by Karlee Boon
Thunderbolt in Mine Eye is a local feature film directed by Portland-local brother/sister directing duo Sarah and Zachary Sherman. The film had its World Premiere on Tuesday, March 10 at the Whitsell Auditorium, with both directors and the lead actress all in attendance. The film follows Harper (Anjini Taneja Azhar) as she enters her freshman year of high school, experiencing her first relationship and sexual awakening along the way. When Harper begins a romantic relationship with her brother’s best friend and across-the-street neighbor Tilly (Quinn Liebling), she is forced to face the gender stereotypes and double standards that come with being a sexually active girl in high school.
The two lead actors, Anjini and Quinn, have incredible chemistry on-screen, and it was a joy to watch their relationship transform from a series of exhaustingly awkward exchanges to a genuine and honest romance throughout the course of the film. Thunderbolt’s portrayal of high school, as a whole, felt more accurate than in many other depictions of teenagers in film and television. Later during the Q&A, directors Sarah and Zachary stated that it was incredibly important to them that the film felt genuine to the modern high school experience, something I felt was definitely achieved through the mis-en-scene, costuming and casting. Despite the accuracy in the film’s portrayal of the high school experience, however, I did feel that Thunderbolt lacked in originality as far as the plot and overall presentation. Nothing about the character arcs or the film’s conflict felt new or exciting, and the many allusions to women’s rights, the “me too” movement and gender politics felt heavy-handed and abrupt within the film’s context. Overall, while Thunderbolt in Mine Eye excelled at creating the atmosphere and tone of a genuine and awkward high school experience, it lacked in the originality and stylistic presentation to make it stand out from the slew of other modern coming-of-age films.
Following the film, both directors Sarah and Zachary Sherman and actress Anjini Taneja Azhar were invited to the stage for a Q&A facilitated by fellow local filmmaker Tara Johnson-Medinger. Being familiar with Tara’s own directorial works like My Summer as a Goth, another locally-made coming-of-age feature, I think she was a perfect fit as the facilitator for this particular film. During the Q&A, the directors discussed their casting process, which included sourcing quite a few of their actors including Quinn Liebling (Tilly) from the local Netflix original series Everything Sucks!, which filmed back in 2018. They also went into some detail regarding their crowdfunding campaign, which they held through Seed&Spark, and how that eventually led to them having the film produced by the Duplass brothers. Seeing a pair of young filmmakers navigate independently funding their own features and how successful they’ve been throughout the process really gave me hope for my own future in the film industry within Portland. A large majority of the crowd that attended Thunderbolt’s premiere were involved in the film in some way, whether it having been through a financial contirbution, being background actors, or offering up their homes as filming locations. Thunderbolt felt undeniably “Portland,” from the subject matter, to the stunning locales, to the community effort it took simply to get the project off the ground. It’s a shame that this film didn’t get a second chance to screen at PIFF this year but I feel positive about its future reception within the City of Roses and beyond.
PSU School of Film @ PIFF 