Backrooms

Director: Kane Parsons
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Renate Reinsve, Mark Duplass, Finn Bennett, Lukita Maxwell, Avan Jogia, Robert Bobroczkyi, Krista Kosonen
Running Time: 110 min.
Rating: R

**This Review Contains Plot Spoilers**

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

Certain expectations will accompany a film with a premise as far out there as Kane Parsons' creepy and mesmerizing Backrooms. So much so that even fans of the web series on which it's based doubted how such a sparse, high concept idea would play as a feature. But with a staggering directorial debut, Parsons proves them wrong, transporting us into a seemingly endless hell of liminal spaces and quietly foreboding dread. It's a hypnotizing world where stacked furniture, barren corridors and humming florescent lights appear to be the biggest threat, until we realize the gravest danger facing anyone who enters are themselves. 

It's a place that misremembers details in shockingly disturbing ways, creating an endless loop where the search for answers only results in more questions and frustration for those willing to take the risk. Since coming and going is fairly simple, Will Soodik's puzzle box script really revolves around why its protagonist feels so compelled to stay, aside from his adventurous curiosity. But as each corner beckons the latest human guinea pig to go further, it absorbs every piece of their lives in the process, drawing visual and thematic comparisons to Cube, The Shining, Twin Peaks, Vivarium, Severance and even The Blair Witch Project. And yet there still isn't anything quite like it. 

It's 1990 in Santa Clara, California and financially struggling former architect Clark (Chiwetel Ejiofor) owns and manages Clark's Ottoman Empire, a furniture store with a peg-legged pirate as its mascot. Battling alcoholism and struggling to cope with his wife leaving him, therapist Dr. Mary Kline (Renate Reinsve), grows exasperated by Clark's refusal to take responsibility for any of it. And as he continues to blame everyone but himself, she engages him in role playing exercises that frustratingly confirm his chronic complacency. 

Rather than attempt to change, Clark doubles down, obsessing over an invisible portal in the furniture store's basement showroom that leads to an eerily threatening maze of dimly lit hallways and unoccupied office spaces. He also convinces reluctant employee Kat (Lukita Maxwell) and her stoner boyfriend Bobby (Finn Bennett) to join him in documenting this on video to show Mary he isn't crazy. But the deeper they go, it's clear this hidden space poses a far greater threat than anyone anticipated, including Mary, who searches for him just as the dimension's terrifying truths start to surface. Though for Clark, it may already be too late. 

The first thing we see isn't Clark, but a prologue featuring a hazmat suited researcher with a camcorder filming the backrooms, frantically searching for a way out after being separated from the rest of his group. A lesser story would have employed a first person shaky cam perspective for the film's entire duration and probably focused solely on efforts to retrieve him. But this isn't your ordinary horror. Overwhelmed by the endless continuation of long corridors, the man runs from an unseen entity, failing to reestablish communication as we're shown a pair of scientists later studying this recovered footage. It's the ultimate tease, setting the stage for what Clark and Mary will ultimately experience.

Many of Clark's problems stem from his own denial as he dodges accountability at every turn. Mary sees through him right away, indulging his worst impulses with the hope he'll eventually have a breakthrough. Instead, he seems more comfortable listening to himself complain about his ex-wife. And if the biggest surprise about Clark's therapy sessions is him agreeing to go at all, Ejiofor's performance invests you in a flawed character whose fleeting moments of clarity conceal his resentful bitterness. 

It's also hard not to share in Clark's excitement when he walks through that wall, dumbfounded by what he finds on the other side. Parsons lets us follow him into these rooms with the same sense of urgency as he that ill fated researcher did before things went south. None of this is about leaving, but what's left behind, as Ejiofor lets Clark's nervous silence do all the talking while he finds the way out, desperate to share what he's uncovered. 

That Clark's so willing to tell this to a therapist who could have him committed speaks to how desperate he is. But it's only when a concerned, incredulous Mary reacts as anyone would that he goes off the deep end, selfishly dragging Kat and Bobby along for the ride. Aside from some excellent sound design, Parsons creatively employs found footage by confining it to the section where it's most needed. And though Clark doesn't have a clue just how dangerous it is in there, after a while, we start to wonder whether he even cares. 

As an architect and personality, few are more likely to appreciate this space than Clark, who's finally found a home for the self satisfied smugness that defines his life. He is, after all, just "wired differently." Except the biggest problem with this new home isn't getting lost, attacked by furniture or even dying of starvation or thirst. It's something more sinister and possibly supernatural, despite Parsons' ability to keep one toe firmly rooted in reality. Mary's overtaken by the urge to find her patient not because she believes him, but out of a concern he's become a harm to himself or others. And she's not far off.   

