Haley Elizabeth Anderson’s feature debut, “Tendaberry,” is a narrative document on change. Dakota (Kota Johan) is a 23 year old New York City transplant, somewhat estranged from her family, but passing the days with her boyfriend, Yuri (Yuri Pleskun). When he is called back to his native Ukraine to care for his sick father, Kota’s home base is disrupted and she is thrust into a reality of navigating the mammoth energies of New York City on her own. Anderson’s filmmaking is incredibly intimate, rendering America’s most populous city into a concrete, fluorescent-lit chamber of isolation as Kota sinks into struggles of every kind: emotional, financial, and physical.
“Tendaberry” employs habitual use of archival footage from the real life video diaries of Nelson Sullivan. These function as glimpses into New York’s past so as to be an emotional companion to Kota’s own lamenting of humanity’s ephemeral state of being. When Yuri leaves, Kota isn’t sure what landing on her feet even looks like, and before she’s afforded the time to figure it out, external forces put new problems on her plate. Kota is very much a kite in the wind, subjected to the airs of instability. This isn’t to say she doesn’t have personal agency. But Anderson’s film makes clear at its empathetic core that clawing for stable ground is an act of autonomy and self discovery, and that whether or not reliable grip is found is not a stain on the act of trying.
Dreamlike montages with voiceover narration from Kota are peppered throughout “Tendaberry” as Kota reflects on Yuri, her present, Nelson’s past, and the future of New York. These sequences are touching, taking quotidian life and memories and delivering them with utter romanticism. It appreciates a deeper way of looking and promotes the idea that even the mundane is filled to the prim with history and potential, so much so that we can never truly know a place. Nelson Sullivan’s New York is not Kota’s New York is not our New York. Yuri’s Ukraine, now in the throes of the Russian invasion, is a different country than he left. It’s even a different place than it was pre-war when he returned. And now separated, Yuri and Kota will go on to be different people than they were the last time they were together.
Kota Johan shows incredible versatility in her portrayal of Dakota. The vulnerability and expressiveness she showcases through Dakota’s volatile trek through time is deeply affecting. She is physical, meek at times and fierce in others, but always marked by resilience either way. Yuri Pleskun gives a sentimental performance as well. We view him primarily through the eyes of Kota, and the love that threads them together sets the basis for Kota’s story.
“Tendaberry” feels like a hybrid between a scrapbook and a diary. Matthew Ballard’s cinematography is entirely handheld, lending to the utterly personal feel that prevails through the film’s entire runtime. We are taken on Dakota’s journey, vicariously learning through her living as she does with Nelson Sullivan. The quintessential theme is the transience of people and places, the idea that things once held precious are now replaced. Whether it’s people who have come and gone or beloved piers slated for destruction to make way for commercial properties, nothing lasts. “Tendaberry” is a sacred portrait of a young woman discovering the brutality of unyielding change. It’s a film that reminds us that the tenderness of personal memory is the most sacred form of preservation, but also that it’s fallible, reset and rewritten by every generation.
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