Language Lessons
Shout! StudiosClearly created in and inspired by the COVID-19 pandemic, Natalie Morales' Language Lessons sees a connection form between a man still working through a series of complex emotions named Adam (Mark Duplass) and a Spanish instructor named Cariño (Natalie Morales) while they work together over a video conference program similar to Zoom. Through tragedy, a deep relationship is formed between the two of them over this virtual platform.
When it comes to films clearly resulting from the limitations of the COVID-19 pandemic, Language Lessons feels refreshing in a few ways. The first is the distance it puts between itself and the pandemic. Whilst the struggles of Zoom meetings will forever be linked to the experiences found in lockdown and the pandemic, Language Lessons never ties itself to this time in plot or thematic weight. The characters – especially Adam – are feeling isolated, but the film finds other methods to use as a catalyst for these emotions. With the world still dealing with the fresh and continued damage of the pandemic, this space feels nice and well-paced especially for a film attempting to be a bit lighter than that topic deserves.
The other massive positive within the film is Natalie Morales herself. She not only continues to show promise as a young filmmaker between the recent releases of both this and Hulu's Plan B, but she also brings an empathetic and raw performance that is impossible not to feel charmed by. No matter the emotions, Morales feels completely genuine and natural. She is the heart and soul this film needs and over-delivers on what easily could have been phoned in and forgettable.
This is especially important, and the film feels like a rare misfire for Mark Duplass. In both the screenplay and his performance, the classic Duplass quirkiness that works wonderfully in very specific contexts is felt. While a project such as Creep might benefit from this, something more grounded and personable like Language Lessons instead suffers from its presence. He constantly feels out of place and his chemistry with Morales is never quite found. It isn't that Duplass is failing to achieve his goal, but rather that the goal he is seeking out to accomplish is fundamentally flawed for this project.
The other distracting side of the film is the editing. Whilst it makes sense that, in its attempt to capture the authentic limitations of an online platform, the film would use things like continual glitching and freezing, the viewing experience is rather frustrating as a result. Just as the audience starts to get sucked into the story and its characters, a glitch will appear and suck the audience right back out of the fantasy. Similar to the presence of Duplass, this is a solid execution of an idea fundamentally misplaced and misused.
Overall, Language Lessons is a rather passable quarantine-impacted comedy that feels close to being something special but never reaches that point. Key ideas fail to deliver how the film hopes they will with half of the film working against the more poignant side of the project. If there is one key takeaway, it is the skill of Natalie Morales both in front and behind the camera, but sadly beyond that, there isn't much to take away from this lesson.
