Root Letter (2022) Japanese Video Game turned evocative directorial debut (Cinema Review)

Two teenagers exchange letters. Both have considerable emotional baggage. The primary setting is the Deep South town of Baton Rouge, Louisiana (with some time in Tulsa, Oklahoma). Soft and lustrous lighting illuminates the hot and humid surroundings, prompting a dreamy sense of inertia in which contentment and frustration jostle for dominance. A fluid visual style shifts between different locations and times easily, with much-flowing hair and close-ups on wounded faces that express even more wounded souls, desperately seeking a panacea that maybe they can provide to each other.

So far, so sweet, so wistful, and you could be forgiven for thinking this is an adaptation of a Nick Sparks novel. However, early shots of dilapidated trailer homes and close-ups of pills in bottles as well as lines of cocaine and needles beside spoons suggest that this might be more Moonlight than The Notebook. Based on the video game Root Letter from Kadokawa Games, written by David Ebeltoft and helmed by feature debut director Sonja O’Hara, Root Letter provides a harrowing and even tragic portrait of disparate and lost souls, yet is shot through with a deep sense of humanity.

We open with a scene of intimacy between two teenagers, before the girl’s father bursts in and we next see the boy in the hospital. This efficient introduction quickly establishes one of our protagonists, Carlos (Danny Ramirez), as underprivileged. His parents are absent, and he lives in a motel and works as a dishwasher, but he is nonetheless still at school, where he takes part in a pen pal exercise. This exercise connects him with Sarah (Keana Marie), living in Baton Rouge with her drug-addicted mother Karen (Lydia Hearst) and few prospects beyond her modest dream of studying at community college and working in a store. The first act of the film follows the interchange of letters, giving a strong sense of the two characters and the broader context of their lives.

Things then turn into a mystery as Sarah’s last letter prompts Carlos to come in search of her.

Some of the narrative at this point becomes a little confusing, as Sarah’s story is told largely in flashbacks that are not linked to what Carlos learns of her. While the letters, told through voiceover, present scenes from Sarah’s life including time with her friends Caleb (Breon Pugh), Zoe (Kate Edmonds) and Jackson (Sam A Coleman), they provide information that our erstwhile detective could not learn from those he speaks to. This means that the viewer’s alignment is not closely connected to Carlos and, as a result, the mystery and investigation aspect of the film is not always convincing.

However, a detective story does not seem to be O’Hara’s goal. The flashbacks do give the viewer a strong sense of Sarah’s life, including struggles with her mother Karen, tensions with her friends related to high school disputes and beyond, and some severe traumas. One confrontation between Sarah and Karen is hearth wrenching both in the intensity of the performances, Dan McBride’s intimate cinematography that places the viewer within the claustrophobia of Jessica Keli Govea’s production design, and the social realism that makes it all too believable. Drugs are present throughout the film, both in terms of addiction and dealing and significantly across class divides, and this presence and the people that it influences steadily becomes more threatening.

Interestingly, the film presents this criminal aspect as part of the world-building – drugs are a typical part of this portion of society – before O’Hara develops this aspect into a plot point. This point propels the film through its final movement, as the questions about what happened to Sarah become more pressing and frightening. As they do so, a sense of doom and foreboding grows ever stronger, with sudden bursts of violence and horrified reactions.

This foreboding, and the fact that much of what we see has already taken place, lends the film a sense of tragedy. Although presented simultaneously, the plot strands are sequential, and since what is going to occur has already occurred, Carlos may find answers, but neither he nor the viewer is going to like them or be able to influence events. The sense of tragedy runs deep even when some answers are provided, but there is also a pleasing ambiguity to the film’s conclusion, and the viewer is left with a sense of cautious optimism. As a result, Root Letter provides a sorrowful and emotionally charged but not hopeless narrative, through evocative style, a strong sense of place, and a heartfelt belief in the strength of friendship and humanity.

ROOT LETTER