TIFF: Adelaide Clemens impresses with ‘The Swearing Jar’

By Abe Friedtanzer

It’s wonderful when a film serves as a showcase to a performer you’ve appreciated seeing before and had hoped would get another terrific part. Australian actress Adelaide Clemens, who has done plenty of TV work in her home country, delivered a very affecting turn in the underrated SundanceTV series Rectify as a soft-spoken spouse learning to find her own voice. She also recently appeared as the wife of Andrew Garfield’s Mormon detective in Under the Banner of Heaven. In just the opening scene of the Canadian film The Swearing Jar, it’s clear that Clemens is doing something altogether different and harbors tremendous untapped talent…

In that opener, Carey (Adelaide Clemens) sings an upbeat, expletive-laden song to the camera, presumably to celebrate the birthday of her husband, Simon (Patrick J. Adams). The pregnant singer-songwriter’s relationship with Simon and his disapproving, generally cold mother (Kathleen Turner) is explored as she also meets Owen (Douglas Smith), who works at a bookstore, and finds herself attracted to him. Caught in between two men, Carey navigates her feelings as she tries to create meaningful art.

That plot tease could sound like a romantic comedy, but that’s not what this is. There are entertaining moments that occur with both couples, but the emphasis is on drama and the pain of heartbreak. These relationships feel real and lived-in, and characters aren’t willing to just accept things that happen but instead work to process them, often angrily and rashly. To call this a love triangle also isn’t entirely accurate since Carey is truly the lead protagonist, anchoring a story that involves other people but is mostly about her.

Clemens is once again playing a wife, and while she’s proven very skilled at emoting deeply without saying much and having potent chemistry with her onscreen spouses, it’s marvelous to see what she’s doing here. This is an excellent argument that performers shouldn’t stick to just one type of role, and that independent film can afford great opportunities to those willing to give them a shot. This film is engaging, complex, and poignant, centered on its magnetic main character and the terrific actress playing her. 

The Swearing Jar is screening in the Contemporary World Cinema category at TIFF. Gravitas Ventures will release in the US later this month.