A New York Struggle in a Minor Key

“Notes From A Successful Failure” is the name of Isabel Hagen’s Substack. That title hints not only at the author’s sardonic worldview, but the tone and temper of her debut feature, “On A String.” Trained as a violist at the Juilliard School, Ms. Hagen has done her share of guesting on other people’s records, including aw-shucks pop star Ed Sheeran, lulling minimalist composer Steve Reich, and Ivy League alterna-lifers Vampire Weekend. Really, she’d rather tell jokes.The viola hasn’t been put in storage, but Ms. Hagen has taken up a microphone. Stand-up is, as a profession, only a tad less tenuous than being a classical musician, but she’s done all right. Ms. Hagen has made repeated appearances on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” and was pegged as a “New Face of Comedy” at Montreal’s annual Just For Laughs festival. Now she can add “auteur” with a sweet, shortish and slow-burning comedy about, imagine that, a struggling New York City violist.“On A String” arrives with a significant plaudit attached: It won an award for Best Screenplay at last year’s iteration of the Tribeca Film Festival. What’s particularly good about the screenplay is its supple interplay between anticipation and payoff. A scene leading to a moderately telegraphed situation will cut away leaving the audience to intuit its resolution. On paper, this tack sounds presumptuous or arty; in practice, it makes for a gentle and, oftentimes, welcome deflection of tension. Editor Olivia Vessel is an invaluable adjunct to Ms. Hagen’s hangdog aesthetic.Ms. Hagen plays a character dubbed, yes, “Isabel.” She lives at home with mom and dad, Julie (Karen Blood) and Jack (Dylan Baker), as well as older brother and classical pianist, Owen (the director’s brother, Oliver Hagen). The family’s comfortable but nondescript apartment holds a bounty of LPs, and they spend serious time listening to this or that symphony, opus or étude. Woe betide anyone who interrupts their rapture. Isabel, being a consummate buzz-kill, ends up being swamped by a lot of woe.How does an artist in New York City earn his or her keep? Catch-as-catch can. Isabel is part of a quartet that includes a violinist who is both a bestie and a bête noire, Christina (Ling Ling Huang). We see its members cashing paychecks by playing functions that are not altogether befitting their fancy educations or aesthetic sensibilities. Isabel manages to get work on a movie soundtrack through the efforts of a sometimes-on, sometimes-off and forever self-involved paramour, Dave (John Kroner). When he tells Isabel that the New York Philharmonic is holding auditions for a violist, her faltering ambitions find a course.“On A String” is an appealingly modest venture, a softly-stated film as sure in its comedic turns as it is pointed in its observations about the creative classes. As in her stand-up, Ms. Hagen strikes a nice balance between sarcasm and candor, and she’s surrounded herself with an outstanding cast. Mr. Baker and Ms. Blood are spot-on as parents whose kindness is riven with blind spots, and Mr. Hagen is perfect as a music snob nonpareil. Frederick Weller garners laughs as a lecherous father of a music student: His attempt to woo Isabel on the guitar is priceless. Comedian Joe List applies his signature discomfort to to the role a conductor working for a temperamental movie director played by New York City stalwart, Eric Bogosian.Laugh you will and cry not so much, but New Yorkers will certainly nod in recognition of how true their city is depicted in “On A String.”

A New York Struggle in a Minor Key

A New York Struggle in a Minor Key

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