2/5/15: Bad and Breakfast

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amateur films, Aya Cash, bed and breakfasts, butterfly collector, Charles Borland, cinema, couples' therapy, cuckoo clocks, Curtis Shumaker, D.W. Young, dark comedies, David Ullmann, eccentric people, escaped mental patient, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, Happy House, horror, horror films, Kathleen McNenny, Khan Baykal, Marceline Hugot, Mike Houston, mother-son relationships, Movies, muffins, Oliver Henzler, quirky, silly films, Stivi Paskoski, The Happy House, writer-director-editor

Some bad films make it incredibly easy to dislike them. Perhaps it’s a consciously made bad film masquerading as something “genuine,” always one of my pet peeves: there’s a world of difference between an Ed Wood film, for example, and anything that bears the “Sharknado” moniker. Sometimes a film is just offensive and awful, so tone-deaf and mortally stupid that it manages to miss the area marked “edgy satire” and land square in the one marked “trash dump.” In some cases, a bad film will be so irritating, whether thanks to migraine-inducing filmmaking, ludicrously terrible performances or a truly wretched script, that it becomes a complete chore to sit through: this is the kind of film where you check your watch a dozen times during the opening credits, each time secretly hoping for some respite via space-time anomalies. Even though “bad” films can be lots of fun to watch, there are some bad films that do deserve to be pilloried.

Sometimes, however, there’s just no joy to be found in beating up on a bad film. While some bad films are willfully obnoxious, like out-of-control brats throwing epic temper tantrums in public places, other bad films end up being much more sympathetic. Like the aforementioned films of Ed Wood, some films have the very best intentions but end up falling short on just about every level possible. While I always feel a little bad about saying anything negative about movies like this, I also don’t believe in participation awards: a well-intentioned bad film is still a bad film, at the end of the day. In that spirit, writer-director-editor D.W. Young’s The Happy House (2013) is a very bad film, albeit one with very good intentions, sort of like a sweet, slightly lop-eared puppy that just can’t stop crapping on the floor.

Wendy (Aya Cash) and Joe (Khan Baykal) are a feuding couple who opt for a relaxed weekend at a remote bed and breakfast in order to work on their relationship. The problems with their relationship become quite evident once it’s revealed that Wendy detests b&bs: this was another one of Joe’s ideas that just bulldozes through any and all of her protests, leading us to believe that this weekend might be a little doomed from the get-go. Once the couple get to the titular inn, The Happy House, they quickly settle into a very strange situation. The b&b’s owner, Hildie (Marceline Hugot) seems incredibly nice and bakes a mean muffin but there’s something just a little off about her silent, lurking son, Skip (Mike Houston). There’s also something decidedly odd about her multiple-page list of rules and regulations, the violation of which will result in “three strikes” and consequences that Hildie and Skip laugh away with the rather sinister “you don’t want to know.”

As they settle in to the Happy House, Wendy and Joe meet the inn’s other resident, an eccentric Swedish butterfly collector, Nils Hverven (Oliver Henzler), who’s hunting for an exceptionally rare specimen that’s been sighted in the immediate area. He’s also managed to acquire two strikes, thanks to his apparent disregard for the rules, and he cautions the couple to be careful of the “consequences.” After Nils earns his third violation, the lepidopterist seems to disappear, leading Wendy and Joe to believe that Hildie and her son might be responsible. When the friendly, local deputy (Curtis Shumaker) shows up with news about a dangerous, escaped mental patient, however, a new wrinkle is added to the proceedings. With danger around every turn, Wendy and Joe must figure out who can be trusted and who should be feared unless they want their stay at Hildie’s bed and breakfast to become permanently open-ended.

As I mentioned earlier, The Happy House is not a good film in any way, shape or form. The problems are legion: the acting is uniformly bad, ranging from stagey to under-stated but never once realistic or genuine; none of the performers have any chemistry together, whether playing a couple or a mother and son; the script is tone-deaf and awkward; the “twists” are both obvious and silly; the incredibly odd musical score is jarring and never seems to fit the mood of the film at any given point and the film feels about 20 minutes longer than it needs to be, even though it clocks in around 80 minutes. In fact, one gets the distinct impression that The Happy House might have made a fairly entertaining/amusing short (the film’s “twist” happens at the 30 minute mark and would have formed a fairly decent conclusion to a short) but becomes tedious when unnecessarily stretched to full length.

