‘The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed’ Review – Irony Or Apathy?

Is it depression or nihilism? Self-righteousness or self-loathing? Ennui or sarcasm? These are the thoughts that will go through your head as you ponder Joanna Arnow’s darkly comedic, The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. Arnow, who writes, directs, and stars in the film as Ann, a 30-something New Yorker with a nondescript corporate job and a submissive BDSM relationship. The film passes by in a series of vignettes of Ann’s life, focusing primarily on the things she does for her “Masters”.

Arnow plays Ann very stoically, which makes a lot of what happens to her a bit uncomfortable to watch. It’s also so flatly presented that it’s hard to tell if Ann enjoys what she’s doing or where the pleasure can be derived from. It can be an eye-opening film for those who have no concept of this type of relationship and what it might entail, but it does give off the impression that if you’re not already in the lifestyle, it may not be for you.

Arnow takes a more mosaic approach to the storytelling by having each scene be a snappy, deadpan, one-liner amidst an air of awkward silences. The style is quite humorous for most scenes, although it does become repetitive after a while. The real issue of the film is Ann herself. Between how the character is written and how she’s performed, there is an obvious disconnect between the emotions she feels and the things that happen to her. One of those is the way she interacts with her Jewish parents. She tends to be standoffish and kind of annoyed by them even though they’re never shown to be harsh or judgmental. They’re even given a great scene of singing a union solidarity song together that is rather sweet but is shown to be insufferable to Ann. 

This disconnect also comes through in her relationship with her sister. Once again, shot in this vignette-style, it would be easy to forget her sister has had to move in with her after her life has started to fall apart. It’s hard to know exactly what has happened with her sister and why she’s distraught because those scenes come up few and far between everything else and they aren’t given enough time or dialogue for understanding. Arnow treats those scenes the same way Ann acts in them, she doesn’t just lack empathy, she lacks interest. Part of this is to continue the deadpan humor style that the movie is filled with at this point, and while it certainly has its place, it takes any moment that could or should be transformational, and doesn’t allow it to be.

The same can be said for Ann’s relationships with her “masters”. When we first meet Ann, she is in bed (fully nude as she is in most scenes) with her fully clothed and covered “master” Allen (Scott Cohen). She makes self-deprecating references to their relationship while dry-humping his leg. It’s the kind of scene that might be appealing if it weren’t for the sure humiliation that Ann suffers during it, but that seems to be the point. This continues with every man Ann dates, each with their own sexual proclivities that begin to get more extreme and place Ann in more and more humiliating and compromising positions. In each of these circumstances, it never looks or feels exciting to Ann, and her constant humiliation might inspire sympathy if she, at any point, showed she cared about anything.

The whole film feels geared towards focusing on Ann’s submissive life. She has a job, doing something, but it’s very amorphous, and none of her other non-sexual relationships are given any consideration or depth. We’re left with a film that takes on a subject matter but its vague sense of direction and lack of narrative purpose leaves it looking more like a showcase for an alternative lifestyle and not much else, and not a very appealing one either.

The Feeling That The Time For Doing Something Has Passed will debut in select theaters on April 26, 2024, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVacS6T7jxs]