Aubrey Plaza is making a huge shift in her career. Known for your typical comedies, the actress has now moved on to different, more serious projects. Aubrey Plaza reaches new career heights as she stars in the drama-thriller Black Bear as you’ve never seen her before.
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With a simple IMBD search, Aubrey Plaza’s credits are filled with several comedies. She is known for her role as April Ludgate in NBC‘s Parks and Recreation. After that, she starred in movies like Dirty Grampa, Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, Ingrid Goes West, and several other similar movies. While Aubrey dismisses the fact that she plays the same character over and over again, we now get to see her in a different light.
Aubrey Plaza made a huge shift in the latest years. The actress ended 2020 with Kristen Steward-lead Happiest Season for Hulu. In there, Aubrey left her usual “funny” characters, and embodied a real person. Starring as Mackenzie Davis‘ ex, Aubrey Plaza became a fan favorite on Twitter. Her chemistry with Kristen was off-the-charts, which pleased fans. Also, her acting is better than ever.
Until Black Bear.
Lawrence Michael Levine directs the 104 minute thriller, and it stars Plaza, Christopher Abbott, Sarah Gadon, in the leading roles. The movie focuses mostly on Aubrey’s character, Allison, a filmmaker who goes to a remote cabin to get some ideas for her upcoming film. There, she meets cabin owners Gabe (Abbot) and Blair (Gadon). The three of them start a rather cringy love triangle. The conversation puts a big emphasis on talks about feminism, traditional gender roles and the state of the world. What seems to be another love triangle movie where something goes wrong, Black Bear is not that. The flirting, arguing, uncomfortable jokes and drinking that follows is just a small part of the immensity of the movie as it does a total shift halfway through.
The movie started with Aubrey sitting on a towel staring at a lake. But it shifted back to the same moment after Part 1: The Bear in the Road. The second pat of the movie, Part 2: The Bear By the Boat House, gives us a movie within a movie.
The tone of the first part is charged with intensity, and you get a feeling that something bad is about to happen. The second part, however, shows a more fresh approach. Filled with a bigger cast, the rhythm is dynamic, funny, and real.
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Starring the same love triangle, Allison’s character is now filming a movie with Gabe, who is the director, and Blair. But in this new “reality,” Allison and Gabe are now a couple. He is trying to get her to be the best actress she’s ever been while flirting with Blair. We see a total distortion in the dynamics as Allison goes through what Blair went through in the first part. Allison gets drunk, angry, and suspicious. The movie they’re filming seems to be a success, but what about the relationship between the stars? After the film ends shooting, Gabe and Blair get together. The two follow the same path as Gabe and Allison did in the first part, without the dramatic end scene.
Then the movie cuts to its third part, where Allison sits alone looking at the foggy lake. She returns to the cabin to write. But this time she writes “Black Bear” on the notepad before looking at the viewer.
With this movie, we see Aubrey in a different light. She reaches new career heights with her best role so far, and the promise of so much more.
The movie hit theaters in December 2020, but it was available on digital platforms starting 23 April.
