Let’s remember when ‘We Go Way Back’ was released, on this day in 2011(April 29)
After making its debut at Slamdance in 2006 (and winning the Grand Jury Prize), it would another five years before Lynn Shelton’s debut film We Go Way Back would get a theatrical release.
Back in 2009, when promoting her breakout film Humpday, I interviewed Shelton, and remember asking how I could see her debut film, and I believe she said there might be a copy at the Northwest Film Forum. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to track down, as this was before the ubiquity of streaming. Two years later, it started to play in theaters.
The reviews were decidedly mixed, with the New York Times noting:
More successful at conjuring atmosphere than at plot, “We Go Way Back” is nicely acted but frustratingly slight. Ben Kasulke’s photography is lovely, and Robert Hamilton Wright (recalling Paul Benedict’s turn as the loony director in “The Goodbye Girl”) delivers a sharp parody of fringe-theater eccentricity. But whether Kate is losing her grip on reality or retrieving it, her struggle is finally a moody journey to nowhere in particular.
This was, though after critics had seen Shelton’s second and third features, My Effortless Brilliance and Humpday, or, again, as the Times said, “several years and artistic eons before her terrific ‘Humpday.’” I rather enjoyed WGWB, but have really enjoyed watching Lynn Shelton’s evolution as a filmmaker, and cannot wait for her newest film, Sword of Trust, as the opening night film at SIFF this year.
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