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Unsane (2018)

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

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D: Steven Soderbergh / 97m

Cast: Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Juno Temple, Amy Irving, Polly McKie, Gibson Frazier, Aimee Mullins, Myra Lucretia Taylor, Sarah Stiles

In Steven Soderbergh’s first stab at directing a horror movie, Sawyer Valentini (Foy) is a smart businesswoman making a fresh start for herself in a new town and with a new job. The reason for the fresh start is David Strine (Leonard), the man who stalked her for two years before she managed to get a court to issue a restraining order. But Sawyer begins to see him in various places – not directly, but out of the corner of her eye, or at a distance. Troubled by this and seeking a sympathetic ear, Sawyer attends a facility that purports to help victims of stalkers. But instead of helping her, the staff at the facility mislead her into voluntarily committing herself for twenty-four hours. When she realises this, Sawyer’s agitation leads her to strike an orderly; this results in her stay being extended to seven days. Things go from bad to worse when one of the night orderlies turns out to be Strine, masquerading as “George Shaw”. With the help of a fellow patient, Nate (Pharoah), Sawyer gets word to her mother (Irving), but with the facility legally in the right, she must rely on her wits to see out the seven days, and to stay away from Strine…

While watching Unsane it’s worth remembering that as a director, Steven Soderbergh has an eclectic, and distinctly personal approach to his projects. Touted as his first attempt at horror, the movie is actually a psychological thriller laced with horror elements, but even with that caveat, it’s clear from very early on that Soderbergh isn’t really interested in making a horror movie. Instead, Soderbergh – working from a script by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer – appears to be more interested in making a feminist statement, one that supports the idea that women, even now, with the MeToo movement and all, still aren’t being listened to. Instead, the movie is saying, women have to be resourceful and work things out for themselves. Now, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing as a theme or a message, but as Sawyer is initially presented as a strong, more than competent businesswoman, the idea that she could be tricked into committing herself into a mental health institution – that she wouldn’t check the small print, as it were – strains credulity from the start.

There is much else that is problematical, from Strine popping up on Day Two (how does he know Sawyer is going to be committed, or that she’ll have her stay extended?), to the intransigence of the facility’s staff, and the uninspired laziness of the local police force (which seems to consist almost entirely of two patrol car officers). At least the script doesn’t belabour the whole is-it-or-isn’t-it-all-in-her-head approach, choosing instead to come down firmly on one side of the fence quite soon after Sawyer’s confinement. This allows the movie to switch from being a woman in peril movie to a woman still in peril but resilient enough to win through in the end movie. Foy is very good indeed as Sawyer, determined and tough even when she’s feeling vulnerable, while Leonard is the epitome of creepiness as Strine, his teddy bear countenance belying his twisted mindset. But while the script is saved in part by the quality of the performances, it’s Soderbergh who saves it the most, his visual approach to the material energising certain scenes and providing an unsettling mise-en-scène in others. There are moments where Sawyer’s sense of isolation is highlighted by having the background stretching away unnaturally behind her, and it’s these kinds of moments that are the most effective. But when all is said and done, this is still just another generic thriller, with too many plot holes, and too many occasions where the phrase, “Oh, come on!” seems entirely appropriate.

Rating: 5/10 – more of an exercise in style and visual representation – Sawyer having a psychotropic break is brilliantly realised – Unsane is a movie that, on the surface, appears to have more depth to it than it actually has; standard fare then, and emboldened in places by Soderbergh’s mercurial direction, but not the edge-of-your-seat thriller that it so obviously wants to be.