Some of the film's more underappreciated scenes involve flashbacks to Mary's tumultuous childhood under the care of her agoraphobic mother. And when we first meet the therapist, she's watching the house she grew up in get demolished, along with all the complicated memories that accompany it. Understandably gravitating toward a psychology career, she's tucked away painful parts of her past she'd rather not confront. Unfortunately, the backrooms will unlock it by trapping her in a prison similar to the one she grew up in, shut off from the real world.

Reinsve provides a lot while saying very little, as an empathetic Mary displays more patience with Clark than most could, plowing past his obnoxious facade and explosive temper to help. But as the story wears on, you slowly see her therapy mask slip and a fighter emerge when Clark's "connection" to this environment grows stranger. And in keeping with Parsons' brilliant melding of practical and digital effects, a terrifying figure emerges, culminating in a spectacular, vertigo inducing shot of Mary looking down at this phenomenal space in all its overwhelming expanse. 

At one point, Clark equates his discovery as describing a dog to someone for the first time and asking them to draw it. And while that feels oddly accurate, it's also a lot more. By the time its conclusion arrives, we understand why Mark Duplass' mysterious researcher seems so permanently awestruck. By making us believe he's only scratched the surface of this bizarre universe, Parsons goes all the way down the rabbit hole with a final scene that's the stuff of nightmares. It'll provides answers, if only just enough to help viewers interpret the rest for themselves.                                                            

Zero Dark Thirty

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Joel Edgerton, Mark Strong, Jennifer Ehle, Kyle Chandler, Chris Pratt, Edgar Ramirez, Mark Duplass, Frank Grillo, Harold Perrineau, James Gandolfini
Running Time: 157 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★)

When we first meet Jessica Chastain's Maya in Zero Dark Thirty, she's silently and nervously watching her CIA colleague Dan (Jason Clarke) interrogate a potential Al-Qaeda suspect. It's an interrogation that soon turns to torture when he tells her to fill a bucket of water. She can barely bring herself to do it and we're thinking there's no way this is the same woman the agency nicknames "killer," much less the one who eventually brings down the most dangerous man in the world. It'll be only moment of hesitancy we see because, like everyone else, we've underestimated her.

At its core this is about a woman who's beyond exceptional at her job, steadfastly refusing to take "no" for an answer. Wherever there's red tape, she walks through it. When superiors are in her way, she plows right over them. Operating with an emotionless, laser-like focus and precision, it's impossible for anyone to deter her from her main objective: Finding and killing Osama Bin Laden. In many respects she's the most patriotic, inspirational protagonist we've seen on screen in some time, but Oscar-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (again corroborating with Hurt Locker writer Mark Boal) won't let us get all warm and fuzzy about it. In fact, she hardly even gives us a moment to come up for air.

The chain of events start on September 11, 2001 but for the film's purposes the really begin in 2003 when Maya's career-long obsession with Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda leads her to be reassigned to the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan where she witnesses and learns Dan's interrogation tactics and gets a potential lead on the whereabouts of Bin Laden's courier and right-hand man, Abu Ahmed. For all the complaints and controversy concerning the depiction of torture to gain valuable intel one of the more under-reported stories about the film is the sheer quantity of it, as the opening thirty minutes of the film is nearly all waterboarding.

The lead Maya gets isn't concrete (as few are) but it's one that stays with her and she obsesses over as she moves up the ranks in the CIA. Her biggest obstacles and bureaucratic and political as she faces off against the agency's Islamabad Station Chief Joseph Bradley (Kyle Chandler), who's more interested in adding notches to his belt by preventing domestic attacks than locating bin Laden. He'll learn that you don't stand in Maya's way. So will his boss (Mark Strong) and so will the CIA's director (James Gandolfini). Maya's greatest strength is in how by sheer force of will and determination she can eliminate those who won't fight for her cause and sympathetically convince those on the fence who she needs (like Edgar Ramirez's Special Division officer) to cooperate.

Maya lives, breathes and sleeps catching bin Laden and has little time for others who won't. When her co-worker (exceptionally played by Jennifer Ehle) asks why she doesn't have a boyfriend her response is exactly what you'd expect. She doesn't care, or she does, she sure as hell won't show it.  This isn't an actor's showcase or typically the type of role that lets a performer show off their chops, which is what makes Chastain's work that much more miraculous. The movie may be ice but somehow she isn't, despite infusing the distant Maya with all the characteristics that should make her difficult to root for under other circumstances. Or it could be that we're just not used to having our female characters written this strongly. It's the rare case where you could change the name on the script to a man's and still be able to leave the rest of the screenplay alone. And to think anyone would claim Chastain's performance isn't paramount to the film's success or somehow takes a back seat to the terror or torture sequences. She's in every scene, carrying this whole thing on her back.

