On a String Shares the Plight of Gig Artists

On a String opens with one of the damnedest cringe comedy scenes. Set to beautiful viola music and shown separately, the camera stays tight on faces as a bespectacled man has just proposed marriage to his girlfriend. Rather than seeing widened eyes of surprise and ensuing tears of joy shared over jubilant declarations of love, the back-and-forth cuts to sunken expressions and confused questions, plainly showing we are watching a failed proposal in progress. 

At one point, the perspective changes to a two-shot of shared space as the gutted gentleman looks away from his partner to emphatically say, “You can stop,” to the on-site outdoors and in-person violist playing an arm’s length away in mid-crescendo. And there, in this demoralizing moment two people are never going to forget, is also a completely innocent third person, a stranger named Isabel who won’t soon forget it either. Making the moment even more awkward, the player has to somehow gently pack up her instrument for a non-quick getaway and ask for the promised payment—which ends up being crumpled cash from the man’s wallet he can’t manage to retrieve without the girlfriend across from him temporarily holding the big engagement ring box she denied while he frees his hands.

What a doozy of a trainwreck! The violist who was there to make the moment is now part of ruining it, and we can’t help but snicker at the whole situation. That dagger-to-the-heart scenario, dipped in the poison of black comedy, is how writer, director, and star Isabel Hagen, essentially playing herself, chooses to begin her indie opus On a String. After absorbing that opening scene, feeling terrible for, yet amused by everyone involved, you pine for hope that, surely, there’s nowhere to go but up from here.

Alas, Isabel Hagen is just warming up this downward spiral. Joining three other players for a classy string quartet, Isabel plays at a church wedding, something deemed insulting for the musicians, though plenty of people come over to praise their collective work. Even after getting partially caught up in the magic of a successful wedding, On a String cuts to Isabel later with a man across from her, profusely bawling in bed. We are dropped into the tail end of her own awkward breakup scene, made worse by the fact that she still lives with her parents (Karen Blood and the ever-reliable character actor Dylan Baker), and this jilted man has to walk by everyone else on his defeated exit.

Hagen is on a roll by the time the string quartet is assembled again in the very next sequence, wearing the same neutral black attire at the same church, only now for a funeral—a wholly different vibe than the wedding. Yet, again, here come people, this time with mournful tears instead of smiles, walking up to pay the players compliments. At this point, viewers realize they are watching the daily grind of a gig artist with On a String, a flow of being a performative fly-on-the-wall to someone else’s highest highs and lowest lows. Musicians like her are the melodic background to life going by in the foreground.

Behind the obvious musical talent are regular, working people who fall into the category of “starving artists,” trying to make ends meet. They possess a unique ability that only a fraction of people in the general public can match or surpass, and what does it get them? In Isabel’s case, it adds up to the rut of the single life, the cramped style of living at home, a string of temporary jobs without secure benefits, and painstaking amounts of practice to keep up with musicians better than her. 

By brilliantly establishing this serenely bizarre work environment in On a String, Isabel Hagen presents her character as someone striving to build a life for herself while providing a service for people who seem to have their lives all figured out, especially since they have the type of comfortable positions and incomes which can procure her form of entertainment. Moving from one gig to another and showing the aftermaths and in-betweens for the central figure, Hagen’s plots out why this woman can’t seem to get ahead.

More often than not, the answers are a frank portrayal of poor choices stemming from a lack of confidence and an even larger lack of enterprising skills. Isabel is a little manic, a little wimpy, plenty self-destructive, and, admittedly, a tough hang for a viewer. She is constantly squabbling with her bestie Christina (newcomer Ling Ling Huang), the competitive violinist of the quartet, which threatens the stability of the team. Isabel often circles back to her aloof star cellist ex-boyfriend Dave (John Kroner of Blades of Grass) for inadequate romantic attention. When that’s not enough, she’ll welcome the peculiar attraction from a married father (BlacKkKlansman’s Frederick Weller) of the little kid she’s giving private lessons to.

The emotional quicksand in On a String is palpable, yet oddly endearing. Leave it to consummate downplayer Dylan Baker to drop the zinger that nails the ideal tone by stopping a small venting rant from his on-screen daughter to say, “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not that special.” In different hands, this could all be stretched to an epic length and height to be played as a Poor Man’s Tar as some kind of toxic roller coaster making larger, bolder points. That is not this movie’s wavelength whatsoever. What Isabel Hagen is depicting—and unflinchingly sharing as the sole creative lead—is far more approachable and relatable, and On the String is entirely better for it.