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Wonder Wheel (2017)

23 Friday Feb 2018

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D: Woody Allen / 101m

Cast: James Belushi, Juno Temple, Justin Timberlake, Kate Winslet, Max Casella, Jack Gore, David Krumholtz

At one point in Wonder Wheel, Mickey (Timberlake), a lifeguard at Coney Island (and the movie’s narrator), gives Ginny (Winslet), the married woman he’s having an affair with, a book of plays by Eugene O’Neill for her birthday. Once upon a time, Ginny was an aspiring actress, until she met and married a drummer. That relationship ended when she had an affair, and now she’s in the process of cheating on her second husband, ‘Humpty’ (Belushi), a carousel operator. Ginny works as a waitress in a restaurant on the boardwalk; she’s already unhappy in her marriage, and has a young son from her first marriage, Richie (Gore), who likes to set fires. She’s struggling to hold onto her hopes and dreams, and Mickey’s attentions are a way for her to do that. Fast approaching forty, and trapped in a marriage of convenience, Ginny is desperately looking for happiness. But a book of O’Neill’s plays? How much more of a clue as to whether or not Ginny will find the happiness she seeks does an audience need?

Woody Allen’s latest is one of his serious movies, a drama that starts off by showing the surface glamour of Coney Island in the 1950’s, before quickly going behind the scenes and revealing the hardships and the despair that exist just a short distance from the lights and the attractions. ‘Humpty’ has a daughter, Carolina (Temple), who left home five years before to marry a gangster. Now she’s back, having left him but also having been “marked”; she’s hoping her established estrangement from her father will mean no one will look for her there. But when Carolina meets Mickey, Ginny sees her chance for happiness coming under threat. Ginny’s desperation increases, and her behaviour becomes more erratic than usual. Unable to help herself, Ginny begins to alienate everyone around her, and when the opportunity arises to do the right thing, the decision she makes has profound, and irreversible, consequences. It’s a simple premise, confidently set up and handled by Allen, but also one that feels more like an abandoned stage play than an original screenplay. This also means the movie has the look of a theatrical production at times, and Vittorio Storaro’s cinematography stutters back and forth between interior and exterior scenes with all the dexterity of an artist who can’t decide on natural or artificial light.

But production issues aside, this is Winslet’s movie through and through. Ginny is an emotional trainwreck, only taking responsibility for her actions when it will bring her sympathy, and defending herself by attacking others. She’s an ersatz Blanche DuBois, hurting instead of loving, and Winslet gives a driving, intense performance that is in many ways out of place within the movie because it overhadows everything else that Allen comes up with. And Winslet is on such tremendous form that her co-stars have no choice but to run to keep up. Belushi and Temple are good in roles that aren’t quite as well developed as Winslet’s, but Timberlake is the odd man out as Mickey. He never looks comfortable in the role, and in his scenes with Winslet, the gulf between them is highlighted every time. In the end, Allen elects to leave many of the sub-plots and storylines unresolved, especially the one involving Richie, which goes nowhere and seems included just to pad out the running time. Otherwise, the movie’s open-endedness proves unexpectedly satisfying, and though this may not be a prime example of Allen’s more recent output, thanks to Winslet’s superb performance, it’s a movie that deserves a look, if for no other reason than that.

Rating: 7/10 – featuring Winslet on incredible form, Wonder Wheel tells its story as if it had been written in the 1950’s but has been given a modern day makeover; the milieu has been lovingly recreated by production designer Santo Loquasto, Allen remains a dependable if unexciting visual artist, and for once the romance doesn’t have such a pronounced age gap.

Safelight (2015)

19 Sunday Jul 2015

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Safelight

D: Tony Aloupis / 83m

Cast: Evan Peters, Juno Temple, Christine Lahti, Kevin Alejandro, Jason Beghe, Ariel Winter, Will Peltz, Don Stark, Joel Gretsch, Ever Carradine, Meaghan Martin, Gigi Rice

California, the Seventies. Charles (Peters) is seventeen, attends high school, has an absent mother, a deceased older brother, a seriously ill father (Beghe), legs that cause him difficulty in walking, and a job working in the diner at a truck stop. One night he sees a teenage girl named Vicki (Temple) accosted by a man called Skid (Alejandro). Charles intervenes and threatens Skid with a baseball bat. Skid is amused by Charles’s attitude and drives off. Over the next few nights, Vicki – who is a prostitute – comes into the diner for coffee, and she and Charles begin a fledgling relationship.

