Wilder (Zachary Ray Sherman) wouldn’t appear to be the vulnerable type upon first looking at him in “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine,” standing in the middle of a club where he may look a bit out of place, but more than capable of holding his own. He may be in trouble when a woman (Jessica Barr) whispers in his ear that she’s off to the restroom, clearly wanting him to follow, but the writing/directing duo of Sara Katarina Burke and Aaron Andrew Keene have another kind in mind when the Uber drive home reveals they met over JPay months before when he was incarcerated and she’s taking him back to her place where she has a stripper pole to practice on for work and cocaine to calm the nerves. There have been plenty of dramas around the notion of recidivism, but Burke and Keene take a fresh tact when Wilder is caught between two worlds upon his release, unwanted by his ex Tess (Lindsay Burdge), who thought she had another few months before having to make any decisions about welcoming him back into her life with their six-year-old son Jack, and having Barr’s Riley waiting outside the prison gates with open arms.
The ex-con isn’t eager to return to the kind of life he had before, but there may be no other option when Riley can offer a place to crash while he gets back on his feet and trips to the diner where Tess works don’t get him any closer to convincing her he’s a changed man. You can’t be sure yourself, but Burke and Keene shrewdly show how limited Wilder is in his ability to change, let alone demonstrate it for others when he’s not tempted to fall back into bad old habits so much as forced there when it’s the only path that makes sense. He could be useful to Tess, who has to balance work with taking care of Jack, but instead you see him used by Riley, who pulls him into webcamming where having a partner can make more money and she has a measure of control over him with her largesse that she has nowhere else in her life.
In spite of some slightly overdone stylistic flourishes from the unnecessarily harsh lighting that distinguishes Riley’s world from Tess’ and superfluous chapter breaks, “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” has real nuance where it counts, finding a wrenching third act in Wilder having the unenviable task of starting to impart lessons to Jack once Tess finally can trust him enough to leave the two alone together for a few hours while he’s still figuring out where the boundaries are himself. Sherman brings an instant credibility to the parolee who’s been through enough to know he can’t go back yet can easily mistake the path of least resistance for the better way, and while Keene and Burke clearly refrain from making a villain out of anyone, Burdge and Barr never fall into the trap of appearing as adversaries though their characters are polar opposites, each with their own struggles that never need to be explained when they’re so effortlessly expressed. In a film where nothing else seems to come easily, the truth does.
“Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” will next screen on December 6th in Portland, Oregon at the Hollywood Theatre at 7:30 pm.
