Disfluency (2021 film)

Development

Disfluency was initially made as a 2018 short film, written by Baumgarten and directed by Laura Holliday. The short film premiered at the National Film Festival for Talented Youth.^[8] Disfluency was subsequently selected for Jim Cummings' Short to Feature Lab, where Baumgarten developed a feature-length script. The story picks up after the events of the short, as Jane spends the summer at her family's lake house, trying to find a new way to live with her trauma, a process aided by learning American Sign Language. Both Barer and Arnold, who were featured in the original short film, returend for the feature-length project.^[9]

Filming

Disfluency was primarily filmed on location in the Metro Detroit area of Michigan in the summer of 2019, specifically in Commerce Township, Livonia, Royal Oak, and Walled Lake, utilizing local spots like the Creamy Freeze and Penny Lane Market, with the director wanting to capture the feeling of her own Michigan roots.^[10] The film's production crew was composed primarily of University of Michigan alumni.^[11]

Critical response

Disfluency received mostly positive reviews, with many critics lauding Barer's performance as well as Baumgarten's potential as a filmmaker. The film currently holds a score of 86% "Fresh" on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.^[6]

Clint Worthington of RogerEbert.com awarded the film 2.5/4 stars, noting

An unabashed treatise on the way trauma interrupts our lives, short-circuits our esteem, and forces us to take a breath and start over. Oftentimes, that didacticism gets in the way of the picture’s aims, with clunky metaphors and treacly microbudget indie quirks. But a couple of scenes, and some strong performances, make it ultimately worth the sit… It’s full of disfluency, whether we need a novel new term for it or not. When Baumgarten and her game cast remember that, “Disfluency” hums with surprising resonance.^[13]

Adrienne Hunter in a review for The Austin Chronicle observed

While there are moments of dialogue and character interaction where the film’s message is very explicit, even heavy-handed, they are more than made up for by the genuineness exuding from the film. Through attention to detail, dynamic character relationships, and strong performances, Disfluency proves to clearly communicate a meaningful and insightful story that will surely leave a strong impression.^[14]

In a similar vein, Manuel Betancourt in a review for Variety noted

"Scenes when Baumgarten has Jane tackle her trauma head-on — when she shows us the messy ways she first dealt with it and the imperfect ways she’s dealing with it now — are its most effective and affecting. Treating Jane’s experience with care, she refuses to make her story — as a victim, as a survivor, as both or neither — into a neat tale… If its ambitions never quite meet its execution, “Disfluency” is (clunky title aside) an amiable watch with its heart (and head) in the right place that still manages to charm, perhaps because it so exalts the very concept of imperfection."^[15]

Accolades