Under the Silver Lake - Movie Review
Under the Silver Lake
Plot: Sam, intelligent but without purpose, finds a mysterious woman swimming in his apartment's pool one night. The next morning, she disappears. Sam sets off across LA to find her, and along the way he uncovers a conspiracy far more bizarre.
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Certificate: 15 (strong language, sex, violence, gore, nudity)
Runtime: 139 minutes
Release Date: Friday 15th March 2019
In recent weeks, it's become a common trend that the films featured on this blog tend to stray into the obscure and downright weird. There's been coalescing trolls, children living out the tales of King Arthur and Clint Eastwood playing a drug mule. However, none have quite reached the sheer peculiarity that is Under the Silver Lake.
Following on from his sensational debut and destined to be horror classic, It Follows, David Robert Mitchell has certainly spared no creative expense when it comes to his newest cinematic venture. The year is 2011. Sam (Garfield) lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He has no job and spends his time peeping on his frequently topless, parrot loving neighbour. However, his attention is altered once he encounters new resident, Sarah, who quickly captures his affection. But this is soon placed into jeopardy as Sarah completely vanishes, seemingly from all existence and so Sam embarks on a journey across all of the City of Angels to find her, stumbling across numerous conspiracies in the meantime. Whilst Mitchell clearly took inspiration from horror master, John Carpenter, for It Follows, Mitchell has seeked out the master of all things weird and wonderful, David Lynch, as a source of influence in his latest film. Narratively, Silver Lake is an impossibility to comprehend. It's the sort of storytelling that will keep theorists awake at night and YouTubers (like myself) ecstatic over new and interesting content to discuss. The central mystery of Sarah's disappearance quickly fades into the L.A. smog and Garfield's and our attention rapidly turn to numerous secrets lying within examples of pop culture. And yet, despite that, Mitchell's script often finds itself distracted by its own purposeful distractions. Unfortunately, this modern day reimagining of Alice falling down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland can't help but lack the necessary draw to last nearly 140 minutes. As with most David Lynch films, the experience is more to do with the spectacle rather than the story itself and whilst the same methodology can roughly be applied to Under the Silver Lake, it's stylistic impact is not as significant as it thinks it is.
Plot: Sam, intelligent but without purpose, finds a mysterious woman swimming in his apartment's pool one night. The next morning, she disappears. Sam sets off across LA to find her, and along the way he uncovers a conspiracy far more bizarre.
Cast: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough
Director: David Robert Mitchell
Certificate: 15 (strong language, sex, violence, gore, nudity)
Runtime: 139 minutes
Release Date: Friday 15th March 2019
In recent weeks, it's become a common trend that the films featured on this blog tend to stray into the obscure and downright weird. There's been coalescing trolls, children living out the tales of King Arthur and Clint Eastwood playing a drug mule. However, none have quite reached the sheer peculiarity that is Under the Silver Lake.
Following on from his sensational debut and destined to be horror classic, It Follows, David Robert Mitchell has certainly spared no creative expense when it comes to his newest cinematic venture. The year is 2011. Sam (Garfield) lives on the outskirts of Los Angeles. He has no job and spends his time peeping on his frequently topless, parrot loving neighbour. However, his attention is altered once he encounters new resident, Sarah, who quickly captures his affection. But this is soon placed into jeopardy as Sarah completely vanishes, seemingly from all existence and so Sam embarks on a journey across all of the City of Angels to find her, stumbling across numerous conspiracies in the meantime. Whilst Mitchell clearly took inspiration from horror master, John Carpenter, for It Follows, Mitchell has seeked out the master of all things weird and wonderful, David Lynch, as a source of influence in his latest film. Narratively, Silver Lake is an impossibility to comprehend. It's the sort of storytelling that will keep theorists awake at night and YouTubers (like myself) ecstatic over new and interesting content to discuss. The central mystery of Sarah's disappearance quickly fades into the L.A. smog and Garfield's and our attention rapidly turn to numerous secrets lying within examples of pop culture. And yet, despite that, Mitchell's script often finds itself distracted by its own purposeful distractions. Unfortunately, this modern day reimagining of Alice falling down the Rabbit Hole into Wonderland can't help but lack the necessary draw to last nearly 140 minutes. As with most David Lynch films, the experience is more to do with the spectacle rather than the story itself and whilst the same methodology can roughly be applied to Under the Silver Lake, it's stylistic impact is not as significant as it thinks it is.
FACT: Dakota Johnson was cast in the lead female role but dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. Riley Keough replaced her.
Packed full of scenes of Sam encountering different and strange beings within Los Angeles, a narrative through-line was sorely missing. The film predominantly consists of interaction after interaction with each gradually increasing in weirdness. We're introduced to a punk rock band called Jesus and The Brides of Dracula, a dancer in a skin-tight lycra suit with balloons attached to her, a comic book collector who believes a map on the side of a cereal box bares significance to real life mysteries and killings in L.A., the Homeless King and a songwriter who takes credits for some of the most iconic music in the past decade. All of these interactions vary in terms of appeal. The comic book collector scene borders on parody and is far too pretentious for its own good whereas Jeremy Bobb as the Songwriter is arguably the strongest scene in the entire film. Much of the films intermittent success owes credit to a brilliantly committed performance by Garfield who gives everything 110% no matter how weird and strange the script gets. His character may come across oddly perverted and uncomfortably desperate but in the grand scheme of things, the film never asks us to root for Sam but rather follow him on this crazy journey. Mitchell also reteams with Disasterpeace, who composed the score for It Follows, arguably one of the most haunting horror scores within the past decade, and yet again, they do not disappoint. Blending retro 80s synth beats with an immense orchestral accompaniment, Silver Lake may struggle with narrative focus, but your attention rarely wavers due to the overall scope.
Paying clear homage to the works of David Lynch and taking us on a bewildering journey through the bright lights and back alley slums of L.A., Under the Silver Lake is undoubtedly fresh and original but whilst its eccentricity makes it, at the very least, mildly engrossing, it's complete and utter lack of congruence result in regular infuriation.
Luke's Verdict: 5.5/10
What did you think of Under the Silver Lake? Post your thoughts in the comments below. Thanks for reading!!
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/LukeStapley26
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/stapleyluke/
Comments
Post a Comment