Too often in modern film and television (as well as the conversations we have around them), an emphasis can be placed on their ability to provide escape from the world itself. As such, the everyday realities of work and life that go into them are intentionally not a thing we see captured, flattening experiences into neat stories rather than reflecting their full complexities. Their success is determined by how well they can omit, or even obscure, reality rather than reveal it. 
The opposite is true in the fantastic film “The Scout,” which feels less constructed than it does conjured out of the quietly authentic experiences of modern life and work that most others overlook. The feature debut of writer and director Paula González-Nasser, a longtime location scout on a whole host of projects such as the essential “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” as well as a producer on the underseen recent film “Free Time,” it’s about delving into the distinctly unglamorous parts of a profession that others frequently assume is a “cool job.” As the focused film delicately yet decisively establishes, a job is still just a job and can take more from you than you may realize going into it, leaving you to one day look around to discover there is no ground beneath your feet. Taking us through the daily routine of location scout Sofia (Mimi Davila) as she drives all over New York, having brief encounters with people that range from the awkward to more disconcerting, it’s a quiet achievement that grows on you and marks González-Nasser as an exciting new voice. 
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Beginning with a locked-down camera shot, one of many from cinematographer Nicola Newton that are both precisely framed and effectively emotionally constricting, we catch a glimpse of Sofia’s bedroom as she is about to begin her day. She is the type of utterly exhausted (relatable) where you can’t be so easily roused, even as there is pressing work to be done that will only take longer if not started on and make the next day even worse. A brief interaction she has with someone (a possible partner who, while not unkind in how he does so, seems also to be disconnected from Sofia as he wakes her) is the first sign of how little time she has for the people in her life. After getting in her car, we hear the recurring procession of voicemails responding to flyers she has left throughout the city playing out of the speakers over the title sequence. As she begins the thankless task of going to location after location to take photos for the production team that can’t ever seem to make up their mind, let alone show her any appreciation for her work, the film becomes about the textures of the city Sofia must pay attention to just as it seems none of it ever seems to pay attention to her. 
This could sound heavy, but the film plays everything with a light touch. Some moments are often deeply, witheringly funny (namely every conversation that happens with the production team, which are so genuinely infuriating that they feel real), just as it finds gentle resonances in how it recontextualizes what feels like shots we’ve seen before. New York is, after all, a place where so many productions take place that you almost wonder what paths of past projects Sofia is crossing. A shot early on of multiple entrances and the steps extending out before them feels like they could be romantic if it were in a film where a character rushes up to a door in excitement. However, “The Scout” lets it linger as we wait for Sofia to trek up one after another. As we see in this simple shot, the most lovely places can become tiresome when made to walk in them repeatedly. What is still beautifully framed can become exhausting as we realize that every minute, day, month, and year of her working life is full of running up these stairs with no real end in sight. 
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The film explores moments of tension, but never once does it fall into some big catastrophe. Instead, there is a more lived-in, slow accumulation of indignities that Sofia must face before getting up to go to the next location. In her reactions to men being particularly inappropriate to her, we can feel how this is, unfortunately, business as usual for her profession and just another thing she has to deal with alone. While quite understated, Davila is pitch-perfect in these moments, capturing the layers of performance under which the character lives. It’s a tricky balance as she must be friendly and social with the often inconsiderate people she encounters while being focused on the task, when many of those she works with are not. We don’t get to know much about who she is or what aspirations she has for herself, making the one moment where we get a hint of this all the more painful. That it comes in conversation with someone who already couldn’t care less about what she has to say and is subsequently ignored is notable. While the film is about an integral part of the creative process, the person undertaking it is not valued as a creator in their own right. 
Movies and television about the details of their own production are by no means new, though there are certainly few, if any, that are as focused on an unsung yet critical part of it as “The Scout” is. There were moments watching it where my mind went to films like “Take Out” or “Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World” as well as the work of Chantal Akerman (who González-Nasser has specifically cited) just as there is increasingly something uniquely sad and harder to pin down the longer the film carries on. A fleeting connection with an old friend, a night spent alone, and, of course, starting over to do it all over again instill it with a growing melancholy that is that much more painful because of how ordinary it is. If there is a lingering sense that the film is searching for an ending, it’s because Sofia is as well. Without tipping off what she finds there, it comes at the moment when she stops going through the motions of looking for what others are telling her to find. She, like González-Nasser, may finally discover something for herself. [B+]
“The Scout” is currently playing at the Tribeca Festival.