City of Trees

Alexandra Swarens is becoming a sapphic movie institution unto herself. Since 2019, Swarens has released five sapphic movies and her three films currently in development seem likely to follow the same trend. I really admire Swarens going out there and doing the thing. And doing it constantly at that. City of Trees is her first film. And I guess the good news is that it’s my least favourite. It only gets better from here, I guess.

Ainsley returns to her small town for the Christmas season. Since leaving after high school, Ainsley has become a photographer in the big city who is not wholly satisfied with her non-creative but well-paying job. While back in her small town, Ainsley reconnects with an ex-classmate of hers named Sophie. They do some lesbian stuff. Ainsley also does some wholesome family activities with her loving, supportive parents while concealing certain struggles of her life from them. Not the gay thing, though. That’s already out in the open and not really relevant to any sort of conflict.

On the one hand, I’m glad this isn’t another movie about the drama of coming out during a major holiday. There’s at least a few of those and I’m full up on that plot. However, my main issue with City of Trees is how little conflict and really, story there is here. City of Trees doesn’t quite swing for Hallmark-style cutsey winter romance. It’s more grounded than that. But this is still a very conflict-light and plot-light movie that really strains to hit feature film-length running time.

Ainsley and Sophie are equally dull. Which I suppose means they’re a good fit for each other. God, did I have no interest in watching them fall in love, however. Swarens understands naturalistic dialogue. She if anything, understands it too well. If you eavesdropped on the conversation of any two women getting coffee, it would probably be boring. But I do like to see my fiction elevate real life, even when it’s done in a realistic style. City of Trees really doesn’t elevate these characters beyond being realistic and believable, but just incredibly dull.

In certain structural and technical levels, City of Trees doesn’t exactly triumph either. The film really drops you into the story which worked for me. But it concludes almost as abruptly and feels like it lacks a satisfactory final act. The third act break-up of Ainsley and Sophie is laughably weak and easily dealt with. Plus, on a visual level this film does not sing. The “realism” of this Christmas indie means that the whole movie is shot in muddy, muted tones of greys, blues and browns. The lighting is also not always adept and there are some scenes where they clearly struggled with sound as well. These are forgivable elements if the story or even the concept of the story was strong enough. But dull as this movie is, the story offers no distractions from the technical shortcomings.

If the choice for sapphic Christmas romances is between Hallmark-knockoffs and City of Trees-style cheap, bland indies, I’m picking the Hallmark-style movie. Those ones do seem to have a lot more going for them between bolder colour choices and more of an acceptable excuse for the lack of conflict. Those movies can feel like a warm mug of cocoa. City of Trees is more like a glass of water you left on your bedside table in December over night for a week.

Overall rating: 3.8/10

Other WLW films in similar genres