Aron Gaudet’s patient attention to ordinary lives is worth seeking out. His research-led films with Gita Pullapilly make people and places convincing, though their fiction is less reliable when the plotting gets busy or the comedy turns broad.
Fi1m perspective
In Little America (2020), work and family life are given time to matter. We were moved by the series’ patience with its immigrant characters and the feeling it finds in their everyday concerns. Gaudet directed the episode “Paper Piano”, a contribution that fits his recurring interest in people trying to improve limited circumstances. Our enthusiasm is for the series as a whole; its attention to ordinary lives is also a useful starting point for considering his work.
Gita Pullapilly is central to that work, as his regular co-writer and co-director. Their feature documentary debut, The Way We Get By (2009), follows three elderly people greeting troops at Bangor airport. With Beneath the Harvest Sky (2013), they moved into fiction, following two teenagers in northern Maine potato country. They researched the drama by talking to people involved in potato farming and prescription drug dealing, a practical preparation that helps explain the convincing setting and natural performances.
The difficulty comes when those closely observed lives have to support a more elaborate plot. In Beneath the Harvest Sky, subplots dilute the focus on the central relationships, despite the strength of the regional detail. Queenpins (2021), their first studio comedy, takes a counterfeit-coupon scheme as the basis for a caper, with Kristen Bell and Vince Vaughn among the cast. Its uneven tone and reliance on coarse humour make the move into comedy less assured.
That makes the quieter pleasures of Little America particularly welcome. We recommend it for allowing work and family to occupy the foreground, although its occasional insistence on reassurance is a persistent catch. When a series has taken such care over its characters, we do not need much encouragement to care about them ourselves. Its patience suits Gaudet’s observational habits, without making every strength or weakness attributable to him. Start with the series, provided its wish to send us away reassured does not put you off.
Biography
Aron Gaudet is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born on 5 February 1974 in Old Town, Maine. He is a graduate of the New England School of Communications and previously worked in television news in several US cities.
Gaudet began his film career in 2007, co-directing an episode of the PBS series Frontline/World. He is best known for the documentary The Way We Get By (2009), which he directed and which features his mother; the narrative feature Beneath the Harvest Sky (2013), which he co-wrote and directed; and Queenpins (2021), which he co-wrote and co-directed with his wife Gita Pullapilly. He directed an episode of the anthology series Little America (2020).
Gaudet and Pullapilly collaborate under Team A + G Productions. He has received awards including selection for Variety's 2014 '10 Directors to Watch' list and a Guggenheim Fellowship, both shared with Pullapilly.
