Sundance Report: Anton Yelchin's Final Films

When Alton Yelchin died suddenly last year, he left behind a small library of completed, but yet-to-be-released films, including one Hollywood blockbuster and a handful of smaller movies. The blockbuster was Star Trek: Beyond, the third entry in the rebooted big-screen Trek franchise, which had placed Yelchin in Walter Koenig’s old chair as Russian navigator Pavel Chekov. Beyond arrived in theaters on July 22 — one month after Yelchin’s accidental death on June 19 — and became a eulogy for the 27-year-old actor, who was coming off an acclaimed star turn in Jeremy Saulnier’s thriller Green Room. In addition to dedicating the film to Yelchin’s memory, Beyond executive producer J.J. Abrams made a point of saying that the role of Chekov would not be re-cast in the current iteration of the franchise.

Two of the features I’ve seen at Sundance this year also conclude with an “In Memoriam” credit for the prolific young actor. Yelchin appears in Cory Finley’s much-lauded debut, Thoroughbred, and can also be glimpsed acting opposite Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage in the psychological drama Rememory. Yelchin’s posthumous presence in each is at once both galvanizing and bittersweet: a reminder of his talents and how much they’ll be missed.

That’s particularly true in Thoroughbred, a finely tuned thriller that takes the basic premise of Heavenly Creatures and applies the sharp tongue of Mean Girls. The movie stars a pair of actresses who made a splash at Sundance’s 2015 edition: Olivia Cooke, the titular dying girl in Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, and The Witch’s Anya Taylor-Joy, who can currently be seen in M. Night Shyamalan’s career-rejuvenating hit, Split. In the halcyon days of childhood, wealthy Lily (Taylor-Joy) and troubled Amanda (Cooke) were close friends, but the pair steadily moved apart as they entered their teenage years. Now, though, they’re forcibly reconnected as Amanda’s worried mother hires Lily to ostensibly “tutor” her daughter, but, in reality, provide Amanda with some much-needed companionship. But Lily has her own baggage in the form an A-hole stepdad, Mark (Paul Sparks), who is all too eager to ship her off to reform school.

How do you solve a problem like an evil stepdad? Kill him, of course! At least, that’s the path of action that Amanda jokingly suggests. But Lily doesn’t take it as a joke; it isn’t long before they’re evaluating and discarding various murder plots. One of those potential plots involves Yelchin’s Tim, an aspiring low-life who talks a good game about breaking bad, but can’t back it up with action. It’s worth noting that this isn’t a Strangers on a Train situation where one of the would-be murderers is the plotter and the other is the patsy. Part of the devilish fun of Thoroughbred is watching the ever-shifting power dynamics between Lily and Amanda as they collaborate — and compete — in plotting Mark’s bloody death. Poor Tim is just caught in the middle of their scheme; in one of the movie’s best scenes, the girls push him to prove he’s capable of wielding a gun only to watch as his tough exterior completely crumbles until they’re forced to knock him out with a lamp to the noggin. It’s a moment that highlights Thoroughbred’s confident mixture of tension and comedy, and Yelchin plays the fool expertly.

The Yelchin we see in Rememory, on the other hand, is more of a haunted soul. Co-written and directed by Mark Palansky, this talky, occasionally muddled stab at a sci-fi-laced psychological drama revolves around a revolutionary device that allows people to transfer their memories out of their heads and onto a hard drive, to review them at their leisure. While the doohicky’s inventor, Gordon Dunn (Martin Donovan), is high on the idea, others aren’t as convinced this is a product the world needs. So when Gordon turns up dead one morning, it’s entirely possible that one of those critics may be responsible. But whodunnit? That’s the mystery that amateur detective Sam Bloom (Dinklage) sets out to solve, interviewing suspects ranging from Gordon’s wife, Carolyn (Julia Ormond), to nervous factory worker Todd (Yelchin), who was actually in Dunn’s office the night of his death, with a gun in his hand.

While Rememory has its head in the right place thematically, it never quite catches fire dramatically. That’s not for lack of trying by Dinklage, who ably steps into the role of a Black Mirror-inspired version of Philip Marlowe, who has a tragic secret in his own past — one he’s not particularly eager to relive via the Rememory machine. And in their relatively brief screentime together, Yelchin matches him tortured look for tortured look. Working together, they locate the story’s emotional core that never quite comes through on the page.

Yelchin shot Rememory in January and February 2016 and Thoroughbred in May and June, making them the last two features he completed prior to his death. (In between, he returned to Star Trek Beyond for some widely publicized reshoots.) But there are two additional films he appeared in that are still awaiting release: on April 4, Sony Pictures will release We Don’t Belong Here, an ensemble family drama featuring Yelchin, Catherine Keener, and Riley Keough that was originally filmed in 2014 under the title The Greens Are Gone. The actor also starred opposite Lucie Lucas in the Portugal-set romance Porto, which has opened in other countries but currently lacks a U.S. distributor. A similar situation faced Thoroughbred and Rememory coming into Sundance: the former was quickly nabbed by Focus Features; at press time, Rememory is still seeking distribution. Both films are further evidence why Yelchin was an actor who won’t quickly be forgotten.