Flag Day (Sean Penn, 2021)

Cannes sure does distort things, huh? Penn's last directorial outing, The Last Face, was god-awful. It's script was risible, and Penn's directorial choices were hopelessly incompetent. What's more, its view of violence and civil war in Africa was blinkered, to put it kindly. By contrast, Flag Day is a fairly generic, mediocre film. It has pacing problems, as well as a regrettable over-reliance on voiceover taken directly from Jennifer Vogel's memoir. And while I believe that Penn's liberal use of affectations from 1970s American auteur cinema -- thick grain, Kodachrome colors, Super-8 sprocket hole intrusions, and the like -- was pointless at best, it at least made Flag Day easy on the eye.

Obviously what's most interesting about Flag Day is Penn's decision to turn the film into a family affair. He plays conman / errant paterfamilias John Vogel, and his oldest daughter Dylan plays the young adult Jennifer. Additionally, the minor role of Jennifer's brother Nick was played by Dylan's own brother, Hopper. Ideally this could have added an almost Makhmalbafian friction to the proceedings, with an actually family depicting another real-life family in turmoil. But apart from showcasing the notable talents of Dylan, Penn doesn't really do anything with this film / reality mirroring. It's a shame.

Another confusing element is Flag Day's strange marginalization of the Vogel mother, Patty (Katheryn Winnick). In the scheme of things, her turning a blind eye to her new boyfriend's repeated attempts to rape Jennifer makes her at least as rotten than her lying, scheming ex-husband. This scenario also might've provided some key to Jennifer's damage, and her continual struggle to find the best in John. But like the police station introduction (a pitiful waste of Regina King), it's just sort of there, not bearing any formal or thematic weight.

If there's a dominant idea at work here, it's based on the fact that Penn is making an effort to present the story of a young woman but cannot help but place himself dead center. It's a failed act of generosity, an attempt to see the world from a different perspective but unavoidable lapsing back into narcissism. So in at least one respect, Flag Day's overall shape is suitable to its real-life story.