The dark side of college fraternity life comes to light in this harrowing, well-acted campus drama.
Films about fraternities tend to describe a familiar arc of moral degradation, and Ethan Berger’s campus cautionary tale “The Line,” about the initiation of freshmen into a well-heeled but toxic brotherhood at a Southern liberal arts college, is no exception: You probably won’t be shocked to learn that frat life is crude, boorish and dangerous, as “The Line” makes abundantly clear. But if the movie’s portrayal of rivalrous (and homoerotic) hypermasculinity doesn’t always seem original, it is nevertheless realized with seriousness and vigor. Berger takes a keen anthropological approach to the rites and rituals of the fictitious Kappa Nu Alpha house, and he makes it so that you can almost smell the stale beer and crumpled Ralph Lauren. The details are believable, and therefore more disturbing.
Our entree into the crass, bad-mannered world of KNA is Tom Backster (Alex Wolff), an obtuse sophomore militantly devoted to the traditions of the frat. Wolff plays him with a thick, mealy-mouthed Southern accent, which he painfully exaggerates to better fit in with his dunderheaded peers, for whom articulating a full sentence is tantamount to betrayal.
Tom’s clashes with Gettys O’Brien (Austin Abrams), the club’s handsome, Billy Budd-esque newcomer who repeatedly flaunts the rules, is the conflict at the heart of the movie. Its escalation is predictable, but Wolff and Abrams (both excellent) embody their characters with intensity and conviction, which makes even the film’s most heightened confrontations feel deeply plausible.
The Line
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
Source: Elections - nytimes.com
