''A Bread Factory'' is a 2018 American two-part indie

comedy Comedy is a genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. Origins Comedy originated in ancient Greec ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

written and directed by Patrick Wang. It features an

ensemble cast In a dramatic production, an ensemble cast is one that comprises many principal actors and performers who are typically assigned roughly equal amounts of screen time.Random House: ensemble acting Linked 2013-07-17 Structure In contrast to the po ...

and depicts a fictional community

arts center An art centre or arts center is distinct from an art gallery or art museum. An arts centre is a functional community centre with a specific remit to encourage arts practice and to provide facilities such as theatre space, gallery space, venues fo ...

in a small

upstate New York Upstate New York is a geographic region of New York (state), New York that lies north and northwest of the New York metropolitan area, New York City metropolitan area of downstate New York. Upstate includes the middle and upper Hudson Valley, ...

town that struggles under economic and

social pressure Peer pressure is a direct or indirect influence on peers, i.e., members of social groups with similar interests and experiences, or social statuses. Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person's beliefs, values, religion and beh ...

s. It received critical acclaim. The second part was Brian Murray‘s final role prior to his death.

Plot

The film takes place in the fictional

town of Checkford. It centers on The Bread Factory, a community

run by a married couple, Dorothea and Greta, as well as daily life in the surrounding town. In the first part, a conceptual art duo, May Ray, arrive in town and begin staging flashy, highly produced but utterly vapid performances. They threaten to siphon away an arts grant on which The Bread Factory depends. Dorothea and Greta work to convince the town council not to reassign the funds. The second part centers around a performance of

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

' tragedy ''

Hecuba Hecuba (; also Hecabe; , ) was a queen in Greek mythology, the wife of King Priam of Troy during the Trojan War. Description Hecuba was described by the chronicler John Malalas, Malalas in his account of the ''Chronography'' as "dark, good eyes ...

'' at The Bread Factory.

Cast

Tyne Daly Ellen Tyne Daly (; born February 21, 1946) is an American actress whose six-decade career included many leading roles in movies and theater. She has won six Emmy Awards for her television work, a Tony Award, and is a 2011 American Theatre Hall of ...

as Dorothea *Elisabeth Henry as Greta *

James Marsters James Wesley Marsters (born August 20, 1962) is an American actor, musician, singer, comic book writer, and audiobook narrator. He is best known for his role as the British punk vampire Spike in The WB series '' Buffy the Vampire Slayer'' and ...

as Jason * Nana Visitor as Elsa * Keaton Nigel Cooke as Simon *

Glynnis O'Connor Glynnis O'Connor (born November 19, 1955) is an American actress. She made her big-screen debut starring in the 1973 romantic drama film, '' Jeremy''. She later starred in the short-lived CBS drama series '' Sons and Daughters'' (1974) and the te ...

as Jan *Zachary Sayle as Max * Janet Hsieh as May * George Young as Ray * Brian Murray as Sir Walter *Nan-Lyn Nelson as Mavis *

Janeane Garofalo Janeane Garofalo ( ; born September 28, 1964) is an American comedian, actress, and former co-host on Air America Radio's '' The Majority Report''. The accolades she has received include nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Screen Act ...

as Jordan * Jessica Pimentel as Teresa

Production

The film was inspired by Time & Space Limited, a local arts center in

Hudson, New York Hudson is a Administrative divisions of New York#City, city in and the county seat of Columbia County, New York, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, it had a population of 5,894. On the east side of the Hudson River, f ...

. It was filmed in Hudson over 24 days, following 10 days of rehearsals.

Themes and interpretations

Critics identified the central themes of the film as the value and impact of

the arts The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive range of m ...

, and the difficulty of producing and promoting meaningful artistic work in a

market economy A market economy is an economic system in which the decisions regarding investment, production, and distribution to the consumers are guided by the price signals created by the forces of supply and demand. The major characteristic of a mark ...

Release

The film was released in the United States on October 26, 2018.

Reception

The film received universal critical acclaim. On

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews and ratings of products and services, such as films, books, video games, music, software, hardware, or cars. This system then stores the reviews to be used for supporting a website where user ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, both parts have an approval rating of 100%, based on 30 and 22 reviews respectively. The critic consensus for the first part states "Epic yet intimate, ''A Bread Factory, Part One: For the Sake of Gold'' delivers the sprawling storytelling and nourishing drama audiences might expect from its imposing title." On review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 91 based on 9 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".

Justin Chang Justin Choigee Chang is an American film critic and columnist currently working at ''The New Yorker''. He previously worked for '' Variety'' and for ''Los Angeles Times''. His 2023 reviews at the ''Times'' won the 2024 Pulitzer Prize for Critici ...

, writing for the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'', called the film a "warm and prickly humanist triumph" that "feels meticulously handcrafted in every respect".

Bilge Ebiri Bilge Ebiri (; born 1973) is a British-born American journalist and filmmaker. His first feature film, a comedy thriller entitled ''New Guy'', was released in 2004. Early life and education Ebiri is of Turkish descent. Ebiri studied at Yale Un ...

, writing for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'', designated the film a critic pick, noting that it has "a deliberate pace and thematic ambition to spare — but it also has a ground-level, plain-spoken modesty that renders it hypnotic."

Matt Zoller Seitz Matt Zoller Seitz (born December 26, 1968) is an American film and television critic, author and filmmaker. Career Matt Zoller Seitz is editor-at-large at RogerEbert.com, and the television critic for ''New York'' magazine and Vulture.com, as w ...

of RogerEbert.com gave the film four out of four stars, calling it "a wildly ambitious yet self-effacing epic about a place and its people".

Richard Brody Richard Brody (born January 22, 1958) is an American film critic, filmmaker and author. Background Brody grew up in Roslyn, New York. He is Jewish and has personally identified as an atheist. Brody attended Princeton University, receiving a B ...

, writing for ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', described the film as a "comprehensive vision" drawn from Wang's "ferociously dedicated, deeply empathetic, finely conceived sense of purpose", offering "a detailed, expansive view of local politics and, for that matter, of the nature of community".

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Bread Factory 2018 films 2018 comedy-drama films 2018 independent films American comedy-drama films American independent films Films about the arts Films about theatre Films directed by Patrick Wang Films set in New York (state) Films set in the 2010s Films shot in New York (state) 2010s English-language films 2010s American films English-language comedy-drama films English-language independent films