After suffering a miscarriage, recently married Tennessee realtor Peggy (Ashley Shelton) plunges into a total life reevaluation in Paul Harrill’s too-timid feature debut, one that shortchanges its main character on empowerment. Roles like this can often be revelatory for their actors—see Mimi Rogers in The Rapture or Julianne Moore in Todd Haynes’s unnerving Safe. Ashley Shelton, a quiet blur of blinking passivity, won’t be entering their league, but don’t blame her alone: The character’s a dishrag, poorly conceived and directed by Harrill who, for some reason, chooses to leave all of her confrontations on the cutting-room floor. We don’t see Peggy make a break from her confused husband (Bryce Johnson) or tell off her boss.
Instead, Peggy makes a wobbly beeline toward a distant high-school acquaintance (Linds Edwards) who sends her a generic sympathy card and has since become a monk. Something, Anything doesn’t really engage with issues of faith or materialism (unless you count canceling your cell phone as evidence), and the cringeworthy endgame sets up a hipster bar-band concert as false catharsis.
Follow Joshua Rothkopf on Twitter: @joshrothkopf