Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with some thoughts on one of the more controversial films at the festival this year, Rodrigo Cortes’ star-studded follow-up to Buried, which rode huge buzz at its premiere screening and went on to be a big release. Buried didn’t make a ton of money, but it’s a damn good movie with some incredible filmmaking on display.
Of course Cortes’ new film was a high priority for me, especially since he was playing around in the world of paranormal investigation. Add in the ridiculously great cast featuring Sigourney Weaver, Cillian Murphy, Elizabeth Olsen, Craig Roberts (Submarine), Toby Jones (who is quickly becoming one of my favorite character actors) and Robert De Niro and I was psyched.
The only way the movie fit into my rather packed schedule was at its second showing, a press and industry screening a couple of days after its initial premiere. Word out of that screening wasn’t very positive. Critics, fest-goers, buyers et al were talking about the movie losing it at the end.
So, I went in with my expectations lowered, but still pretty damn excited.
Weaver plays skeptical Dr. Margaret Matheson, a woman who spends her life rooting out supposed paranormal activities and scientifically debunking them. It’s kind of like she shows up to different horror movies and works out the man behind the curtain.
It’s not that she doesn’t believe, it’s that she WANTS to believe. She’s searching for real proof and I get the impression that every time she shows up to a supposedly haunted house or meets someone claiming psychic powers she wants her skepticism to be proven wrong.
Margaret Matheson is a great role for Weaver and it’s so good to see take charge of a film like this again.
Cillian Murphy is Tom Buckley, her research assistant and teacher’s aid, who is fired up about the hunt. He’s more of a believer, but shares Margaret’s affinity for methodically vetting each possible case of the paranormal.
The big focus of the movie is De Niro’s Simon Silver, a celebrity psychic that was massive in the ‘70s who disappeared after the mysterious death of his most skeptical adversary, a newsman whose heart literally stopped when he confronted Silver at his final show.
His return is a media spectacle and Murphy feels like this is the big fish, the guy who if debunked will be a huge step toward waking up the blind masses that he feels are taken advantage of by these big fakes. And if he’s the real deal, then holy shit! Proof positive of the paranormal!
But Silver is dangerous. People do die around him and even Margaret is scared of him.
Crazy shit does start to happen as things start to spiral out of control. What’s real? What’s an illusion? The movie rides that great ambiguous line of showing you unbelievable things, but not to such a degree that they’re completely unexplainable.
I think if Paul Schrader or ‘80s David Lynch had conceived of and directed this movie it would have been a classic. As it stands, Cortes does a great job of setting up this world, but the advance word is correct. The ending is such a huge, nearly incomprehensible fumble that it almost negates the solid movie that lead up to it.
Now, I still like the movie for what works in it and I even really like the idea behind the ending, but Cortes’ execution of it is convoluted, opens up a ton of plot holes and is just plain sloppy.
I’m happy that Millennium picked up the movie. It’s a good fit. I would love it if they’d put another half-million or so into reshoots and let Cortes have another crack at doing the ending he wants to do, but in a simpler, more clear and more meaningful way that won’t cause 2/3rds of the audience to snicker derisively when the credits start rolling. That happened at my screening. I didn’t join in, but I agreed with the sentiment.
All the cast is great, even De Niro who does ham it up a little, but isn’t phoning in his performance as he’s wont to do recently. Weaver is fantastic, Murphy great as usual and Toby Jones is entertainingly weasely. Elizabeth Olsen and Craig Roberts are both good, but kinda wasted. Roberts especially. He was good in Submarine, I’d love to see him lead a movie again.
It would make me legitimately sad if this movie, which is 95% great, never reaches its full potential and just becomes one of those “almost” movies. It’s so close to working completely. So, so close.
More to come! Stay tuned and make sure to follow me on Twitter to get my movie by movie updates at the fest!
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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