Golden Exits: A True Test of Relationships
On Saturday afternoon, The Music Hall presented Alex Ross Perry’s Golden Exits, a narrative about a woman from Australia working in New York on a visa and how she challenges the bonds of the people she encounters.
Produced by Perry, Joshua Blum, Adam Piotrowicz, and Katie Stern; and starring Emily Browning, Adam Horovitz, Mary-Louise Parker, Lily Rabe, Jason Schwartzman, and Chloë Sevigny, Golden Exits tells the story of three households which are all affected by the presence of Naomi.
When Naomi (Browning), a twenty-five-year old Australian woman, travels to New York to assist Nick (Horovitz), with archival files of his father-in-law’s life’s work, tension begins to build as soon as she walks through his door for dinner with he, his wife Alyssa (Sevigny), and his sister-in-law, Gwen (Parker).
It’s clear that there’s history with Nick and past female assistants, and after seeing Naomi for the first time, Alyssa is immediately put on edge, even after being assured by Nick over and over that she has nothing to worry about. During her stay, Naomi is reconnected with Buddy (Schwartzman), whom she met nearly a decade prior. More tension rises as Buddy, who was forced to meet up with Naomi by request of his mother, actually enjoys himself and begins to question his feelings with his wife, Jess.
Although not romantically, Gwen struggles with her identity at the presence of Naomi, a struggle which she constantly dumps on Sam (Rabe), her assistant. At forty and not knowing what she wants or if someone will ever love her, she looks at Naomi through envious eyes while coming to terms with her age.
Golden Exits, while challenging the strengths and faults of these relationships, also expresses a deeper plot line told through the work that Nick and Naomi are sifting through: the question of the significance of one’s life’s work and the overall meaning of life.