★★★★

My friend Chase Hutchinson recently named Seattle director Megan Griffiths as SIFF’s “Shining Star,” and the title is fitting. As Chase points out, Year of the Fox is the director’s seventh film to play at the Seattle International Film Festival so far. I’m happy to mention it is one of her best.

Year of the Fox tells the story of Ivy (Sarah Jeffrey), a 17-year-old girl in the late-1990s navigating her parents’ divorce, while also trying to find her place in a world that grows equally confusing as it does challenging. Jeffrey is terrific, as is Jane Adams as Ivy’s mother, swooping in at just the right times to keep Ivy’s life on track. Though Eliza Flug’s screenplay can be a little choppy with transitions, Griffiths smartly frames her film through Ivy’s gaze, and we feel what she feels. Ivy seeks to find agency and meaning in a world that grows more curious and challenging as innocence falls away and grown-up realities surface unexpectedly.

Year of the Fox was screened as part of the 49th Seattle International Film Festival and plays May 13 and May 14, 2023.