As far as the acting goes, I assumed that the cast consisted of new and amateur performers but was surprised to find that this wasn’t really anyone’s first rodeo: in particular, I was surprised to find how many films Hugot had under her belt since her performance here was so literal and blunt…there were few scenes that didn’t feel as if she were delivering precisely memorized lines rather than actually inhabiting the character. I have to assume that much of the blame for this lies with Young, especially looking at some of these actors’ past performances.

Despite how bad Young’s feature debut ends up being, however, there’s something that’s so earnest and oddly likable about the film that I feel kind of bad for not liking it. While the film’s script is a complete mess (by the time I realized the film was supposed to be a dark comedy, it was already half-way over), the core idea isn’t bad and there seems like some genuine potential here. Even though none of the actors have any chemistry together, there are individual moments that hint at what might have been possible, under different circumstances. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that the film’s poster is pretty damn fantastic: I wish that level of production design and attention to detail had been present in the actual film but it at least indicates that there’s a vein of real potential running below the mess, even it rarely springs to the surface.

Ultimately, The Happy House was not offensively terrible nor was it the equivalent of fingernails on chalkboard. You could tell that lots of love went into the production, even if the overall results were decidedly south of successful: these appear to be folks who are genuinely interested in making movies and there’s nothing wrong with that whatsoever. On the other hand, The Happy House was, easily, one of the worst films I’ve seen in several months and there’s just no way to sugarcoat that. While I’ll never tire of coming up with new ways to slam something like, say, The Comedy (2012), I definitely don’t get that same enjoyment from this. As long as Young and company keep trying, I’ll keep giving them a shot: I’m not sure if this will ever be “diamond in the rough” territory but, sometimes, you just gotta give the nice guys another chance.

12/6/14 (Part One): Love You Two Times

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Being John Malkovich, Best of 2014, black comedies, cinema, couples' therapy, dopplegangers, doubles, Elisabeth Moss, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ideal self, independent films, indie films, infidelity, marital issues, Mark Duplass, marriage, Movies, romances, small cast, surreal, Ted Danson, The One I Love, troubled marriages

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: A husband and wife go see a marriage counselor after repeated attempts to put the spark back into their rocky relationship fail miserably. The therapist invites the couple to spend the weekend, on their own, at his isolated estate: away from the hustle and bustle of the outside world, he theorizes that the pair will be able to reconnect and rediscover what first drew them to each other. Once there, however, the husband and wife continue to bicker and pick at each other, right up until the point where they discover their doppelgängers living in the guest-house: their doubles appear to exemplify each person’s “better” qualities but also seem unable to leave the guest-house. As the wife begins to fall in love with her husband’s “double,” her real husband must do everything he can to try to woo her back from “himself.” As the rules of space and time appear to be collapsing on themselves, the couple must make one last, desperate stand to preserve their marriage and, by extension, themselves: failure to do so may very well change the world…forever. Same old, same old, right?

Yeah, I didn’t think so.

Every once in a while, a film comes along that is so genuinely “out there,” so free of ties to conventional thought that it can’t help but stick out from the pack. Spike Jonze’s oddball Being John Malkovich (1999) is one such film, Jason Banker’s Toad Road (2012) is another. We could easily add Ben Wheatley’s amazing head-scratcher A Field in England (2013) to the list, saving a spot near the top for Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013). Whatever you do, however, don’t forget to set a place at the table for Charlie McDowell’s feature-debut, The One I Love (2014), a genius film that manages to take the romantic-comedy, turn it inside out, spray-paint the carcass metallic gold, attach some rockets and send the whole damn thing straight into apace. It’s an incredibly simple film, utilizing only three actors and two locations, yet feels a million times more complex, stuffed to bursting with the kind of casual metaphysical nonsense that would be persona non grata in anything more “mainstream.” It is, without a doubt, one of my very favorite films of the year and, as far as I’m concerned, a cult classic in the making.

