Evergreens (2025 | USA | 120 minutes | Jared Briley)

In his directorial debut, Jared Briley shows an incredible visual facility for capturing both the faces of actors young and old as well as the varied natural beauty that spans the width of Washington State. His coming-of-age story takes the form of a road trip that begins one sleepy summer in his hometown of Spokane and winds through Grand Coulee, Leavenworth, Seattle, and all the way out to the coast. In the cross-state journey, the film is a treasure trove of the breathtaking lakes, stunning terrain, wide-open vistas, magical orchards, and other sites that make our state so beloved. Along the way, we also get a peek at the diverse catalogue of the places that give these places their character, be it a short-staffed local bar looking for last-minute musical guests or the storied underground haunts of the big city (Seattle’s The Screwdriver plays itself).

Where the story strains is explaining how what should have been a four-hour drive stretches into a week of burgeoning romance and self-discovery for Eve (Darby Lee-Stack) and James (Edouard Philipponat). She’s a quippy sheltered twenty-year-old on a “gap year”; he’s an aloof yet hyper-confident New Yorker returning home in a classic red Toyota. As they make their way west, they grow closer, her Dad worries and researches her crush, I began to ponder whether the original script called for a cross-country rather than intra-state spree. While the trip’s duration is stretched beyond geography, the couple’s personal connections and conflicts are hastened and heightened to suit the plot. Set to an original Damien Jurado soundtrack, though, it’s hard to argue against the many pretty moments captured along the way. Such is youth, I suppose.

• MONDAY, MAY 19 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 5:30 PM
• TUESDAY, MAY 20 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
• Writer/Director Jared Briley scheduled to attend
• Available for streaming on SIFF.tv MONDAY, MAY 26 – JUNE 1

Monarch City (2025 | USA | 70 minutes | Titus Richard)

Where Evergreens is always on the move, Titus Richard’s Monarch City is fixed firmly in place, much like the people of its rural Cascades setting [not to be confused with the Maple Valley-based butterfly organization of the same name]. Taking place in a single day (Halloween) in a decaying town, the film loosely connects the stories of a mother serving out a court-mandated rehab stint (Mahria Zook), her two daughters (Lavender Hamilton and Liisa Kaufman), and the family’s patriarch (Seattle film fixture Paul Eenhoorn in his final on-screen performance). A parallel track plays out with the older daughter’s boyfriend (Cameron Carter), a local rapper with aspirations of breaking out of the town via a connection with a more accomplished producer (Seattle artist, Raz Simone).

In elliptical vignettes, we get a sense of these characters and the destitute setting. Be it rural farms littered with trailers and broken-down trucks, fading ramshackle taverns, abandoned barns, or roadside gas stations, everything feels like the wrong side of the tracks. Older characters talk about stints in jail and slack at their jobs; younger kids play in abandoned train cars, smoking cigarettes, and bantering threats of implied violence. The older man lives in near-isolation in the woods, crossing paths with his granddaughter seemingly by chance. When he offers to teach a young migrant boy to be a man, it’s unclear whether it’s a promise or a threat. 

Accentuated with voiceovers and retro film clips from happier times, the connective tissue and plotting are often so loose as to challenge one’s attention span, making the film more a dismal vibe than a concrete story. Still, the observational approach, unvarnished performances, and naturalistic cinematography combine to effectively contrast the striking setting with the bleak outlook of the people who live amid the empty foothills.

• TUESDAY, MAY 20 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 6:30 PM
• WEDNESDAY, MAY 21 – SIFF Cinema Uptown – 3:30 PM
• Director Titus Richard scheduled to attend.
• Available for streaming on SIFF.tv MONDAY, MAY 26 – JUNE 1