Frat lives fall flat. That, at least to the outsider, is a reasonable conclusion to draw from the many unwelcome instances of its bearers disrupting our quotidian sensibilities: humiliation and hazing rituals gone wrong, casual misogyny substantiated by serious sexual transgression, and even the empty beer cans and boorishness that mask and reveal in equal measure a false but entrenched entitlement. To some extent, frat bros know this too. Some are less willing to acknowledge it, out of a fear of not belonging; others may have cultivated a certain brand of cynicism that fosters wanton hedonism; and yet others act and bear witness to cruel Tradition, by virtue of whose endurance and enthusiasm it cements itself as both natural and God-given. There is a flatness, then, to the proceedings of many a fraternity, where boyish conviviality masks superficiality and hierarchy — of seniority, as well as the women and individuals of color who do not belong — trumps healthy, brotherly socialization.
The Line, Ethan Berger’s feature debut, mostly acknowledges these trappings of the good Greek life. It’s a sturdy, self-contained drama about one such fraternity in one such legacy school of sorts where, over the course of freshman induction, new pledges are screened, selected, and strong-armed into the club. Tom Backster (Alex Wolff), a relatively unassuming sophomore, has these pledges in his charge while the Kappa Nu Alpha’s president Todd (Lewis Pullman) is away. He’s keen to prove himself worthy of the fraternity even as a second-year, presumably because of his working-class background and friendship with Mitch (Bo Mitchell), his rotund and dyspeptic roommate. Mitch, on the other hand, hails from old money — his dad (John Malkovich, in a nice cameo), we are told, rubs shoulders with the wealthy and influential — but bears the brunt of his frat mates’ savage teasing, likely on account of his abrasiveness and corpulence. It’s likely this sense of inferiority that motivates The Line’s central conflict, between Mitch and a cocky new pledge named Gettys O’Brien (Austin Abrams), who doesn’t hesitate to insult the former to his face and take a stab at calling out the toxic masculinity built into their hallowed institution.
Less motivational, however, are the rest of the film’s faithful if stray depictions of gender performativity. Much of The Line is anchored in Tom’s internal struggle between honesty and self-preservation, and Berger extracts a fair bit of nuance from Wolff’s minute hesitations when confronted by the fraternity’s internal rifts. Unfortunately, not much else is afforded his character, neither his involvement in the group’s more revealing deliberations nor his tentative romance with Annabelle (Halle Bailey), a studious Black girl who’s just about as antithetical to the frat culture stereotype as it gets. Though admirable in its attempt at ethnographic study, The Line doesn’t fully commit to providing an incisive cross-section of the myriad social dynamics underpinning its subject matter, opting instead for piecemeal performances whose forcefulness takes a bit of dramatic manipulation to come through. Elusive, though, is the titular line: under the strictures of hypermasculine regimentation, when do we fall in line, and when do we cross it? Berger’s film, by way of a moderately compelling ending, suggests that there are two lines after all: one for the boys, and one for the conscionable self.
DIRECTOR: Ethan Berger; CAST: Alex Wolff, Bo Mitchell, Austin Abrams, Halle Bailey; DISTRIBUTOR: Utopia; IN THEATERS: October 18; RUNTIME: 1hr. 40 min.
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