Tart: Sweeter than Expected

I’d like to defend a film you’ve likely not heard of. 2001’s Tart comes in for varied criticisms: amateurish acting, unforgivable cinematography, plotless-ness, and vapid, trope-filled characters. I only chose to watch it because Y2K movies (those made between, say, 1998-2002) have a special place in my heart.

Color me surprised when I tuned in to YouTube’s free copy. While the performances are at times TV-esque, Tart brims with the talent of the day. Dominique Swain, Mark Renfro, Mischa Barton, Bijou Phillips, and Melanie Griffith grace the screen. Cinematographer Stephen Kazmierski is admittedly not an A-lister, but he worked on Todd Solodnz’s gorgeous Happiness (1998) and his talents here are on full display. His camera makes New York an isolating, unforgiving bull pen full of mean-spirited teenagers. He bathes interiors in shadows, obscuring characters’ faces as they ruminate on their tangled domestic lives. These are mostly rich kids in Manhattan after all.

The accusations of narrative paltriness and character shallowness offended me the most, however. We follow Cat (Dominique Swain) a child of divorce whose family can barely afford to send her to her hoity-toity Manhattan all-girls high school. Her best friend gets thrown out for bringing drugs to school, which leads her into further aimlessness. What follows is a touching tale of youth, the desire to fit in, and social class within one of the most socioeconomically diverse cities on earth. This is not Balzac. But it sure blows most teen films out of the water.

I had to ask myself, then: why the hate? At least partly, the answer must lie with the title. Tart sounds like a much raunchier movie than it is. In fact, aside from a particularly disturbing sexual act in the first few minutes, it’s largely not a film about sex at all. Cat does not become a “tart” nor does her desire for a boyfriend ever take exhibitionistic form. The movie’s poster certainly did not help in this respect. Perhaps legions of American Pie (1999) fans felt misled.

I wonder if it also sought the wrong audience in a broader sense. Tart is an imagistic tale. It traps us in the cocoon that is Cat’s shrinking and expanding world. Its “aimlessness” involves a break from simple narrative of a sort common to art films. No one gets mad at Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters (1986) or Paris, Texas (1984) for taking detours. But the teen crowd is perhaps a bit less ready for circumnavigation.

Assist me in this redemption, this resurrection. Watch Tart.