Crew
Director – Rebecca Eskreis, Screenplay – Seana Kofoed, Producers – Kristin Tegtmeier Higgins & Seana Kofoed, Photography – Alexa Wolf, Music – Raphaelle Thibaut, Visual Effects – C. Drew Unser, Makeup Effects – Miya Tamlyn, Production Design – Lauren Hamersmith. Production Company – River Place Productions/Film Camp Productions.
Cast
Rebecca Creskoff (Nora), Jenn Lyon (Lily), Rob Benedict (Michael), Matt Peters (David), Jessica Meraz (Shelby), Toks Olagundoye (Shannon), Seana Kofoed (Kate), Kadeem Hardison (Tom), Alec Mapa (Gary)
Plot
Nora’s young daughter Grace drowns in a pool during a party unnoticed as Nora and the other adults are distracted by other things happening. It is now one year later. Nora and her husband Michael have separated. Nora is engaged in a radical form of Virtual Reality therapy under Lily who was also present at the party. After Lily mentions that several of the others from the party are gathering at Tom and Shannon’s lakeside cabin for the weekend, Nora turns up and invites herself to join them. As the partying gets underway, Nora’s hurt and upset emerges and becomes something darker.
ClearMind was the second full-length film as director for Rebecca Eskreis. She had previously made the teen crime drama What Breaks the Ice (2020) and has worked as a producer on other films.
ClearMind feels like it has been written as an indie ensemble comedy. This sort of film was popular several years ago with the likes of The Simian Line (2000) and The Anniversary Party (2001), going all the way back to at least The Big Chill (1983), in which a group of friends are gathered for an occasion and the film crosscuts between their assorted drama, conflicts, unresolved issues, lingering hurts and so on. ClearMind feels like one of those films but also one that is frequently digging its teeth in and making fun of New Age therapies, psychology-speak and relationship-speak, while showing the assorted couples in an increasingly less flattering light.
The film also feels like Rebecca Eskreis and a group of middle-aged friends got together and engaged in an improv session. The best known of the actors present is Kadeem Hardison, who was in A Different World (1987-93) and assorted other drama and comedy roles. The other actors all have credits usually going back to the 2000s and earlier, mostly in tv, but none with any name recognition factor.
The script, which comes from Seana Kofoed, who also plays one of the women present, has a certain jibing bite. On the other hand, neither Rebecca Eskreis and/or her cast never truly sink their teeth into the material’s potential. It feels like a film that could have gone incredibly dark but just sits at a largely toothless distance where at most you admire how some of the lines zing.
The sole inclusion for ClearMind here is a twist near the end that reveals the [PLOT SPOILERS] everything that happens is a Virtual Reality illusion that has been set up to allow Rebecca Creskoff a therapy where she can vent her ill feelings at the people who she feels neglected her drowning child, which then escalate until Rebecca begins murdering them. The All a Virtual Reality Illusion ending is a twist that felt like it was a well-worn cliche by the start of the 2000s.
Trailer here