Surreal is one word to describe this round up.
Steven Soderbergh has managed to cultivate a reputation for himself as one of the best directors in the industry that regularly puts out films that are generally just okay, not because of a lack of skill in the craft but rather an insistence in deliberately challenging himself and his crew.
“Unsane” is just about a spot on fit for his filmography, following Claire Foy as the victim of a recent stalking that has left her with debilitating symptoms of PTSD that her psychologists utilize to coerce her into a “voluntary institutionalization” into a mental facility of highly dubious practices, all shot on an I-Phone.
That last bit of information is highly pertinent to the direction of photography, as the lower grade of camera lends itself astonishingly well to a grimy B thriller aesthetic not unlike something that Hitchcock might have done were he still making movies today. The atmosphere of the facility and its play off of the deteriorating foundation of its protagonists mental stability keep the story tense and unpredictable while allowing Foy to offer a performance spreading her range beyond much of what she has done before and even letting much of its talented supporting cast to do the same.
“Unsane” is very much a movie of the sort of back to basics filmmaking that Hollywood has been in desperate need of, dialing back all of the flash and glitz of massive names, special effects, and new technology to tell a familiar story in a fresh and engaging way that still tackles modern issues of the nature of mental health, its lack of proper treatment furthered by the swindling practices of an appalling insurance industry, and the standard inadequacies of available tools that lead people seeking help to come out of therapy even more damaged than they already were.
I just wish its throwback to the thrillers of old didn’t manifest the unfortunate side effect of modernizing some of the more trashier and clunky storytelling elements.
The good of this film can be a tad rough to sink one’s teeth into once the actual mental ward portion of the movie begins to rear its head. While Claire Foy delivers an admirable performance, the extended length of her character’s naiveté regarding her situation gets more than a little bit grating, especially when the film’s forward thinking attitude towards humanizing those with mental health afflictions becomes contradicted by running the gamut of mental ward patient stereotypes as obstacles.
Efforts to play off of her developing psychosis regarding the paranoia of getting away from her stalker also have an unfortunate side effect of utilizing narrative sleight of hand techniques that bloat out the running time of the film roughly 20 minutes or so longer than necessary despite also admirably delving into the more problematic victim blaming phenomenon that stalker cases tend to be burdened with and virtually ignored.
While “Unsane’s” B movie sensibilities can be unapologetic to a fault that makes it a cup of tea not all can appreciate, it still has ambition and insight that you just don’t often see on the big screen today that make it an undeniably engaging experience to sit through even if it doesn’t quite exceed the sum of its parts.
6 I-Phone house calls out of 10
Where Wes Anderson’s previous animated film, “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” was more of a direct translation of his style to an amusingly contrasting anthropomorphic animal themed story book setting, “Isle of Dogs” feels more genuinely like one of the biggest challenges that he has ever made to his own sensibilities as a director.
Set in a mildly dystopian Japan in which a disease carried by dogs has mutated into a strain that can infect humans, the Japanese government resolves to address the issue by quarantining all dogs in the nation onto an island made of garbage. The ward of the country’s authoritarian leader refuses to comply with this and seeks out to find his beloved guard dog Spots on the island, coming across a pack of dogs that reluctantly help him to navigate the land while a grander political conspiracy is kicked off by his actions with the fate of the dogs hanging in the balance.
The wasteland of the titular “Isle of Dogs” provides a visually unique landscape upon which a tale of roving dog packs interacting across landscapes occupied by territorial rival canines plays out akin to a Samurai or Spaghetti Western flick.
This setting and context adds a unique and consistently engaging visual spin on classic genre tales in cinema, despite some of the character focus becoming more lopsided as the film goes on, and maintains a clever play off of our own cultural understanding of dogs and how they perceive our world themselves.
The adventure that Chief and his pack undergo to reunite a child with his dog while questioning the possibility of overcoming their baser instincts for happiness that requires change functions well enough as a unique animated feature bold enough for adult audiences but accessible to the entire family while serving as an excellent homage to Anderson’s influences of Japanese filmmaking that his sensibilities of dry humor, deadpan delivery, and generally blunt yet evocative overview align with solidly at worst and uncannily well at best.
A broader narrative of full of political satire and subtext utilizing the lens of Japanese culture to make observations regarding the state of world government frames the island adventure and while the director’s sense of style doesn’t always mesh with this subtext quite as elegantly, it does well to bolster the primary story of the search for spots while presenting some light political commentary to punctuate its humor that is noticeably timely and topical without being overbearing and preachy.
The occasional sloppiness in story structure brought about by the nature of the political narrative clashing with Anderson’s vision, along with focus on the cast lacking a balance that allows all of its characters and actors to shine and an overreliance of visual short hand for Japanese culture that doesn’t cross but situationally threatens to stray a bit over the line into caricature are just about the only things holding this one back from perfection.
9 Good Boys out of 10
It’s kind of impossible to take a truly objective eye to a film like “Best F(r)iends” when you’re already aware of the legendary Tommy Wisseau’s reputation and that of his “masterpiece” preceding it.
As such, the closest that I can really come to doing so, partially undercut by the fact that the film was primarily viewable as a now expired event screening, is to assert up front that the film isn’t strictly speaking good by theatrical standards but that doesn’t preclude it from being a worthwhile watch.
Written by the great Wisseau’s buddy and “The Room” co-star, Greg Sestero, the film stars the duo as a homeless washout named Jon and a mortician named Harvey respectively.
After offering Jon a job and place to stay, Harvey and his new friend/business partner find themselves embroiled in a conspiracy of greed threatening to tear apart their newfound relationship after the two begin selling the dental scrap from the bodies that they work with.
Touted as the cinematic return of Wisseau, it’s worth noting that Greg Sestero was the screen writer for the film and neither he nor Wisseau were in the director’s chair. This shows, as the unfortunate results of being a follow up to a movie so bad that it achieved cult status due to factors that made it a capture of lightning in a bottle with a cast and crew presumably more experienced and adept at their craft than Wisseau himself almost 15 years ago is a film that is much better but far less memorable.
“Best F(r)iends” actually features a noticeable hand of direction, purposeful editing, and performances that actually feel guided utilizing dialogue that actually sounds natural to the human ear and can’t quite be held in the same regard as “The Room.” As a film in and of itself however, it’s not a bad little rental for its inevitable DVD release.
Sestero actually makes for a surprisingly solid lead, able to decently convey quite a bit through nonverbal cues and the film even puts forth a solid case for Wisseau as a character actor. The man shouldn’t get used to seeing an academy award in his future but his odd demeanor and sincere delivery of bizarre diction and mannerisms.
Their chemistry is solid and plays well into the plot of a budding friendship being tested by greed, ignorance and temptation that becomes increasingly harder to predict until its outright odd and incoherent final 10 minutes, where Wisseau appears to pile on the ham in a deliberate shout out to his claim to fame to mixed results.
“Best F(r)iends” is an odd little duck of a movie; greenlit to seemingly ride the final throes of popularity of “The Room’s” infamy, the movie itself is a respectably sincere product that would have been a better uncovered gem from a video rental store shelf.
Despite being ill suited to the marketing it’s been subjected to however, I’d be lying if I said I weren’t curious to see what the second half coming in June has to offer out of sheer curiosity.
5 Inquiries of your Sex Life out of 10
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