THE ORDINARIES’ main character, Paula Feinmann (Fine Sendel), is a Supporting Character. Her father was a Main Character and she studies at the Main Character School to learn how to emote and how to draw the narrative’s attention to herself. It’s a meta conceit that pushes against the limits of cinematic structure in a way similar to Spike Jonze’s ADAPTATION or Charlie Kaufman’s SYNECDOCHE, NEW YORK. Like Davey Wreden’s The Stanley Parable, the entire film is a metacommentary where the tension comes from the threat of the narrative collapsing under its own postmodern convolutions. THE ORDINARIES is successful inasmuch as it doesn’t collapse and says something about class and emotional expression even if the pacing falls off towards the end.
Full review available on TAKE ONE: https://takeonecinema.net/2023/the-ordinaries/