Lila (Talia Balsam) has built a fragile tranquility in the Catskill mountain home she shares with her husband Edgar (Scott Cohen) and their teen daughters. Soon after the girls leave for summer adventures, Edgar reveals the birth of a child with another woman leaving Lila to a season of explosive loss and reconfiguration. Lila lashes out – exploring the light and dark corners of grief, anger, and desire through her friendship with a younger man (Michael Oberholtzer). As Lila’s world overturns, those who count on her likewise come undone.
Lila seems to live a relatively normal life. She has her husband Edgar (Scott Cohen) and her children, Sam and Dara (Macaulee Cassaday and Naian González Norvind). They are a close bunch who seem happy but secrets begin to dissolve these familial ties. Sam, her oldest daughter, is preparing to go on a summer-long sailing trip causing anxiety in Lila as it would any other mother. Dara is a teen who cares more about hanging out with her friends than listening to her parents causing its own set of headaches. But worst of all may be the fact that her husband is having an affair. They are also having a kid. A boy, in fact. He’s also leaving Lila and the girls for this new family. The foundation of their problems stems far back as we learn that Edgar’s affair has been going on for a while with Lila’s knowledge of the mistress’ existence.
Here we begin to see Lila’s world shatter before our eyes. Edgar’s decision to leave Lila and his daughters is presented with amazing cowardice when he does so after the girls leave for their summer activities. An attempt to maintain a good dad image, leaving Lila alone to try and piece together a new life. It’s not easy to start anew after being so complacent in your life. An idea most people can truly relate to. Lila tries to understand and cope with her new circumstances making for a heartbreaking experience. She first begins to try and compromise with Edgar by pleading that he stay with her, even with the new baby. Her reluctance to leave her old life and forgive Edgar’s infidelity at first glance seems weak. Instead, they are the choices of someone who has lost and is just looking for any kind of olive branch. How many of us would rather forgive and forget than enter a world of complete problems unfamiliar to you? Lila snaps and decides to poison Edgar. A decision she immediately regrets. She tells Edgar about the poison and gives him something to throw up the crushed pills she put in his food. It’s after all this chaos that she realizes her old life is no longer an option to return to.
After being rejected and called out by Edgar for their unhappy marriage, she dives straight for the midlife crisis. She begins a very quick affair with Jonah (Michael Oberholtzer), a young man who is friends with her daughter Sam. This is short-lived and quickly ends but shows her impulsiveness in life now that she is unburdened by her marital responsibilities. Edgar returns later and begins to take things from the house he deems his. At this point, Lila is fed up and doesn’t care about those things. She’d rather just have him gone as he wanted in the first place. We can see a shift in her from willing to forgive Edgar to ultimately seeing him for what he is and was. The girls return from their trips and must also confront these new lives of theirs. A separated mother and father, a new brother, and a new family.
It’s around this point the film begins to run out of runway to tell the story. The film sets up many crises that seem to settle into themselves and fade away. Sam has relationship issues and Dara has lost a dear friend due to teen gossip. These new problems that are introduced don’t have the time to be examined or processed. The ending feels a little ambiguous like nothing was settled, solved, nor learned. Life seems to just happen which is true for real life but a bit dull for storytelling. “South Mountain” shines bright when it begins but loses its sheen as it approaches its finish line. Still, the new reality Lila is thrust into bears the heartbreaking signature of an abandoned person rising from the ashes of their tragedies.
Available on DVD and VOD May 5th
