“There are trapped souls in there and nobody’s saving them,” Krystaly (Krystaly Figueroa) tells a social worker (Nicole Zayas) in “Here I’m Alive,” with the fiery red place she’s describing not the bowels of hell as one might suspect but a Target where she hopes to avoid going back to the job. You never see her in a vest, but you can easily imagine her wearing one as if it were a prison jumpsuit and she pleads with the woman working her case that she has an alternative for making money – a reality show that she could shoot with friends in the vein of “Flavor of Love” – though as she’s told, it’s unlikely to satisfy the work requirement that would keep her spot at a local shelter. Both women are seen as having a point in Joshua Z. Weinstein’s prescient ensemble drama where it’s highly unlikely that Krystaly would elevate herself above the poverty line if the best job she can get is at a big box retailer paying minimum wage, but it probably would be for the best if was disabused of the notion that riches await if she could just upload videos on the internet.
Weinstein, who previously tucked himself into New York’s Hasidic community for his striking debut “Menashe,” dips into a number of different crevices around Manhattan for his second, a hugely ambitious narrative swing on modest means that mostly delivers on its promise, though the panoramic view of life on the margins can require patience to warm up to. Thankfully, Weinstein, who has kept up a steady career in camera departments in between directorial efforts, has a skill for engaging visuals as he dips into the neon-soaked streets of the city over the course of one night where the reality outside has led to burrowing into unhealthy ideas propagated online for a group of millennials who are all lured in one way or another out of their comfort zone simply by walking outdoors. The film makes an abrasive introduction in every way possible as it begins with a Marc Andreessen lecture on the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto” that runs on one of the many monitors Majora (Cheyenne Gallagher) has set up in his apartment, giving him no reason to venture out, before cutting away to a backroom clinic where Felix (Caleb Zuzga) accompanies his friend (Irina Stangu) to get lip injections, with the queasy feeling of seeing small bubbles of blood at the end of a needle matched by the nagging notion that the money could surely be better spent elsewhere when they live in squalor.
It’s an ugly view of modern life where people have been sold a false bill of goods by the internet when the wild success of a handful social media influencers can make similar riches seem within anyone’s reach and the intensity of exchanges on online forums can lead to artificial levels of intimacy, but Weinstein finds the humanity in it, refusing to fault anyone he trains his lens on for placing their hopes somewhere when opportunities that previous generations enjoyed if they were just crafty enough have been shut down. The interwoven narrative occurring across town is loosely tied together by a Venezuelan delivery driver named Eddie (Eddie Torrenegra), who zips around with the eventual hope of making enough cash to bring his children over from his home country, but even before his motorbike breaks down, the limits of what someone in his position is capable of can be seen in the world around him when members of ICE give chase to people right in front of him and other random New Yorkers can be seen in the background pushing their car into a gas station, as if everyone is running on empty. Illusions of something better are shattered in other ways for Felix, who heads out for a sexual encounter that he hopes will help pay for his own lip filler as he imagines being the face of a business to lift himself out of poverty, and Majora, who tries desperately to keep an open line of communication with a young man he only knows as Luffy9 (Alex Fox) from a chat group that appears on the verge of taking his own life.
Although little comfort is offered as to where all this is headed, the authenticity makes the outcomes compelling nonetheless and locates hope in a persistent desire among all to achieve a life worth living against all odds as misguided as their approaches may be. Like its characters, the film can be quite rough around the edges – besides its handheld aesthetic, Weinstein introduces and appears to abandon a storyline involving a makeup tutorial influencer after the opening minutes and shifting between disparate narrative strands isn’t always clean (though the director should be applauded for not attempting more explicit ties). But “Here I’m Alive” does feel vital, both in expression and its ultimate intent to shake off a certain way of seeing the world with all of its technological advancements to envision how it really is right now.
“Here I’m Alive” will screen again at Tribeca at the Village East on June 7th at 9 pm and June 14th at 8 pm.