“I’m usually sure, but I’m afraid of what I’m sure of, so I’ll say I’m unsure,” Isabel (Isabel Hagen) tells a soon-to-be ex that she’s trying to let down easy in “On a String,” affirming that she is in fact breaking up with him despite some hemming and hawing. From the unnamed boyfriend’s overly anguished response, there’s little doubt she’s making the right decision, but the uncertainty in her voice is equally understandable when it seems like few decisions in her life have led to any improvement. Back to living at home with her parents after attending Julliard and treading a hamster wheel professionally when her viola is deployed primarily for weddings and funerals, it seems Isabel isn’t putting her instrument to its best possible use, a stark contrast from how well Hagen, the multitalented multihyphenate playing her, finds that a professional dead end for the character appears to be the start of a quite promising career in filmmaking.
Like Kate Dollenmayer in “Funny Ha Ha” or Lena Dunham in “Tiny Furniture,” Hagen may be playing a heroine with distinctly millennial concerns, but as an actress she’s well-suited to silent comedy when the feeling of dread plays out on Isabel’s face like Buster Keaton, grimly going about her routine without much expression while likely freaking out internally at all times. The violist’s surroundings hardly help when her parents could be accused of playing their music louder than she does, indicative of their expectations for their daughter, and her brother is always on the piano, dismissing Isabel’s bid to join a local philharmonic that she sees as a precious opportunity when it isn’t Berlin or Chicago. In the mean time, she settles for infrequent gigs with the quartet she plays events with and follows a lead from one of those gigs to become a tutor for the prepubescent daughter (Haven Stashenko) of the well-to-do Carl (Frederick Weller) and Trish (Jamie Lee), whose financial stability papers over other issues in their marriage.
While Isabel struggles to find a rhythm in her life, having a fickle fellow musician that toys with her feelings in additional to all of her other occupational concerns, Hagen’s strong grasp on the rigamarole of a working artist establishes a comfortable pace for the film where the fact that she’s always on the move from each odd job she takes from backing up a punk musician to playing recording sessions keeps things lively but also is recognized as an impediment to putting all her energy into one direction that could move her forward. While Hagen has stood out as a stand-up comedian for bringing her viola on stage with her, she carries a canny sense for comic set-ups into the film, making Isabel a witness to a marriage proposal gone horribly awry in the film’s amusing introduction and setting a pivotal dramatic conversation in an elevator where the people coming and going make it terribly inconvenient to say anything important.
At a brisk 78 minutes, the writer/director generally keeps things light, but it isn’t only in her own performance where she generously allows for characters to subtly express their hidden fears or desires, surely part of the attraction for the likes of Weller to play Carl, who is cleverly conceived to show intimacy through who he’ll play his guitar for when being around Isabel tapes into his own latent musical ambitions, and Dylan Baker to Isabel’s dad, who is careful to temper encouragement with realistic expectations, often having to clench his teeth. Uncertainty may reign supreme in “On a String,” but the story itself is in assured hands of someone who knows where they’re going.
“On a String” will screen again at the Tribeca Festival at the Village East on June 7th at 11:45 am and June 13th at 8:45 pm and the AMC 19th St. East 6 on June 14th at 11:45 am and June 15th at 3 pm.