Meanwhile, Charles decides to enter a school photography competition. For his theme he picks the lighthouses of the California coast but his disability stops him from driving. However, when he mentions his idea to Vicki she volunteers to drive him to each location. With each successive trip they grow a little bit closer, and Charles introduces Vicki to his father and his boss at the diner, Peg (Lahti). She impresses them, so much so that Peg invites Vicki and Charles to a girls’ night at a local bar. They dance together for the first time, and later, Vicki takes Charles back to the hotel room where she lives (and which Skid, who’s her pimp, doesn’t know about).

Some time later, Charles persuades Vicki to visit her estranged family: mother Lois (Carradine), and younger sisters Kate (Winter) and Sharon (Martin). The visit doesn’t go as well as Charles had hoped, with recriminations on both sides, and it leads to Vicki disappearing. When Skid begins asking Charles if he’s seen her, he can honestly say no, but Skid makes it clear he’ll find her, no matter what. Charles completes his entry for the photography competition, and goes back to his regular life at the truck stop. It’s when Skid finally does locate Vicki that things take a desperate turn, one that will either bond them together forever, or part them irrevocably.

Safelight - scene

Slow moving but character driven, Safelight is a contemplative look at how two teenagers (Vicki is eighteen) form a relationship while viewing themselves as outsiders, Charles because of his physical condition, Vicki because of her occupation. It’s an often wistful tale, with sterling performances from Peters and Temple, and assured writing and direction from Aloupis.

But for every positive footstep the movie makes there’s an annoying misstep – sometimes in the very next scene – as Aloupis tries to explore aspects of both lead characters’ lives that don’t immediately add to the central storyline or overall plot. A case in point is the harassment Charles receives at the hands of three bullies. It serves to highlight just how difficult his life is, and the problems he has to face, but it all seems contrived and unnecessary, as if having legs that don’t work properly isn’t enough. It also leads to a scene where Vicki arrives in the nick of time and scares off the bullies with a handgun that she conveniently has in her bag – as if that’s nothing more than the writer/director adding in a bit of wish fulfilment to perk up the audience.

Vicki’s visit to her family is another area in which the script dares to travel where it has no need to go. By the time of the visit, Vicki has already told Charles about her upbringing, and her mother’s abusive boyfriend, so any information we glean has been rendered redundant, and the whole thing isn’t helped by an awkwardly judged performance by Rice as the mother doing her best not to feel guilty at failing to protect her daughter. It leads to the necessary break up of Charles and Vicki, but still it seems like an afterthought in the scriptwriting process.

Thankfully, these missteps don’t hurt the bulk of the (short) running time, but they do seem like intruders, disrupting the movie’s flow and causing the viewer to stop short. Away from these errors of judgment, Apoulis is on firmer ground when dealing with the nascent relationship between Charles and Vicki, and garnering the aforementioned sterling performances from his leads, and in particular, from Alejandro. Where Peters gives Charles a diffidence and lack of confidence that makes him immediately sympathetic, Temple takes Vicki in the opposite direction, making her too worldly-wise yet with a streak of tough vulnerability that she can drawn on when needed. The two characters complement each other, and Peters and Temple display a winning chemistry. At odds with their more structured performances, Alejandro is a sweaty, broiling, unpredictable Skid, his manic movements and unnerving laughter leaving the viewer uncertain as to what he’s going to do next (it sometimes feels as if even Alejandro didn’t know). The movie also picks up some energy when he’s on screen, a valuable counterpoint to the considered perspective offered by Peters and Temple.

At its heart, of course, the movie is an unconventional love story, and it’s here that it’s at its most effective. While the idea of two professed outsiders finding common ground isn’t unusual in the movies, what Aloupis has done is to make a virtue of Charles’ emotional reticence, and Vicki’s need to be loved for herself and not just her body (which leads to an uncomfortable and telling moment in Vicki’s motel room). With their relationship falling into place so neatly and plausibly, Aloupis moves the supporting characters around with ease, eliciting strong performances from Lahti and Beghe, and showing a flair for spare, unshowy dialogue. The desert landscapes and coastal cliffs are beautifully photographed by DoP Gavin Kelly, and Charles’s photographs of the lighthouses and Vicki are rendered in wonderful black and white by Darrell Lloyd, making the movie a visual treat at times and surprisingly poetic.

