Emily Hubley comes from a family of legendary animators (her mother, Faith, is one of the medium's greats), and her reputation as a filmmaker rests on her clever and amusing animations, so it was difficult to know what to expect going into her new feature, The Toe Tactic. Although it contains a number of animated sequences, the bulk of the film is live-action, and viewers are faced with the uncertainty of seeing a filmmaker work in an unfamiliar medium as well as the notoriously finicky process of blending live actors with animations. Happily, The Toe Tactic succeeds far more than it stumbles, and while it's not without its difficulties, its relentless good nature and some exceptionally keen performances outweigh them in the end.
A semi-formalist meditation on the role of game-playing and ritual in our emotional lives, The Toe Tactic follows a few magical days in the life of Mona, a young woman who is unable to get past the death of her father in a car crash. In the film's longest animated sequences, a quartet of intelligent, extradimensional canines play a complicated card game, the results of which are to make major changes in Mona's life and allow her the possibility of transformation and redemption. There are also subplots that deal with Mona's new temp job working for a mysterious old woman, her flirtation with a singing elevator operator, and a young boy's attempt to take piano lessons as a gift to his mother. This all makes it sound more complicated than what it really is: a meditation on the healing power of art and the capacity for life to present you with little moments of epiphany.
The Toe Tactic isn't a perfect film by any means. Its live sequences aren't shot with as sharp an eye as its animated ones are drawn; David Cross' performance (as one of the game-playing dogs) grates; and the film presents us with far too many scenes involving people reacting with awed smiles to the wonder of the human pageant. But there are many moments, including the ending, that make us feel pretty awed and wonderful ourselves. The animation is engaging — less so for the game-playing sequences than for the little incidental bits where everyday objects are transformed — and the script presents us with many moments of genuine emotion and flat-out comedy. The music (provided by Yo La Tengo, the legendary indie-rock band of which Hubley's sister Georgia is a member) is fantastic, perfectly counterpointing the mood in every scene. And best of all, Hubley is able to coax some tremendous performances out of her actors; the Bronx-born indie fixture Kevin Corrigan, as an awkward piano teacher, is downright stunning. Mona is played by Lily Rabe (daughter of playwright David Rabe and actress Jill Clayburgh), and she's a real find: fresh, engaging and remarkably charismatic. Hopefully, its largely live-action format will get The Toe Tactic wider distribution than the animation circuit on which Emily Hubley's work usually appears; it deserves a chance to find an audience.
