An equally fitting title for “Share” could’ve been “It Follows,” since the notorious events of which she has no memory have caused a scarlet letter to hover over her at all times, as deftly suggested by the score from Henry Laufer (a.k.a. Shlohmo), emulating the waves of anxiety that threaten to cast her adrift. We only see the residue of violent acts, such as when her dad, Mickey (J.C. MacKenzie), returns bloodied from an altercation in a hardware store with the father of one of the alleged abusers, who has the audacity to claim that Mandy is just as responsible for the footage.
Luckily, her parents are not clueless archetypes or conservative zealots. Mickey can’t fully grasp his daughter’s behavior, and there are traces of blame in his voice when he pointedly asks Mandy, even after her home-schooled solitude, “Don’t you think you’ve been out enough?” Yet he later redeems his wrongheadedness when Mandy erupts, saying that it was her voluntary choice to drink and hook up, to which he affirms that nothing she did gave anyone the right to take advantage of her. The understanding exuded by Mandy’s mother, Kerri (a touching Poorna Jagannathan), is immediate and essential, as is her advice that “the longer you wait, the fewer options you will have.” Gestures of support are also given to Mandy by her close friend Jenna (Lovie Simone, the standout star of another Sundance highlight, “Selah and the Spades”), and a sensitive boy, Dylan (Charlie Plummer of “Lean on Pete”), whose fidgety demeanor indicates he may know more about what happened than he lets on.
Bianco and her ace cinematographer Ava Berkofsky make subtly artful use of recurring motifs, most notably the lights morphing from murky blue to clear white that assist a therapist in unearthing any buried memories Mandy may have of the fateful night. The colors race across the screen, mirroring the passing streetlights she recalls from her otherwise forgotten ride home, where she ended up on the lawn. As the lights illuminate Mandy’s face, they fade back to blue, signifying her fragmented recollections that have long since eroded. After her friendly chat with Dylan, editor Shelby Siegel cuts to one of the ants that have wandered into the house, a result of Kerri absentmindedly leaving the sliding door open. This visual linkage between the ant and Dylan accentuates how he serves as an embodiment of the outside world that Mandy yearns to rejoin, even if it requires her to look beyond certain horrific truths.
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