Indie Spirits Revue: “The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed”

by Nick Taylor

It took me a while to get caught up in this one, lemme tell you. One can argue whether Joanna Arnow's droll tone, disposition towards cringe comedy, and restrictive palettes in color and emoting is a sneakily incisive feat or a weird student-film misfire. For a film about a woman's exploration of various BDSM relationships while navigating a dead-end job and a stilted relationship with her family, The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed possesses no titillation or temperature spikes to make the audience more engaged…

Scott Cohen's turn as a blandly magnetic dom syncs almost too well with Arnow's mannered affects to appreciate it as an artistic decision, rather than a lack of ability. He's a frustratingly dull man and not a particularly provocative dom, so why do Ann and The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed keep coming back to him? What do we make of her other boyfriends, and how her sex life may or may not reverberate to her confidence and security in other personal arenas? The title hangs heavy over the proceedings, a looming threat that everything is beyond repair. 

Is this secretly about COVID? Not directly, but it resonates in that context as a mosaic of one woman searching for any sense of stability, comfort, and growth in an era when so many traditional avenues to achieve it are largely gone. Sure, people have always dated around and slummed through their lives until an opportunity arises, but what are Ann's options? Spend more time with her family, who seem nice but get under her skin if they try to seriously bond with her? Invest in her fake-ass office job at a nonprofit? Cramped, shitty apartments and offices look even worse when Arnow's camera chooses to magnify the dimensions of these spaces. Any change in Ann's fortunes is carried out by a relatable sense of bafflement.

Best of all is how The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed portrays human sexuality as an integral part of Ann's personal transformations without flat-out pathologizing it. She's wading deeper into familiar waters to figure out her sexual and romantic desires, gaining enough self-possession to actually vocalize what she wants. Still, her successes or embarrassments in one avenue of her life never dictate change in another. Ann eventually becomes assured enough in her desires as a sub to teach a new beau (Babak Tafti) how to be her ideal dom. Then again, the final scene returns us to familiar territory, coyly refusing a neat proclamation of outgrowing old habits. It's inchworm progress, but growth is always worthwhile, and if your apartment is that goddamn small, an inch covers a lot of terrain. 

The Feeling That The Time for Doing Something Has Passed is nominated for Best First Screenplay Spirit Award, and Joanna Arnow is also in contention for the Someone to Watch prize.