If you’re fortunate enough to go to a four-year college, that can be an overwhelming adjustment from living at home. But there’s still something of a comforting bubble about the campus experience, from the reliable routines of dorm life to scheduled meals and classes to the fact you’re living in a community where the vast majority of your fellow citizens are within a few years of your age. Post-graduation, that’s when the real world hits.
That’s when you realize that after living your life in increments of eight years, four years, four years, it’s all wide open. It can be exhilarating, and it can be terrifying, and it can be paralyzing, and it’s mostly the latter two emotions for Natalia Dyer’s Annie in writer-director Jac Cron’s beautifully shot and almost achingly melancholy but unfortunately static “Chestnut.” Cron’s feature debut is indicative of a filmmaker with exciting potential and there are moments when “Chestnut” achieves some perfect indie vibes, but despite the fine work from Dyer and co-stars Rachel Keller and Danny Ramirez, we’re left with the distinct feeling that these people aren’t as interesting or as complicated as they believe themselves to be.
(Granted, that’s probably the case with the vast majority of us when we’re in our early 20s, but it doesn’t necessarily make for enough compelling material to carry a full-length film.) Recent finance grad Annie is spending the summer in her Philadelphia college town before taki.
