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“The Unspeakable Act is a work of deep connections, of consciousness rising, of the slow and effortful differentiation of self from family…it’s an impressive, original, and memorable movie, with a distinctive tone and voice that will linger in memory.” –Richard Brody, The New Yorker
“As close as an American director has ever come to making a Rohmer movie – and not only because the wonderful actor playing the teenage heroine resembles the young Béatrice Romand.” – Amy Taubin, Artforum
“At 57, writer-director Dan Sallitt looks to have belatedly made a definitive transition from film-critic to film-maker with his third feature, The Unspeakable Act. Tackling the thorny subject of sibling incest head-on with spiky intelligence and a literary brand of articulacy…diminutive newcomer Tallie Medel compels attention as intelligent, analytical high-schooler Jackie Kimball — whose dark green bushbaby eyes peer out at the world under black bangs.” – Neil Young, The Hollywood Reporter
“(Ignores) the rules that have turned the once promising independent film movement into Hollywood cheap and lite…the intelligence and emotional clarity of the script and of the central performance were more powerful for being exposed (by the lack of a score). It’s an American Rohmer movie, I thought, an insight then confirmed in the closing dedication. The tip-off came largely from the casting of Tallie Medel, in a remarkable debut as Jackie, a sixteen-year-old girl who is passionately in love with her slightly older brother. Medel resembles the young Béatrice Romand of Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee (1970), both in her idiosyncratic dark beauty and her forthright, intelligent presentation of self…(her) desire is explored and gradually transformed in the course of the best psychotherapy sessions one could wish for.” – Amy Taubin, Artforum
“Everyone must see The Unspeakable Act by Dan Sallitt! What a terrific film – I loved it. Tallie Medel is sensational in the leading role.” – Adrian Martin, Co-Editor, Lola Magazine
“A quiet story of incestuous desire told with deadpan precision and a fair share of subliminal humor, The Unspeakable Act marks its writer-director’s long-awaited cinematic breakthrough. It’s high time to put Sallitt on the map of highly original independent American filmmakers, which is where he’d belonged right from the start…Playing the lead part, the young actress Tallie Medel is a revelation. Part a pudgier version of Anna Karina, part a Liza Minnelli kook forever on the verge of going wild, she has a feline air about her that makes her seem as voluptuous as she’s vulnerable…an idiosyncratic take on desire and change that goes into uncharted sexual territories…with a measure of elegant, fearless lucidity few directors are capable of mustering.” –Michał Oleszczyk, Chicago Sun-Times
“Dan Sallitt’s The Unspeakable Act was perhaps the standout of all of (the American films at Edinburgh), taking one of the few remaining social taboos in the Western world and presenting it in an earnest and incredibly charming way…like Rohmer, whose work often concentrated on intelligent, articulate protagonists who had a tendency to hide their inner desires, Sallitt has created a remarkably honest portrait of adolescent confusion using incest as a curiously enticing narrative device. Traversing the assumed sensationalism behind its subject matter, The Unspeakable Act is an intimate, yet thoroughly enjoyable film with far more universal themes of sexual confusion and teenage angst at its heart than its eye-catching synopsis suggests.” – Patrick Gamble, Indiewire
“An absolutely remarkable film, one of the best of the year so far…The Unspeakable Act is a fully realized—sure, I’ll say it—masterwork, an emotionally wrenching character study that puts its uncomfortable truths forward without recourse to conventional psychology…Once what’s at stake is laid on the table, Sallitt deploys his characters in what I can only describe as alchemical chess moves…Rarely does cinema treat us to the spectacle of a person inflicting what can only be called metaphysical damage to him or her self (despite its topic, the last thing Sallitt is making here is a “social problem” picture). One of the wonders of Tallie Medel’s performance, besides the way she uses her slightly-sexually-ambiguous physicality, is how she documents that damage as vividly as if she were actually physically cutting into herself, even as Jackie the character believes she’s giving nothing away that she doesn’t want to.” – Glenn Kenny, Some Came Running
“Best Female Performance, despite competition from Shadow Dancer’s Andrea Riseborough and Grabbers’ Ruth Bradley, went to Tallie Medel for The Unspeakable Act. As Jackie, a teenager in love with her older brother, Medel is consistently restrained and convincing…
Finally, the coveted Jessica Brown Findlay Award for Best Newcomer. Early bets were all on this award going to Harry McEntire of Unconditional, who is certainly impressive as a young man whose first experience of love comes with strings attached. But in the end, a second award went to Tallie Medel for The Unspeakable Act. Sadly, Tallie was unable to join us at Wannaburger, so we were obliged to eat her burger on her behalf. Still, maybe next year.”
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