‘Anniversary’: A Knockout Cast Can’t Salvage Jan Kosama’s Poorly Drawn Autocracy

As politics becomes the focus of the monoculture, it’s easy to feel like political divisions are what will drive apart any bond we may have. While these political divisions certainly aren’t new to those who have grown up on the margins, there’s now a mainstream concern that our familial bonds aren’t strong enough to withstand larger political movements, and those bonds will break in the face of state power. Jan Kosama’s Anniversary attempts to tap into those fears as we see a family fracture through the rise of a one-party state, but the depiction of that state is so vague, and its machinations are so fuzzy that it feels less like a real concern and more like a thin excuse for dramatic grist. Thankfully, Kosama’s cast makes the most of that drama, playing the dissolution of a single family to maximum effect even though the movie struggles to provide the necessary depth to any single character. As much emotional reality as the actors bring to the production, they can’t overcome the story’s lack of detail.

Ellen (Diane Lane) and Paul Taylor (Kyle Chandler) are celebrating their 25^th wedding anniversary. She’s a successful political science professor at Georgetown, and he’s a celebrated chef. They’ve also raised four kids: Cynthia (Zoey Deutch), a lawyer in an icy marriage to Rob (Daryl McCormack), popular standup comedian Anna (Madeline Brewer), aspiring writer Josh (Dylan O’Brien), and teenage virology geek Birdie (Mckenna Grace). At the anniversary party, Josh introduces his girlfriend, Liz (Phoebe Dynevor), to his parents and immediately sets off some friction. Liz was a former student of Ellen’s and wrote a thesis advocating for a single-party state. She’s now written a book called “The Change,” backed by a think-tank and advocating for the end of democracy to bridge the country’s divisions. As the book becomes a smash hit, we see the rise of autocracy in the following five years and how the family’s fortunes shift and fall as “The Change” takes hold.

Trying to focus on how autocracy unravels one family isn’t a bad concept, and it’s worthwhile to explore the emotional specificity of seeing your child (in this case, Josh), reject his parents’ values in favor of something far more terrifying and grotesque. As good as everyone is in the cast, Dylan O’Brien once again shows that he’s an immensely gifted performer, playing Josh’s transformation from frustrated writer to cavalier fascist with unnerving aplomb. O’Brien absolutely nails the aesthetic of the modern authoritarian, as he shows in one scene where he bullies Birdie’s boyfriend, who wants to go to Northwestern to study journalism. He perfectly accentuates the nonchalant attitude of, “Oh, I’m just trying to engage in debate,” when you can see what he wants is to dominate and belittle. 

The whole cast finds these levels within their characters, but the challenge comes when the script doesn’t fully allow them to land their dramatic moments. As good as Deutch and McCormack are, their storyline of a disintegrating marriage never feels like it has enough screentime or specificity, so you’re simply watching two actors play passive-aggression before a big scene of aggressive-aggression. Liz feels like she should be a central figure, and Dynevor is an incredible performer (go check out Fair Play), but the movie treats her as a catalyst rather than a three-dimensional person. This is someone whose ideas are strong enough to set off a nationwide movement, but within the bounds of the Taylor household (where almost the entirety of the film takes place), she’s quiet and timid. While this is somewhat believable, as we can see how Ellen intimidates Liz, it’s a little harder to buy after the success of “The Change.” People whose political opinions are worthless can still be the loudest voice in the room; are we meant to see a successful author like Liz as some shrinking violet who has no interest in opining in front of others?

Perhaps the reason she can’t opine is because Anniversary never wishes to add any texture to her beliefs. This is the film’s fatal flaw because it wants to shape its world with “The Change” but without any specificity. It is simply “FASCISM” in bold letters, but with no shape or identity. To avoid offending anyone on the political spectrum, Anniversary assumes some outsider party could rise to power based solely on dissatisfaction with two-party rule. But that movement keeps cropping up (e.g., No Labels), and it has almost no following because people do want things. They may want harder lines on immigration or to criminalize abortion or any host of issues, and these divisions will inevitably pop up because parties have platforms. Even if you want to assume that Americans can be hoodwinked, they’re still hoodwinked by the appearance of positions. Calls for national unity usually pinpoint some out-group who are “preventing” that unity, but in the world of Anniversary, the out-group comes after the fact. The autocracy of the film is that people put up new flags, and if you don’t like the new flags or whatever The Change stands for (again, never particularly clear what that would be), then you are the out-group. It’s an extremely rudimentary understanding of politics in a film that needs politics to power the unraveling of the Taylors.

When the politics are so vague, then really anything could have obliterated this one family. It could have been a death in the family or an affair, or just a casual turn towards a different set of politics set in our world rather than the fanciful “The Change.” Anniversary speaks to genuine concerns about families falling apart, and this group of actors knows how to make their characters' fears and anxieties play as authentic and immediate. It’s just a shame that they’re inhabiting a world that never feels as real as the performances.

Anniversary opens in theaters on October 29^th.