Rating: 7/10 – some narrative flaws stop Safelight from being more accomplished, but there’s lots to enjoy here, from the performances to the writing, and all backed by an evocative visual style that keeps the drama from becoming too gloomy; while some elements may be predictable to seasoned viewers it’s Apoulis’ approach to the material that keeps it interesting.

Dirty Girl (2010)

16 Saturday May 2015

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Dirty Girl

D: Abe Sylvia / 89m

Cast: Juno Temple, Jeremy Dozier, Milla Jovovich, Mary Steenburgen, Dwight Yoakam, William H. Macy, Nicholas D’Agosto, Tim McGraw

It’s 1987 in Oklahoma, and Danielle Edmondston (Temple) is constantly pushing the boundaries at her high school, being vulgar in class and unapologetically promiscuous. As a result of her behaviour, the principal transfers her out of regular classes into what is called The Challengers, a class Danielle regards as being for kids with special needs. At her first lesson she’s paired with Clarke Walters (Dozier), and they’re tasked with looking after a pretend baby (in this case a bag of flour) and keeping a diary of its daily life.

Danielle is less than impressed by the assignment but Clarke persuades her to go along with it. They begin to spend more time together, and to get to know each other. Danielle tells Clarke about her absent father, who bailed before she was born, while Clarke talks about his father, Joseph (Yoakam) and how he hates gays (Clarke is 35% gay according to a doctor he’s seen, but he’s keen to make it past 50%). When Danielle reveals that she has photos of her mother and father from before she was born, a check of the high school yearbook from when they were together reveals her father to be the assistant football coach at the time, Danny Briggs (McGraw). They find an address for him but when they go there, they learn that he’s moved to Fresno, California.

With her mother, Sue-Ann (Jovovich), planning to marry a Mormon named Ray (Macy), whom she detests, Danielle decides it’s time to go and meet her real father. She asks Clarke to go with her but he’s too afraid of what his father will do if they use his dad’s car (Ray has confiscated the keys to Danielle’s car). But when he gets home and discovers that his father knows about the gay porn he’s kept in his room, Clarke makes his escape in his dad’s car and picks up Danielle. Along the way they pick up a hitchhiker, Joel (D’Agosto), a stripper heading for Las Vegas. Clarke is attracted to Joel and when they make an overnight stop, Danielle leaves the two of them alone. The next morning, however, Joel is gone.

Meanwhile, Joseph has gone to Danielle’s house and broken in in an attempt to find out where the two friends have gone. But with nobody home, he’s arrested and put in jail. His long-suffering wife, Peggy (Steenburgen), arrives at the jail but refuses to take him home. Instead she leaves him there and decides she’ll look for Clarke and Danielle herself. She calls on Sue-Ann and together they fly to Fresno so they can warn Danielle’s father that she’s coming. But Joseph’s car breaks down, leaving enough time to go by for Joseph to be released and catch up with them. When he does, Clarke confronts his father and gives Danielle the chance to get away and still get to Fresno.

Dirty Girl - scene

The phrase, “Nobody likes a dirty girl” is uttered twice in Dirty Girl, first by the principal as a pointed reminder that Danielle’s behaviour will only get her so far, and then by Danielle herself as an ironic statement reflecting how she’s developed over the course of the movie. In both cases it’s a badge of pride for Danielle, one that defines her within the milieu of her high school (but not in the wider world, where she is just another teenager with “issues”). Basing his script on his own experiences growing up in the Eighties, writer/director Sylvia has fashioned a tale that shows what can happen when self-assurance gives way to longing, and how that longing can prompt a change in attitude in even the most rebellious and uncompromising of teenagers.

