Review: Tito (SXSW 2019)

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Title: Tito
Rating: Not Rated
Director: Grace Glowicki
Starring: Grace Glowicki, Benjamin Petrie
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins

What Is It: A desperate man befriends an intruder to help fight against the sexual predators hunting him.

What We Think: A film which is very odd and confusing. At first glance, the main character seems to be a paranoid, anti-social, and mentally ill man who seems to be dealing with his own inner demons. Taking into consideration both the acting portrayed and what the logline claims it is supposed to be about, I was unsure if the predators were just a figment of his imagination or if Tito is being chased by actual predators. Was the conflict in this film more about him fighting his inner demons from previous abuse and learning how to overcome the trauma? Or was he actually being chased and if so why couldn’t anybody else see them? Why was Tito the only one noticing them especially if he was being sexually harassed in public and it seemed to clearly bother him as much as it did? What made this film a tad bit more confusing was the fact that Grace Glowicki (the actress who portrays Tito) did not attempt to deepen her voice which ultimately made me believe that Tito might be a transgender character to which was discovered later on that this is indeed not the case. I understand and deeply admire the intention behind creating this film. However, I’m not entirely sure the overall message within the story properly came across. It appeared that this film was more about getting high and escaping through substance than it was a film about someone being hunted by sexual predators. The message in this film seemed to be more “Smoke this and you will feel better”. What I really wanted to see was more of a back story as to why the main character behaved the way he did. What happened to him in his past to make him so jumpy, anti-social, and paranoid. It would have been appreciated to dive deeper into his past and uncover the truth behind his behavior. The only other thing that got a little irritating and once again, confusing was the partial reliance on sound effects to tell the story. Through most of the beginning of the film, we are given a lot of sound effects as a way to communicate what’s to come next in this story. I understand the desire for sound effects but at certain times it seemed too much and felt a little redundant after a while.

Our Grade: C, Cinematography, lighting, costumes, and acting were all decent and tolerable. What would have made this film better was more insight into the main character and more clarity on the struggle of this film.

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