Typically what drives a film’s story is urgency, where characters often are called into action or question then spend the running time developing from these predicaments. These are concerns Thom Southerland’s mumblecore dramedy Proud Citizen has little-to-no regard for. Sure characters learn from their actions and there’s a premise to be found here, but the film’s lack of story and/or immediacy makes for a rather tiresome 90-minutes.
With screenplay credited not only Southerland but all the primary actors in the film, this indie follows second-place winning playwright Krasimira (Katerina Stoykova-Klmer) as she travels from Bulgaria to Kentucky to see her words come to life on a small-town community theater’s stage during an eventual 4th of July weekend. As she spends a week discovering local American culture, horses and other U.S. customs, she also attempts to befriend the cast and crew of Black Coat, her autobiographical play, as well as different members of the community. In her endeavors, she processes her written words and where she’s come in her life.
This plot description feeds into more of my perception of the film than the general plot, because Proud Citizen does little to establish structure. Krasimira’s walks and explorations can occasionally have a breezy, carefree amusement to them, but more often than not they lead to cumbersomely plot-less antics. There’s never a real sense of conflict, which makes our protagonist have no real place to be or go, and her character isn’t fleshed out in any particularly engaging or interesting ways.
Now, not every feature has to center on characters running around and have audiences on the edge of their seats during every heart-pounding sequence, but you did to at least give some motivation and drive to your characters to create interest. Krasimira can be charming, but she doesn’t really have great concerns or great fascination with what happens to her in this moment and her play. If anything, she’s just on an expense-paid vacation for the week, and this alone makes her a fairly boring subject.
It’s evident Southerland and Stoykova-Klmer, the latter shares a story credit with the director, want this to be a grounded fish-out-of-water tale of some sort. And there are moments suggesting some possibly thoughtful or compelling scenes, as the characters often hide their true feelings through filters and confusion. But these thoughts are never fulfilling or explored enough to progress the plot or characters, and make Proud Citizen feel even more padded out. While the efforts to be realistic are appreciated, they aren’t necessarily achieved and don’t win out in the end to resonate any emotions.
To the credit of the cast, however, their improvised performances are certainly fine and do work, and Stoykova-Klmer in particular feels comfortable and willing to push herself and her character to interesting places. Southerland, however, likes to meander and enjoy the little moments in which characters don’t really learn or grow so much as enjoy their situations. This could be fun, if the humor was infectious enough and the situations were strange or relatable enough to excel.
But Proud Citizen is often more humorous than outright funny, save for a couple genuine laughs, and the situations these personalities embark in our not so much relatable as they are indiscreet. This reminds one more of other films where these events were played out in more fashionable and entertaining ways, and continues to drift away emotional investment into this barely hour-and-a-half long film.
Proud Citizen, as such, is not so much a bad movie as it is an exceedingly mediocre one. The performances are well tuned and there are a couple laidback moments that achieve the softly strung intentions of entertainment. All so often, however, Southerland’s film is monotonous and uneventful to the point where there’s no genuine interest in what happens on screen. For as likable and charming as your lead character can be, if you don’t have enough conflict or motivation to make her do something interesting, then there’s no way for one to care what she thinks of her Kentucky backdrops.