Tribeca 2022: The Integrity of Joseph Chambers Review

This will be one of several reviews from this year’s Tribeca film Festival. To follow our coverage, click here.

Solo pieces are risky for obvious reasons in that they depend on a single performance to carry a film. Meanwhile, those performances are also hard to pull off for obvious reasons for all the responsibility that comes with such roles. That being said, it still has to be compelling enough to hold on to audience interest. When it comes to The Integrity of Joseph Chambers, it is a solo piece that is not only lifted by a strong lead performance from Clayne Crawford as the titular Joseph Chambers but also throws in some stellar sound design and a great score to pull audiences into what was a compelling yet tense character study that made the most out of its short running time, clocking in at around 90 minutes. Where the film truly excels is how it makes Chambers feel so small and clearly over his head, capturing his volatile emotional state over the course of his journey throughout the film.

The Integrity of Joseph Chambers follows a man named Joseph Chambers (Crawford) who ventures out into the woods alone in order to prove to his family and himself that he could survive and provide for his family. Now it wouldn’t be much of a film if everything went according to plan so they did not as far as Chambers was concerned. What he believed to be a simple deer hunting trip became something much different. Feeling the pressure and some anxiety in wanting to prove himself, he quickly found himself in trouble and clearly over his head. The sound design and score sets the tone nicely as Chambers fumbles his way to try and save himself. In the woods alone, he had nowhere to hide and couldn’t push down his anxiety and self-doubt anymore. This made for a volatile time where truths were revealed and lessons were learned for better or worse. While things didn’t necessarily go in a predictable way, Chambers’ arc was an engaging one.

And that arc works because of Crawford’s strong performance as Chambers. His range was on display here, going through Chambers’ range of emotions and pulling audiences into the character’s fragile psyche. Crawford’s charm and likability make it easy to make that immediate emotional connection thus resulting in more of an impact.

At the end of the day, The Integrity of Joseph Chambers is a simple but powerful character piece that is worth the watch.

still courtesy of Tribeca

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Keith Noakes

The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.