“It actually helps sometimes to have a person in the picture,” Sofia (Mimi Davila) tells the owner of a home who’s worried he’s getting in the way as she takes pictures in his dining room in “The Scout.” Rather than blocking the view from the filmmakers she’s going to take the pictures back to for approval, Sofia assures him “you get to see the dimensions and stuff” with his presence in them, something that proves true of herself in writer/director Paula González-Nasser’s shrewd character study as it spotlights the unglamorous job of chasing down locations for film and television shows and working out arrangements with the owners to simply see what the premises look like, let alone securing them for the actual production. The work may not have obvious rewards for Sofia, yielding a paycheck unlikely to go very far in a production hub city like New York and perhaps a second of screen time in the end credits which hardly seems to acknowledge the labor she has done, but it does provide a window into the lives she could have, with the film growing more and more powerful with the realization dawning that she may be leaving herself out of the bigger picture.
It won’t come as a surprise to learn that González-Nasser pulled from her own experience in house-hunting for the likes of “High Maintenance” and “Never Rarely Sometimes Always,” yet the self-awareness can be startling when from its striking opening shot on, “The Scout” shows how Sofia has let her work become her whole identity, not leaving much room for anything else. Initially, you might think you’re staring into an empty apartment when the film begins, but as someone comes into rustle Sofia out of bed, it’s slightly sad to know that she’s been there all along, lost in her surroundings before she sets out to search for others with her professional eye. She’s easily forgiven for not wanting to get out of bed almost as soon as the day starts, awakening to a barrage of messages from the people who have responded to flyers she’s put out about a TV pilot that’s going to shoot in Brooklyn. The gig requires Sofia to snap photos of the places, but more practically she’s negotiating with strangers who may be attracted by the potential income an ongoing series could bring, but also occasionally weary of letting anyone in for a variety of reasons.
González-Nasser wisely keeps the focus strictly on the present for Sofia, but there are hints throughout that this position is merely a stepping stone for greater ambitions that she’s stuck with longer than hoped. As she wanders around various homes, peeking into other people’s lives, she can start to understand what her own priorities should be and where she’s falling behind. An early visit to a elderly woman’s home could offer a glimpse of what the future holds when small talk gives a sense of both staving off isolation in separate ways as the owner has felt lonely since her son moved abroad, and while it isn’t that Sofia should fear being alone in her old age – she’s hit on more than once during a long day, seen as an occupational hazard she begrudgingly has to put up with – she does have to think about where she’ll end up if she continues to invest time and energy into her work as opposed to her personal life. When an old friend Becca (Otmara Marrero) reaches out after seeing Sofia’s contact on one of the flyers, it’s a shock for the latter to learn her college pal is eight months pregnant, only adding to the sting of knowing that the time she’s made to go over to her apartment was strictly created when the flat is considered a possibility for the producers.
Sofia’s journey to self-actualization could be easily overdone, but naturally the locations go a long way in telling the story of the people she meets (with surely some great production design touches from Alexandra Anez) and González-Nasser shows a real ear for dialogue and a strong sense of dramatic structure that make it seems as if Sofia is going about a normal day, perhaps insignificant on the surface but the likelihood that every day is just like this one forms an impenetrable wall for her to look past as they pile up. There’s a casual beauty to Nicola Newton’s carefully crafted compositions that frame Sofia’s life at a standstill visually, and much as the character is threatened with blending in with the wallpaper a little too much, Davila can’t help but stand out with a consistently engaging performance where Sofia often withholds her true self from strangers but remains personable enough to earn their trust. “The Scout” may capture what it’s like to be on the outermost fringes of the dream factory, yet still, on so many fronts, you see a big break happening right in front of your eyes.
“The Scout” will screen again at the Tribeca Festival at the AMC 19th St East 6 on June 6th at 9 pm, June 14th at 5 pm and June 15th at 12:15 pm and at the Village East on June 13th at 5:45 pm.