ROOT LETTER
Directed by: Sonja O'Hara
Starring: Danny Ramirez, Keana Marie, Lydia Hurst, Mark St Cyr, Breon Pugh, Sam A Coleman, Kate Edmonds
In his final highschool year, Carlos becomes pen friends with a girl called Sarah as part of a school assignment. A year later, Carlos receives a letter from Sarah out of the blue, in which she confesses to killing someone and that she needs help….
Dealing with poverty and drug abuse, Root Letter is a surprisingly good detective story, and even more surprisingly an adaptation of a Japanese video game.
We meet Carlos in a very compromised fashion - beaten up by his girlfriend's dad when he catches him in bed with her. He's beaten so badly that he ends up in hospital. While there, his dad drops off his homework assignments, one of which is to start a correspondence with someone from another school. It's his destiny that its Sarah Blake a girl with a similar background to his own. Both are just trying to survive the hands they've been dealt.
While Carlos seems to be a bit of a loner, Sarah at least has some friends, even though they are a potential danger. Her best friend is Caleb, a simple kid whose uncle, Adam, is a very scary drug dealer. Sarah lives with her mother, Karen, who is both a heroin user and an escort.
The film has two narratives - or actually one narrative, told from two different time zones and from the perspectives of both Carlos and Sarah. A lot of time has past between certain events - possibly fateful events - in Sarah's life, and the time when Carlos receives her letter.
Even though they'd lost touch with each other, Carlos feels compelled to either help Sarah and/or to find out what has happened to her, and why she reached out to him, specifically. Carlos starts to investigate, finding her friends and some who would want to hurt her, and slowly pieces together the events leading to her disappearance. Interspersed with this we see those events developing from Sarah's perspective.
I enjoy these types of narratives, a detective story centered around someone who is not a detective by profession but just doing the best he or she can to solve a mystery. The Korean films Mother and Chaser are two prime examples of this, as is Disappearance at Lake Elrod. Root Letter fits in very well with the style. Danny Ramirex plays Carlos as very stoic yet earnest and sincere although Keana Marie makes Sarah a more sympathetic character despite her flaws.
Chief acting credits however go to Mark St Cyr and Lydia Hurst. Mark ensures that Adam is a very, very dangerous person to be around. He is happy with his lot and will not tolerate anyone trying to rock his boat, leading to some violent confrontations. Lydia Hurst is heartbreaking as Sarah's mother, Karen. Her's is a very raw performance, making Karen pathetic, fragile, ascerbic, loving at any one time. My favourite moment in the film is when she confronts Sarah over an expensive-looking sweater her friend lent her, thinking she'd done something to deserve it. She tells her, "you have no idea the hell I've been through, for things like this!" and you absolutely believe her.
THE VERDICT
Regardless of its origins, ROOT LETTER is an engaging mystery with a likeable lead and well fleshed-out characters. The mystery at its core - what did Sarah do that made her write again to Carlos, and what was her fate - is really compelling and not as straightforward as you might suspect, and concludes in a wonderfully enigmatic fashion.