Noblestone
A cultured woman living in an isolated home hires a housemaid to live with her and tend to the house. Their days begin with politeness and casual conversation, but as time passes, their differences begin to drive them to conflict.
Excerpt
Artist is a fresh faced, put together young woman with voluminous blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Conversely, Karen has a haggard aura that’s accentuated by old lady makeup lines, an ogre-like attitude and way too much energy for her age.
Noblestone (2026) is the second indie feature by British-Spanish director Albert Goya. The film was made with zero budget and took two years to complete. It’s a two-hander deftly handled by Goya’s sister, Lucia Goya-Betts. It’s a surreal and visceral story that is part Fight Club (1999), part The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999) and part What About Buck? (1991). If that sounds like a heady combination, rest assured that it is. But somehow this elevated piece of “crack treated seriously” works.
Noblestone is director Albert Goya’s second feature following The Lady Governess (2023). The film was produced under Goya’s stage name “Tito Wiley”. Goya created The Lady Governess at 16 and completed Noblestone at 19. The young artist wrote, directed, edited and composed the film. It’s a valiant effort that shows a lot of promise for his unique style of storytelling. Noblestone follows the path of The Lady Governess in fundamental ways. We have our unnamed main character – a self-absorbed artist in Noblestone – and Karen (Lucia Goya-Betts). Karen is a force of nature who is both entirely herself and completely inscrutable.
In The Lady Governess, our main character is a lonely widow who hires Karen to keep house and keep her company. Noblestone serves as kind of a spiritual sequel to Goya’s first work and this is an important motif to keep in mind while watching. Both of our lead women have no name, but are defined and stricken by loneliness.
That’s Me in the Corner
Karen arrives disheveled in a hot pink wig fashioned in the classic “Karen” bob (LINK), and a uniform of slacks, comfortable joggers, a top and a sensible cardigan. Karen is coy about where she’s from, but she sports a quintessential Midwestern lilt and a no-nonsense attitude. As a fixture, Karen is an interesting mix of the stereotype (a woman with a plan to make your day as miserable as she is) with something that appears to be quintessentially Goya. The teenage director has an interesting POV and combines broad humor with social commentary. Goya’s creativity is evident, especially in a film with zero budget. While it shows, despite the financial limitations, Goya’s cinematography is impressive. At its core, Noblestone could easily serve as an art film steeped in metaphor and subtextual meaning.
Meaning that is curated and presented beautifully by Goya-Betts.
Artist is a fresh faced, put together young woman with voluminous blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Conversely, Karen has a haggard aura that’s accentuated by old lady makeup lines, an ogre-like attitude and way too much energy for her age. Her maniacal stare gives her the air of someone who is going to be the party, or the hangover… or both. Artist allows her to stay despite the many red flags during the interview process, and this small action adds so much depth and reasoning to what happens next.
Artist watches carefully as Karen gushes over the young woman’s house, style and art. The irony is the house is cute, but it’s not an architectural marvel. Artist’s art amounts to primary colors and stick figures and while there are some styles of art that are purposefully elementary, Artist’s technique is simply pedestrian. Highlighting these things does read as humorous, but it also showcases an interesting technique that Goya uses to explore the art of self absorption.
That’s Me in the Spotlight
Artist says she paints every day to express herself and who she is. Then, she holds up a childish painting with no further explanation. Throughout the film she talks about finding her purpose along with mystery and surprise in the everyday. Allowing Karen to stay checks this box for Artist. However, Artist seems unsure of what will bring mystery into her life. Initially she finds Karen charming, but soon she becomes envious.
She attempts to hide it by flexing her performative morality. During a newscast footage of a robbery appears on screen. Karen laments the state of criminals and insists that they should all be punished to establish order. Artist counteracts by saying that Karen should have a little more grace and everyone has a reason for why they do what they do. If you figure out the reason, you can solve the problem. It’s not a bad assessment, but it’s unformed in its naivety. The cracks in the relationship between the two women starts to show as Karen forms a less optimistic opinion and believes in judging humanity based on its most animalistic nature.
During her interview Karen tells a story about finding a piano on the side of the road as a young girl. She begged her father for it and taught herself how to play, even composing some of her own pieces. Surprisingly she plays and sings a beautiful lament about a girl who questions if her wondrous achievements are just a dream. Artist is touched, but when asked to give feedback, she downplays her emotion saying she could tell Karen was a little rusty but the song was “nice”. At first glance it causes the viewer to question “why?” Later, when getting feedback on her own work, Karen gives an answer in the same vein and it’s not what Artist wants to hear.
Don’t Let Me Get Me
It’s a very cool parallel and it seems to enforce the idea that either Karen or the artist are simply two sides of the same metaphorical coin. Karen speaks of a former housemaid position where she and the owner got bored of each other and had a huge argument. The woman ran from her own home leaving Karen stranded. Karen says she doesn’t remember what the woman looked like or what she sounded like or even her name. All she remembers is the feeling of being left.
My dedication from all of this is that Karen in Noblestone is the same Karen from The Lady Governess and the woman she’s speaking of is the widow. I wonder if there will be a third film to fill out a trilogy and create an arc for Karen. As she stands, she seems to represent the ego or id of a person. I’d like to see if Karen is capable of self actualization, or if she merely becomes a mirror of the lady of the house.
The idea that both Karen and Artist are one in the same, rings true at several points in the film. In one moment, Artist tells Karen that maybe she should lower her standards for humanity and that will help her to access love instead of just hate. Karen is reluctant to do this and we see this in the way she reacts to Artist as her opinion of the woman starts to wane. As Artist slips from being “good” to being “bad”, we see Karen grapple with the idea that maybe her existence on this earth should come to an end.
What goes unsaid is that there is a grace involved with loving yourself, but also hating yourself. Karen confronts Artist with her own insecurities and Artist causes a sense of self-deterioration in Karen. When Artist tries to escape to her vacation home, she finds that even four hours away and Karen having no transportation, she cannot escape her. Just like we cannot escape ourselves. But here’s where the grace comes in – for better or for worse – just as Artist could have denied Karen at the start of the film, she has the option to send Karen back home. But ultimately she accepts her presence and the viewer goes on a journey wondering if it’s to her detriment.
Watching the film as an art-house film, or through the lens of being a metaphorical statement, can add depth to an already tight script. Though Goya shows a lot of maturity, there are still some teenagerisms that pop up through the film that may cause viewers to roll their eyes fondly. Some effects are blatant and over the top and some are subtle and understated. Goya’s quirks serve to give him a defining style that doesn’t overwhelm the film. There are some off center shots, lots of day for night shooting and some inventive framing that speaks to film school projects. But there are also some tropes that work. There are lots of images reflected on the horizontal axis that again, speak to the idea that Karen and Artist are god and id made manifest. Goya has a lot of promise and I’ll be interested to see his growth as a director. Once he’s able to tweak the nuance of some of his quirks and make them more polished, I think he’ll be able to increase their impact in the film.
I can’t say enough about Goya-Betts’s performance. She gives an amazing performance where on one hand she’s reserved and judgemental and on the other she’s absolutely unhinged yet completely authentic. It’s a really cool idea to have these two distinct characters played by one person to show the truth in their connection and Goya-Betts is the embodiment of “contains multitudes”.
If you’re into indie experimental features, I would definitely recommend Noblestone. If you’re in the mood to sit with something that may be a bit rough around the edges but is filled with passion, heart and overall is well paced, well acted and just well done, it’s a pretty safe bet. Hopefully we see Karen again in a future project and maybe reconcile with the Karen inside of all of us.