Joe Swanberg helped cultivate the
mumblecore movement in the recesses of low-budget independent cinema alongside
the far more successful Duplass brothers, and I have to disclose my barest
distaste for these films. With that being said, Swanberg’s attempt to blend the
style with a typical serial killer narrative ends up resulting in a film that
is only shades off from being softcore porn, from the nonsensical male fantasy
narrative to the bad acting between cheesy sex scenes. The film’s only decently
written dialogue comes from the main character, whose distasteful choice in
art-form is defended by his claim that it needs no defending, which is most
definitely a stand-in for Swanberg’s explanation for why his films are so shitty.
The plot (if you
can call it that) involves a series of murders which may or may not be related,
being investigated by a detective named Michael Bamfeaux (Simon Barrett). His
investigation of one murder brings him to a photographer initially intending to
use the victim as a model in one of his shoots. Billy the photographer/hipster
artist (played by Adam Wingard) takes up a majority of the screen time, whether
it is in his lustful fetish photo shoots or the routine of seduction following
the creating his ‘art.’ There are a random assortment of vaguely similar
actresses filling all of the rest of the roles, but their personalities and
actions hardly ever seem based on reality quite as much as Swanberg’s fantasy
of how women think.
Cast in the leading
roles are filmmakers Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett, best known for You’re Next. They act, but mostly just
in their own films. Having collaborated with Swanberg in the V/H/S franchise, I
suppose it was just a lazy choice to cast his friends rather than actors more
believable. Wingard is plenty believable as the sleazy photographer, he is
simply not a person I would choose to spend more than a conversation with, and
this film forces us to endure him repeatedly having the same conversation over
the course of the 78-minute running-time. Barrett is not anywhere near
believable as a police detective, on the other hand. I can’t imagine him making
it through a single day of the police academy, and everything from his posture
to the way he speaks comes off as phony, despite a bevy of burnt-out cop
clichés in Swanberg’s vapid screenplay. You would be better off watching a
cheap soft-core film for quality entertainment.
The DVD special
features include a commentary track with Swanberg, Wingard, and Barrett. There
is also a photo gallery and trailer.
How Hated List
Acting: 8/10
Direction: 10/10
Story: 8/10
Dialogue: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
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