However, the reason for Danielle’s behaviour is never properly explained. Sure, she’s never known her father, but it’s a fragile hook to hang such an unhappy personality on, and the role of Sue-Ann in Danielle’s life is too vague for comfort (one scene aside, Jovovich plays Sue-Ann as if she’s reacting to everything a few seconds too late, leaving the character looking somewhat adrift from the action). Danielle picks out her future conquests then drops them just as quickly, but if you were to ask why, the movie hasn’t got an answer. Nor does it try to explain why Danielle would hook up with a shy, overweight homosexual (other than that if they didn’t, the movie would be a lot shorter). As odd couples go, they’re not that odd either, just a couple of lonely individuals who learn to support each other, and where haven’t we seen that before?

With the script prompting more questions than it can answer, and with too many scenes bumping awkwardly against each other, Dirty Girl tries for an emotional honesty that doesn’t quite come off, leaving some moments feeling preachy and tired. As the aggressive, troubled Danielle, Temple proves yet again what an intuitive young actress she is, and it’s easy to see the neediness behind her flirtatious image and attitude. Likewise, Dozier – making his feature debut – portrays Clarke’s goofy, endearing personality as if it’s the only thing about him that’s any good. Browbeaten by his father, Clarke lives that life of “quiet desperation” so beloved of screenwriters everywhere, but here it’s less pointed and apparently more manageable, thus limiting the drama. Dozier is very good in the role but he has to work extra hard sometimes to make Clarke less compliant.

With a great supporting cast doing their best with a script that doesn’t give them an awful lot to play with, Sylvia does his best to make Danielle and Clarke’s journey a rewarding one both for them and for the viewer, but he doesn’t quite manage it (though he does manage to offset the drama with some well-judged pockets of humour). While Dirty Girl isn’t a bad movie per se, what it is is a movie that you can engage with on a straightforward level and not be disappointed. But when you start to look at it more closely, it’s a movie that lacks the depth necessary to carry off the narrative. There are plenty of teen dramas out there, but this one misses out on being truly memorable.

Rating: 5/10 – lacking the necessary freshness needed to make this stand out from the crowd, Dirty Girl is forced to rely on two quality performances from its leads; a sharper script would have helped, but based on its own merits it’s only occasionally diverting and less satisfying than its premise might imply.

Horns (2013)

07 Tuesday Oct 2014

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Horns

D: Alexandre Aja / 120m

Cast: Daniel Radcliffe, Max Minghella, Joe Anderson, Juno Temple, Kelli Garner, James Remar, Kathleen Quinlan, David Morse, Heather Graham

Ig Perrish (Radcliffe) has earned the enmity of the small town he lives in.  His longtime girlfriend, Merrin Williams (Temple) has been brutally killed in nearby woods, and everyone thinks Ig killed her.  With the townsfolk threatening him at every turn, and news crews following him wherever he goes, Ig protests his innocence but is continually ignored.  Even his friends and family suspect or believe he did it; only his best friend, Lee (Minghella), a lawyer, believes he’s innocent.

When a candlelit vigil is held at the place where Merrin was murdered, a drunken Ig rages against a God who could allow her to die.  The next morning he awakes to find two tiny horns growing out of his forehead.  Horrified, he goes to his doctor where he becomes aware of a startling side effect that the horns have brought with them: the people he encounters are compelled to tell him their darkest thoughts and desires once they’ve seen the horns.  He also learns that he can persuade them to act on these desires.  Using this ability he begins to visit people who knew Merrin in the hope of finding clues as to her killer’s identity – or even find them in person.  Everyone reveals something about themselves that is otherwise hidden except for Lee who doesn’t see any horns at all.

Ig suffers a setback when he learns a witness has come forward to say that they saw him leave a diner with Merrin on the night she was killed.  Ig knows this isn’t true, but at first he can’t think how to make the witness withdraw their statement.  The arrival of a bed of snakes that he can control solves the issue but brings him no nearer to finding Merrin’s killer.  It’s only when he confronts his brother, Terry (Anderson), that he begins to discover what exactly happened that night, including a fateful meeting at the diner that he had with Merrin, and which he’d forgotten.

