‘Goldilocks And The Two Bears’ – Jeff Lipsky’s Uneven Interpersonal Drama

How quickly can strangers become friends? Even under some odd circumstances, all it takes is a common thread or connection to trust someone new and let them into your life. Jeff Lipsky’s eighth feature film Goldilocks and the Two Bears follows Ivy (Claire Milligan) as she discovers two wanderers Ian (Bryan Mittelstadt) and Ingrid (Serra Naiman) living in her grandmother’s newly purchased condo on the outskirts of Las Vegas. They quickly bond over childhood experiences and form a tight friendship in a few days. Most of the film takes place within the condo that Ivy and her grandmother are to move into, with the trio swapping stories that brought them to where they are now.

While the conceit is intriguing, the execution on almost every front winds up lacking. Of the three central performances, Serra Naiman is certainly the standout. She feels the most believable, the most lived in. There’s something in her eyes that seems as if she is looking back into her past and reliving these traumatic events as she recounts them to Ivy and Ian. Her monologues are by far the best part of the film. Milligan and Mittlestadt unfortunately are not up to the task of matching Naiman. There’s not much chemistry between the trio either, and that makes a lot of the exchanges awkward and unrealistic. 

The script also has some major issues, with a lot of the conversations and dialogue taking diversions that are borderline incoherent and hard to follow. Again, a couple of Naiman’s monologues pack a punch and make up for the writing, but others are unable to elevate it past what is on the page. The dialogue itself is messy, and the story that it leads to is messy as well. The tone and trajectory of the film completely shift at one point in a truly baffling way that is confusing and completely out of the blue. Nothing in the first part of the story leads the viewer to even consider these events occurring, and yet they do. It feels as if Lipsky added this twist solely for the sake of having one, not because the story warranted it or even made sense. 

The ideas behind the first chunk of the film really are beautiful, despite the execution. The concept of strangers squatting in your home that quickly turn into friends and confidants is truly fascinating, even if Ivy does accept them a little too quickly after she discovers them. It is rare for people to share this much of themselves with people they have known for years, let alone people they have just met in a wild situation. Talking about and processing grief and events from the past is incredibly difficult, but entirely necessary both to get them behind you and for others to truly know you at your core. Ivy, Ian, and Ingrid are doing the hard work in Goldilocks and the Two Bears, sharing themselves and allowing others to benefit from their life experience and ways of living that they have developed throughout the years. 

Jeff Lipsky’s latest film has a couple of interesting ideas hidden deep within an uneven and incoherent narrative that makes it hard to come away thinking about what he’s getting after. With narrative turns that come out of nowhere and wandering, messy dialogue that is unsuccessful in trying to be deep, it’s hard to focus on the message of the film that is dimly flickering at its center. Serra Naiman’s performance as Ingrid is something worth watching and hopefully, this will give her more opportunities in the future to continue developing her craft with some more high-profile roles.

Goldilocks and the Two Bears is currently playing in select theaters with further expansion in the coming weeks.