Lotawana
Is it better to live within the strictures of society, and the compromises and responsibilities that entails, or to turn your back and chart your own way? It’s an argument that’s probably as old as the Sumeran tribes which first gave up nomadic wandering for cities and written language. It also has no answer, at least not within art and culture which tends to simplifying and vilifying whatever the antithetical viewpoint may be. Societal living is soul killing, ignoring it is only a matter of will that most don’t have the courage for, and on and on and on. The reductive nature of film, and its tilt towards surface level readings, usually makes it an unlikely vehicle for a serious thematic approach (see Into the Wild, Fight Club and others), giving undue support to the individualistic option even when that’s not the point of the film. That’s why something like Trevor Hawkins’ Lotawana is so refreshing.
Set mostly on the waters of Missouri’s Lake Lotawana, it follows young Forrest, a carefree twenty-something who has given up his job and worldly possessions to live carefree on a boat on the lake living off what he can find. That ends when he finds Australian transplant Everly and their attempt to share his existence ends in a run into the walls of reality when Everly discovers she is pregnant. Their attempt to thread the needle between a life on Walden and the requirements of raising a child turn their idyllic life sidewise and soon they are forced to live off what they can take rather than what they can find.
That needle threading isn’t just for Forrest and Everly. Writer-director-cinematographr-everything elser Trevor Hawkins walks the same tightrope for the entire of Lotawana’s run time, trying desperately to maintain their wide-eyed innocence and playfulness regardless of what they mind find themselves forced to do. It succeeds mostly on the strength of Forrest and Everly’s chemistry, as plot is mostly (not entirely, just mostly) set aside in favor of character study. Lotawana is about how they live in the world, and what that means which means it is about them. The includes a fair amount of wandering conversations and more than a few montages as Hawkins works in the feel of a real relationship slowly building and developing, of one personality discovering another over days and months.
That does require more than a bit of patience from the viewer, even at a tidy ninety minutes, as it can seem meandering even when it isn’t. As character focused as it is, it is still full of its share of plot twists and turns. The heavy character focus, rather than obscuring those twists, hides them until they can land with full force. The strength of the primary relationship keeps it from ever seeming slow and justifies the decision to make everything about them without any extra flashiness.
From screenplay to photography to even its editing, Hawkins’ naturalistic bent keeps everything grounded even during its longer flights of fancy. Everything and everyone feels real because everything and everyone are real. It seems like a simple answer, as simple as the decision between living with people and living apart from them, and yet the wrong choice keeps getting made year after year. Lotawana is not the wrong choice.