As the clues mount up and Ig gets nearer the truth, an unexpected revelation leads to an attempt on his life.  Surviving the attempt, Ig sets a trap for the killer, and in the process, learns the tragic truth about his beloved Merrin.

Horns -scene

There’s a moment in Horns when Ig suggests that a couple of TV news reporters should “beat the shit out of each other” with an exclusive interview as the prize for the winner.  What follows is a free-for-all brawl between news teams that is both funny and ferocious at the same time.  It’s a perfect example of the tone of the movie, a delightfully perverse adaptation of Joe Hill’s novel that offers a mix of very dark humour and fantasy alongside a very traditional whodunnit.  It’s a bold, audacious movie, encompassing romantic drama, horror, broad comedy, and childhood flashbacks to often dizzying effect.  It’s also a great deal of fun.

Under the auspices of Aja, Horns is never less than riveting, its structure so cleverly constructed by screenwriter Keith Bunin that a few minor plot stumbles aside – the presence of the snakes (never properly explained), the killer’s apparent amnesia when confronted a second time by Ig – the movie grabs the attention from the outset, thrusting the viewer into Ig’s predicament with economy and style.  Its greatest trick is not to make Ig instantly likeable, and while it’s no stretch to believe he’s entirely innocent, his behaviour is self-destructive and aggressive, leaving just that sliver of doubt that maybe, just maybe, he might have killed Merrin.  And with a major motive introduced two thirds in, the movie still manages to throws doubts at the viewer with deliberate glee.

Radcliffe – building a quietly diverse and impressive career for himself post-Hogwarts – is the movie’s trump card, giving a well-rounded, nuanced performance that requires a lot from him as an actor.  He’s more than up to the task though, and is simply mesmerising throughout, justifying entirely the decision to cast him.  It’s a rich, deceptively detailed portrayal, much more resonant than we’re used to in what is ultimately a horror fantasy.  There’s a scene towards the end where Ig reads a letter written to him by Merrin.  The pain and anguish Radcliffe evinces, along with Temple’s perfect reading of the letter, makes the scene achingly sad to watch (and also the movie’s standout moment).

The supporting cast offer sterling support, from Garner’s turn as Ig’s would-be girlfriend Glenna, to Morse as Merrin’s heartbroken father.  If there’s a weak link it’s Minghella, an actor whose features lend themselves well to looking perturbed or querulous, but who regularly struggles to persuade audiences when more convincing emotions are required.  Temple continues to impress, her role in flashback as Merrin giving her another chance to shine (along with Radcliffe, she’s carving out a very interesting career for herself), and there’s a pivotal role for the underused Graham that reminds the viewer – however briefly – just how good she is.

The fantasy elements are effective, with a final transformation for Ig that is impressively handled, and the striking British Columbia locations are lensed to subtly remarkable effect by DoP (and David Lynch alumni) Frederick Elmes.  Aja keeps the focus on Ig and Merrin, the true heart of the movie, and holds back on the bloodshed to a level that, while it may annoy some horror fans, is in keeping with the overall tone of the movie (that said, he can’t resist including one splatter moment).  With a denouement that ups the pace and provides a satisfying conclusion to events, Horns succeeds on so many levels that it’s a very jaded viewer who will be disappointed by what the movie has to offer.

Rating: 8/10 – an above average fantasy thriller with dark comedic overtones, Horns is another daring outing from the very talented Aja; with a deep well of emotion for it to draw on, the movie succeeds in marrying a variety of disparate elements into a rewarding and gratifying whole.

Magic Magic (2013)

30 Wednesday Apr 2014

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Magic Magic

D: Sebastián Silva / 97m

Cast: Juno Temple, Michael Cera, Emily Browning, Catalina Sandino Moreno, Agustín Silva

Shot entirely in Chile, Magic Magic is a slow-burn thriller that begins with Alicia (Temple) travelling outside the US for the first time to stay with her friend Sara (Browning).  Alicia is a little shy and unsure of herself, and looks to Sara for support when she fails to impress Sara’s boyfriend Agustín (Silva), and his two friends Barbara (Moreno) and Brink (Cera).  Leaving Santiago for a cabin in the countryside, they get so far when Sara receives a call saying she has to go back to resit one of her exams.  Against Alicia’s wishes, Sara travels back alone, promising to be back the next day.

