Bad Behaviour (2023)
Written and Directed by Alice Englert
Starring Jennifer Connelly, Alice Englert, Ana Scotney, and Dasha Nekrasova
Running time 1 hour and 47 minutes
Not Rated
In Theaters & On Demand/Digital June 14

by Clayton Hayes, Staff Writer

One of my favorite experiences as a film fan is the slowly-rising excitement of witnessing a new and interesting voice for the first time. Often this happens retrospectively, seeing a work by an established artist that has as of yet flown under your radar. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, it happens with someone who is just beginning their artistic career. That’s how I felt watching Bad Behaviour, Alice Englert’s feature debut, a sly take on the coming-of-age dramedy that is handled with surprising maturity and deftness from a writer/director only just leaving her 20s. Looking at most of film history, by rights a director’s first feature in which they are also the sole writer and the second lead should be a disaster. But, as is even more evident from film history, a woman doesn’t usually receive an opportunity like this unless she is capable (yes, even if her mother is New Zealand’s most famous filmmaker).

And Englert is (if I haven’t made myself clear) much more than capable. Connelly and Ben Wishaw are both giving wonderful performances here, and I especially enjoyed Wishaw’s genuinely off-putting portrayal of the sort of wellness guru that leads a “semi-silent” spiritual retreat in the Oregon wilderness. Granted, his character feels the most incongruous and least essential to the plot, but I always enjoy seeing (or hearing) Wishaw doing interesting work. It doesn’t end up being a large part in terms of minutes on screen, but nor does it feel like he was only on set for a few days and rushed through his every scene (as is often the case with bigger stars in lower-budget films like this one).

The true heart of the film, and the reason to give Bad Behaviour a watch, becomes apparent about halfway through, once Connelly and Englert’s characters start heading back towards one another. They play an estranged mother-daughter pair, both involved in the entertainment industry, and both searching for meaning. It’s charming in Englert’s stereotypically wide-eyed and adventurous stunt performer Dylan but, though Connelly’s acerbic and frigid former child star Lucy feels no less familiar, her insecurities seem like a lot less fun. Lucy’s friction with just about everyone at her retreat is enjoyable to watch for the most part, but the first half of the film took a bit too long to go anywhere in my viewing. When things do start to heat up, sparked by Nekrasova’s influencer/model Beverly, Bad Behaviour really shines.

Englert is great in every scene she’s in, which, fair enough if she’s the director, but it’s nonetheless impressive that she has such a firm grasp on who she is as a performer. She has a wonderful blink-and-you’ll-miss-it two-hander with her mother Jane Campion but, really, it’s Englert and Connelly’s scenes that made this such an enjoyable watch. The two obviously have some common ground that’s germain to the film, both having started acting while relatively young, but however they worked things out they worked it out well. They nail the antagonistic-yet-loving-yet-hurt interplay between a parent and child that just can’t seem to get on the same page, and Englert’s script does not give Lucy any easy outs nor their relationship any easy fixes. Lucy and Dylan are not magically “healed” by the end of the film, but they are better in a way that feels much more authentic.

Bad Behaviour is a really wonderful film and, despite Campion serving as an obvious entrée into filmmaking, Englert’s film stands on its own merits. I’m very excited to see what she does next.