It’s hard to explain why the film works so well but I’ll give it the old college try. For one thing, you have an absolutely unbeatable cast: indie-film darling Mark Duplass has always been a lot of fun to watch (cold-start any given episode of The League for proof) but he’s never been better than he is here, effectively playing two very different characters, often at the exact same time. It’s a great performance because of how subtle it is: it’s not quite as simple as “alternative” Ethan being laid-back while “real” Ethan is uptight: Duplass works with his body language, facial expressions, posture and everything else at his disposal to really set these up as different individuals. There’s none of that hoary-old “which witch is which?” shit because both Marks are distinctly different individuals, even they seem to be opposite sides of the same coin.

Fans of Moss’ performances in Mad Men and Top of the Lake will already know what a gifted actor she is, able to easily portray the sad lot of the outsider without ever coming across as pitiable or in need of “saving.” Her performance here, like Duplass’, is a masterpiece of modulation: the differences between the two Sophies are even more subtle than between the Ethans, yet Moss still manages to make them distinctly different characters. Indeed, it’s Moss complete mastery of her characters that allows the final image to pack such a wallop. If it wasn’t completely obvious before, let’s go ahead and get it out-of-the-way right now: Elisabeth Moss is a force to be reckoned with and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if The One I Love was the beginning of her ascent into the stardom that she so richly deserves. It would be a career-making performance if Moss wasn’t already doing just fine: it’s just more proof that we need much, much more of her onscreen.

As a filmmaker, McDowell is an absolutely formidable presence. While the script (the feature-length debut for short writer Justin Lader) is rock-solid and pokes some suitably large holes in moldy rom-com clichés, it’s the director’s subtle touches that really make the film stand out. For one thing, I love how the ominous, foreboding score was almost always at odds with the action on-screen: from the get-go, the film makes us feel uneasy and edgy, which sits at decided odds with the Portlandia-esque opening banter between Duplass and Moss. We never have any idea which direction the film is going to take which ends up paying massive dividends in the second half when things really get hairy. It’s a smart, economical way to build mood and managed to put a big, dumb smile on my face from the jump.

I’m also rather enamored with the way McDowell (and Lader) combine so many disparate genres/themes/ideas into one big stew, tossing in elements of romantic comedies, troubled marriage dramas, intelligent sci-fi and double/doppelgänger films. It’s even possible to read the film as a horror movie, albeit an extremely tricky one: we never do get the full story of what’s going on but the bits and pieces we’re fed seem to point to some pretty sinister, mysterious things happening just off in the film’s margins. Ted Danson’s therapist is a fantastically shadowy character: the bit where he uses a piano to measure how “in tune” Ethan and Sophie are is nicely realized. If I have one real complaint with the film, it’s that Danson’s performance amounts to a glorified cameo: he deserved more screen time, plain and simple.

A lot of films get called “thought-provoking,” but The One I Love is one of the very few that earns the designation. The film not only makes some incredibly astute observations about marriage (there’s a painfully honest scene where Sophie discusses “real” Ethan’s infidelity with “fake” Ethan that’s almost too real to watch) but also manages to make the sci-fi/doppelgänger angle completely organic. The film makes absolutely no attempt to explain anything but, as far as I’m concerned, that’s one of its prime strengths: the remarkable amount of audience hand-holding. The One I Love is a film that doesn’t pander, relying on the antiquated idea that the audience won’t be too stupid to follow along. Suffice to say that I felt thoroughly satisfied with the resolution, even if nothing was wrapped up with a shiny bow.

If it hasn’t been made plainly clear before, I absolutely adored The One I Love. As a post-modern take on the romantic-comedy, it’s pretty much in a class all its own: there’s just enough ties to the old-school to make it recognizable, yet so much ferocious innovation as to let it easily stand out.  The acting was impeccable (if anything, I wanted more of everyone, not less) and looked like a million bucks. I had more fun watching this film than I have in quite a while. The One I Love is Charlie McDowell’s debut feature and, if you’re smart, you’ll keep an eye on him: I have a feeling he’s got a long, amazing career ahead of him.