At the cabin, Alicia repeatedly tries to contact Sara but there’s no signal.  She becomes increasingly restless and that night has trouble sleeping.  The next day, Alicia, Agustín and Brink go hunting with a rifle; Brink shoots a parrot, leaving Alicia disturbed by his cruelty.  Later, Alicia manages to contact Sara, who tells her she now won’t be back until the next day.  Alicia has another bad night, and in the morning is offered pills by Barbara to help her sleep.  Sara arrives and the group (minus Barbara) take a boat to a nearby place called The Rock where there is an outcrop that can be jumped off into the water.  Alicia freezes and, although she is reassured by the others, her behaviour begins to cause them serious concern.  Alicia, maybe through lack of sleep, is erratic, and prone to emotional outbursts; she also has fugue moments.

That night she is hypnotised by Agustín and responds directly to suggestions, even when Brink tells her to put her hand in the fire.  Later, Alicia sleepwalks and causes a disturbance before being found.  The next day there is an altercation between her and Brink which later leads to the discovery that Alicia is taking a lot of medication.  And then that evening, Alicia disappears…

Magic Magic - scene

From the start, Magic Magic takes pains to show us the emotional fragility that Alicia suffers from.  But while we see this time after time (until it becomes annoying – we get it, okay?), there’s no clear explanation for her behaviour, nor if the things that are happening are largely in her head because of some psychological issue, or the side effects of her medication, or even a mixture of both.  The lack of consistency in her behaviour, and in her attitude towards the rest of the group, doesn’t help either, and there are too many occasions when she behaves weirdly, it’s briefly commented on, then it’s on to the next weird moment.  And it doesn’t help that the culmination of all these events makes for a final ten minutes that shoves the movie into a whole different territory.

With the main character acting so strangely – and with little or no explanation to guide the viewer – Magic Magic suffers mightily from being a combination of arthouse and thriller that panders more to arthouse conventions than thriller ones.  In the hands of a more skilled writer/director, this might not have been a problem, but Silva overplays Alicia’s reticence and odd behaviour rather than developing the mystery of what’s happening and why.  Fortunately, the director has a strong ally in Temple, who despite the limitations of her character, puts in a brave, instinctive performance that helps the movie immeasurably.  There’s a moment when she’s walking through a field and encounters a couple of horses.  The moment is infused with a low-key tension – why though, is again left unanswered – but Alicia’s sense of uneasiness is portrayed credibly despite the lack of reasoning behind it.  It’s Temple’s ability to elevate the material in this way that saves the movie from being too diffident and removed.

Cera is the other main draw here, and fares reasonably well as Brink, but again the script has him behave in such a bullying, cowardly manner that his continual taunts and digs at Alicia become more annoying than anything else.  It’s good to see him play such an awful person – aside from his brilliant turn in This Is the End (2013) – but there’s little depth here and it’s hard to see why Agustín and Barbara would put up with him.  Browning fares badly, with the underwritten role of best friend whose return trip to Santiago turns out to be for other reasons but when they are revealed, prove to have no relation or effect on what’s going on with Alicia.  Moreno has little to do except moan about Alicia throughout, while Silva is almost a bystander with little to do except continually apologise for Brink’s bad behaviour.

With so much going on that is left unexplained and/or undeveloped, Magic Magic is a frustrating experience, and the title doesn’t provide any clues either (though it does relate to the movie’s denouement).  It also ends abruptly, leaving the audience even more in the dark than they were at the beginning.  The cast do the best they can under the circumstances and there’s some pleasure to be had from the beautiful Chilean locations, but as an evening’s entertainment you’d be hard pressed to find something less enervating.

Rating: 5/10 – with its writer/director denying his audience a way in to what’s happening, Magic Magic fails to engage or provide a character to sympathise with; good performances aside, this is a disappointing movie that seems happy to be obscure for its own sake.