Posthumous starts out with the premise that an artist’s work is only truly acknowledged and valued after death, and so struggling artist Liam Price decides to fake his own death. Brit Marling plays McKenzie Grain, a journalist whose career isn’t exactly on fire either. She gets introduced to Liam’s work through her art dealer boyfriend, and decides to do a piece on him.
The East are an eco-anarchist group undertaking ‘jams’ – eco-terrorist attacks on greedy corporates. Actually, they don’t attack the faceless corporates – they attack their leaders in person, in the belief that an eye-for-an-eye type of revenge will have the most impact.
Maggie has travelled from the year 2054 back to today, and is emerging as a cult leader with a handful of followers. The viewer follows a couple, Peter and Lorna, who infiltrate the cult in the name of investigative journalism.
I suspect Brit Marling makes some well-considered choices about what she gets involved in. Mike Cahill also directed her in Another Earth (2011) and I feel a bit the same about both movies: interesting premise, but somewhat frustratingly they don’t quite deliver.