When I’m a Moth Review

In 1969, Hillary Rodham (soon to be Clinton) went to Alaska (Valdez, to be exact), to slime fish. It’s a surprisingly true story – as told by Clinton in her 2017 memoir “What Happened” – and it’s the seed from which the film When I’m a Moth grows. Now, the film isn’t interested in offering a realistic dramatization of Clinton’s time gutting fish (which would have been a short film, as Clinton has said she was quickly fired from the job for working too slowly – something that does happen within the first several minutes of the film). Rather, filmmakers Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak are more interested in presenting a dreamlike version of this story that sees Hillary wax poetic on a number of topics, develop a lovely, if temporary, relationship with a local Japanese immigrant, and throw around enough key buzzwords to make sure the audience knows who she is meant to be, even if the film never provides her last name.

As has been written in other reviews of this film (which initially premiered on the festival circuit in 2019), When I’m a Moth is a weird and pretentious film that lacks a real focus when it comes to telling a story. The dialogue is wordy, the characterization is spotty, and it’s not telling us much about its apparent subject that we don’t know already. Had Cotler and Zyzak opted to make their Hillary more of an anonymous avatar (which would have forced the audience to reckon with their own thoughts on Clinton while being shown elements of what the filmmakers’ feel defines her – as a politician, as a person, and as a woman – rather than listen to her offer up very on-the-nose statements that serve only to flatten the character rather than enhance her) or lean into the fictionalized nature of this version of Hillary by coloring in the empty space regarding this phase of her life, the film would be far more successful.

Instead, we are hit over the head with stunted dialogue that winks at some of future Hillary’s perceived faults and failings, as well as her presumed single-minded drive to succeed in the political arena – one such piece of dialogue has Hillary opining that she should work on softening herself so as to appear more likeable when she runs for office in the future – that serve to remind us that we aren’t getting anything new out of this fictional version of the woman than what we already know. Without the risk in trying to build a version of this young Hillary that exists outside of the politician and wife we know today, there’s no reward in the film.

While the script doesn’t work (and the cinematography is fine but uninspired), what does work are the film’s two leading performances from Addison Timlin as Hillary and TJ Kayama as Ryohei, Hillary’s love interest. The duo have genuine chemistry and they manage to make the best of the lack of characterization within the film to salvage something worth watching. I would have enjoyed watching these two on screen in a stronger film, with better characters to inhabit. Timlin, in particular, has talent and I would like to see her given the change to dig into a truly complex character – perhaps even a true bio-pic of Clinton, as she bears a resemblance to her and has some of her vocal cadences down – including her calm, but serious delivery of most of her dialogue. And Kayama has a soulful calmness that pervades his scenes in the film – which is much appreciated in a film like this that has a great deal of talking and very little substance to go with it.

If you’re a fan of Clinton and were hoping for a film that cracked the code on what she may have been like in her pre-political days, When I’m a Moth won’t scratch that particular itch. If you are looking for a strange, albeit pretentious, film with heaps of rather pointless pontificating by a cypher meant to represent Clinton – but that has two strong, if handcuffed performances at its center – this might just be the film for you. There are things to like about this film, just not enough to make it worth your while.

When I’m a Moth is streaming on all digital platforms.