By Alyssa Winn

The Sweet East is politically tame, though it is often entertaining, particularly when it depicts some distinctly American anxieties.

The Sweet East, directed by Sean Price Williams. Streaming on Apple +

Simon Rex and Talia Ryder in The Sweet East. Photo: Utopia

The Sweet East is essentially Alice in Wonderland set in an American rabbit hole — as imagined in the age of Facebook and Reddit. It unfolds through a myriad of “life is stranger than fiction” fears fueled by rampant Internet venom. Talia Ryder is Lillian, a teenager from South Carolina who goes off on an obligatory school trip to Washington, D.C.. Lillian maintains the kind of disinterested exterior that tends to irk older generations — she has the demeanor of an empty page, an inviting blank canvas for egomaniacal types anxious to offload frivolous nonsense or outright vitriol. They want to draw her into their demented causes. But, again and again, nothing sticks to this Americanized Alice.

Title cards, a la silent film, catapult us through the four chapters of Lillian’s odyssey. Each segment sports a different cinematic style, ranging from Spaghetti Western shootouts to voyeuristically shot cinéma vérité. Director Sean Price Williams has been a prolific cinematographer  — he shot the likes of Heaven Knows What, Good Time, and Her Smell  — and the film’s strikingly grimy, intense, and claustrophobic cinematography bears his signature stamp.

The opening scenes of teenage debauchery, captured on video cameras, suggests that this will be a Y2K-coated coming-of-age story. That notion is almost immediately tossed aside when a disgruntled man bursts into the restaurant where the students are gathered, waving a gun and ranting that he knows the establishment is running an underground pedophile ring. It’s the ol’ Pizzagate hysteria redux, an appropriately crazed kick-off for Lillian’s expedition through an unhinged political spectrum. She flees the scene with punk 20-something Caleb (Earl Cave).

Caleb leads her back to his home, which is teeming with a collection of dubious characters. When he recounts the restaurant shooting to his guests, we glean that Lillian has inadvertently landed herself in the midst of an Antifa-affiliated group. An unsavory encounter with Caleb includes her having to deal with a Prince Albert piercing (I had to consult the American Urological Association to find out what that is). Many of us would no doubt flee the bizarre scene: but Lillian, to our horror, spends the night. Yet she wakes up unscathed.

The Antifa group gears up to protest a white supremacist rally, warning Lillian that it’s going to “get heavy.” She doesn’t care, since she has the affect of a brick wall, and sets off to New Jersey in the group’s rickety van. When they arrive, the anticipated confrontation falls flat. Once the promise of excitement dissipates, there’s nothing left for Lillian to do but wander off. And she quickly stumbles upon the rally the Antifa kids were aiming to crash.

Grisly Neo-Nazis are roving about. One of them, the clean-cut Lawrence (Simon Rex, an underrated actor who was fantastic in Red Rocket) is instantly drawn to Lillian. He talks her ear off about his life as a professor who, working in a liberal institution, has had to hide his far-right political leanings. He’s a fascist lunatic but, hey, he has money and a place to stay, and that is enough for Lillian to settle down with him for a bit.

Lawrence brings her back to his childhood home, its anachronistic decor not so subtly adorned with swastikas. Lawrence and Lillian’s relationship takes on a cat-and-mouse dynamic; they take turns as pursuer and evader. Each has something the other wants. For Lillian, it’s Lawrence’s money (and perhaps to satisfy her morbid curiosity). For Lawrence, this is a shot at scoring a child bride.

Eventually, Lillian cuts Lawrence loose, after she convinces him to take her to Manhattan. There she is immediately plucked off the street by two indie filmmakers (the hilarious Ayo Edebiri and Jeremy O’Harris) who are immediately convinced that she is the star they’ve been searching for to act opposite heartthrob Ian (Jacob Elordi) in their terrible period drama. They gush over Lillian’s various eccentric merits, employing the remarkable ability to say a whole lot of nothing at a very rapid and convincing pace, a skill that can often be found on film sets.

Once this showbiz chapter reaches its absurdist blowout, Lillian is swept into a Muslim hip-hop troupe/brotherhood in rural Vermont. (At this point, the plot has left the rails well behind.) It is clear that the narrative will never venture into serious territory, which is fair enough. But the fact that nothing is at stake is deflating. The rest of the film plays out according to expectations: a final surrealist experience lands Lillian back in South Carolina with her family.

It wouldn’t be accurate to label the film as satire since all these characters are real, and you likely know them. The family member who loves a good argument during Thanksgiving, the high school classmate flooding your Facebook with conspiracies — you know the types.

The Sweet East is a wild rollercoaster ride up and down the Eastern seaboard that begs to not be taken too seriously to be seen as offering any sort of cutting statement on current events. The film ventures into murky political waters but always avoids sinking too deep, thanks to our unaffected protagonist. Some may find this deadpan approach refreshing; the film sidesteps the temptation to indulge in low-hanging ideological fruit. Others might interpret the lack of a clear stance as a way to excuse the behavior of some very unsavory characters. But that overlooks the film’s interest in exploring what it is like for teenagers in a world that is eager to jump down their throats. The Sweet East is undeniably entertaining as it sails through American anxieties.

Alyssa Winn is a recent graduate of Boston University, where she earned her degree in Film & Television. Her passion for film extends to her roles as a director and producer, where she has brought to life a collection of award-winning short films, commercials, and music videos. Her Maslow’s hierarchy of needs includes talking about movies, jazz clubs, exuberant dinner parties, and a commitment to not taking things too seriously.