Northwest Film Forum

Sometimes the only storytelling task harder than shocking an audience is normalizing the shock—or, in this case, the unspeakable. Dan Sallitt’s pensive fourth feature film follows a young woman who could be everyone’s heroine were it not for her “unspeakable” feelings for an older brother, feelings that Sallitt carefully and hauntingly picks apart using the camera-as-microscope. Featuring a groundbreaking performance from leading lady Tallie Medel, the sights and sounds of The Unspeakable Act redefine what we comfortably conceive as typical, while coloring our own typical experiences as grotesque.

"The Unspeakable Act carefully hews its path, shirking melodrama and homing in on something very human." —Seattle Weekly

"the director is a really smart writer, and he managed to extract some great performances from his main actors" —The Stranger

“Moves with confident boldness from the incestuous gauntlet its prologue impishly hurls down.” –Slant