Florida's Film, Television and the Arts Magazine
Anniversary - Movie Review by Lisa Blanck
More than a cautionary tale.
If you deliberately ignore and laugh off the specific parallels between the authoritarianism/rise of the fascist state presented in Anniversary and current events unfolding in the U.S., you do so at your own peril.
Brilliant performance by Diane Lane, whose character, Ellen Taylor, recognizes the inherent danger of anti-democratic, militaristic 'think-tank' policies, long before they become pervasive and accepted in the country.
As a tenured college professor, Taylor has been lecturing on these perils for years, even within her own family of three fiercely independent daughters and one son, Josh (Dylan O'Brien) who is having trouble finding his place in the world.
In the film, right-wing think-tank policies are published by The Corporation within a book entitled 'The Change'. The policies are framed as 'unifying Americans' but in reality, are used to eliminate and silence anything that threatens them, which ultimately includes Taylor's own family. The policies of The Change are created and disseminated through an attractive white figurehead, Taylor's now daughter-in-law, Elizabeth (Phoebe Dynevor) to make them more palatable to a country who, sadly, cannot manage to shake off its deep-seated misogyny, bigotry and homophobia, even after 300 years. Elizabeth claims that it was she who 'created' the political movement through her book, but it's apparent that she could not have done so without the financial backing of The Corporation. Elizabeth was once Taylor's student, and Taylor was shaken at that time by the extreme anti-Democracy ideas Elizabeth presented in her thesis.
The film presents the indoctrination of a nation, over the course of just a few years, to the will of a corporation, whose mainly older, wealthy, white individuals ignore the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. Dissenters are silenced, removed and eliminated. Excellent writing by Lori-Rosene Gambino and Jan Komosa in this tightly wound, updated and Americanized version of Orwell's 1984, for the year 2025.
Currently in theaters, soon available for streaming.
