles and barbed jabs serve to conceal a heartbreaking tale of broken trust and attempts at forgiveness that go almost beyond our ability to articulate. Have you ever made a mistake so big you didn’t have the right words, or tone, or phrase to accurately encompass the depth of your need for reconciliation? Ever wanted to rekindle something despite the bone-deep knowledge that, probably, it has long since decayed? If so, then you’re right at home with Jenny and her desperate attempts to hold onto Mandy and rebuild a bridge she’d long burned down with kerosene.
Tonally, STAG is not quite always successful. There are some reveals that seem to fall flat, some cruel jabs that don’t make sense except to serve a single moment that got no real prior build up, and yet I found enough originality and madness going on to make it worth giving a shot. It’s easy to see how the film may not work for some, but in the right audience, the chaos that unfolds in the film’s climax is great fun.
When able to fully let loose, the antagonist characters, Casey (Stephanie Hogan) and Constance (Katie Wieland), seem to be having the best time of anyone there, but Fredrick’s performance as Jenny is equally well-served in her understated, clearly long-suffering way. While this mix of personalities does play into the disjointed tones, it also gives the film’s final act a bittersweet note that lifts the story from being just a faltering and severed connection into something meatier.
STAG is now playing at the hybrid 2023 Panic Fest.
Tags: Alexandra Spieth, Elizabeth Ramos, Film Festivals, Katie Wieland, Mary Glen Fredrick, Panic Fest 2023, Sissy, Stag, Stephanie Hogan, We Summon the Darkness
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