Sew Torn is the first thriller (or movie) I’ve seen where the main character’s day job isn’t detective or writer or architect, but mobile seamstress. Barbara (Eve Connolly) is a seamstress and her super power is rigging Rube Goldberg solutions with needle and thread to face any emergency situation. It doesn’t take long before she’s entangled in a fight to the death between two gangs of crooks, and we’re asking just what are we watching here?
We’re watching a compelling thriller, a genre film with a gimmick, albeit a sui generis gimmick, and it’s the calling card of its talented auteur. Writer-director Freddy MacDonald made the first version of Sew Torn as a 6-minute short while in high school, which led him to being accepted as the youngest ever Directing Fellow at the AFI Conservatory. After winning a student academy award, he and his father Fred MacDonald worked the screenplay of Sew Torn into a feature. Freddy MacDonald has yet to turn 25.
Both Barbara and Joshua (Caleb Worthy), a young hood embroiled in the gangland shootout, need to escape from the domination of their parents. Barbara’s mother is dead, but Barbara, struggling with depression, is trapped living her mother’s life. Joshua’s father (a bloodcurdling John Lynch) is very much alive and threatening the survival of everyone he encounters.
Barbara is glum and passive, and sure doesn’t look like the hero of a thriller, until she whips out a spool and a thimble to MacGyver herself out of a lethal jam.
There’s a surprise in the construction of the story, which I won’t spoil, except to say that it involves the reimagining of outcomes. You’ve certainly never seen this movie before.
I saw Sew Torn at the SLO Film Fest, where it won the Best Narrative Feature. After a successful festival run that began with a debut at SXSW, Sew Torn is available to stream on Amazon, AppleTV and YouTube.