This is a cold, clinical, procedural showing its only signs of a pulse in its unforgettable final scene, which is as strong a finish as you'll see in any film this year. But much like the mission itself, it feels meticulously executed, even as plans constantly change. One lead takes Maya to another lead and then to another after that until the SEAL Team arrives at Bin Laden's compound in the final, thrilling hour. Our appreciation of the steps Boal's script takes us to get there and all suspense rests entirely on the fact that we know the ending, but not necessarily everything. Will we get to see him? Will he say anything? Will we get to know who shot him? And yet these are all trivial questions in Bigelow's world, where the cold, hard truth is a far cry from the sensationalistic dramatization everyone likely expected going in.

It's also about risk. In one key scene a character talks about how it's easy measure the dangers of doing something but the risk of not acting is always trickier to figure out. It's all about weighing the options and for Maya it's her skill, confidence and even a little bit of luck that lands bin Laden on her lap. Her problem is convincing everyone there's a shot, including the members of the Team being thrown into the lion's den. The two we meet (played by Joel Edgerton and Chris Pratt) express concerns of their own and they're pretty logical ones. The last 40 minutes of the film are unbearably suspenseful and masterfully edited, almost literally bringing us in the compound to experience details we've only partially been privy to or have just wildly speculated on. Bigelow and Boal could have easily called it a day there, but they thankfully keep going, giving us a glimpse of its aftermath.

If there's a single decision that got Bigelow and Boal into the most trouble it's the disclaimer that appears before the film starts, informing us that it's "based on first-hand accounts of actual events."  If only they knew what they stepped into with that statement, however true it may be. And to be honest, I don't particularly care. This isn't a documentary and they can fudge the truth as much or as little as they want. You don't have to like it, but it's the filmmaker's right. Despite allegations, the movie doesn't automatically take a pro-torture stance by showing. And if Boal did embellish, or even if he made the whole thing up (which by all accounts he didn't), I still wouldn't have cared, just as long as the final product on screen delivers.

All the "controversy" surrounding the film feels like a convenient excuse to have political arguments that should be taking place outside the theater. Still, it's tough to deny any film generating this kind of discussion is at all a bad thing, provided that anger isn't directed at those who made it. The focus should be on how Boal's script somehow condenses a decade's worth of intelligence information into a sustainable, compelling narrative and how Bigelow was able to make an even more muscular and unrelenting film than The Hurt Locker. But Zero Dark Thirty's most controversial stance comes in an ending that's anything but celebratory. It's strangely sad and uncertain, bravely daring to ask the important question: What now?   
              

Safety Not Guaranteed

Director: Colin Trevorrow
Starring: Aubrey Plaza, Mark Duplass, Jake Johnson, Karan Soni, Jenica Bergere, Kristen Bell, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Jeff Garlin
Running Time: 86 min.
Rating: R

★★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

"Wanted: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 91 Ocean View, WA 99393. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before."

It isn't often a film's synopsis is a classified ad, but that ad above is actually based on a real one placed as a gag in a 1997 issue of  Backwoods Home Magazine. It provides the loose inspiration for Safety Not Guaranteed, which shouldn't be considered a time travel movie, at least not in the strictest sense. And yet while this really isn't "about" time travel the entire movie still manages to rest on the "idea" of it. The ad probably could have inspired at least ten equally different but still inspired stories, but director Colin Trevorrow and screenwriter Derek Connolly still somehow knew the deepest, most interesting angle of approach. That's why criticisms that this becomes just another low-budget indie romance if you take away the time travel element would be wrong. It takes a certain type of person to place an ad like that and also a certain type of person to respond. It's about reading between the lines. Are they really looking for someone to travel back in time with them or it it something else? The answer is more complicated than you'd think going in. Since the nature of traveling through time is built on a desire to go back and change the past it makes sense that anyone this obsessed with the idea would likely be full of regret and have something big to fix. We can all relate, which is why during a movie we can always accept the "idea" behind time travel and then talk about how crazy and unrealistic it is when we get out of the theater. And it is. But someone's desire to isn't. Here's a movie that finally calls us out on that. 

Darius Britt (Aubrey Plaza) is a lonely, depressed college grad living at home with her widowed father (Jeff Garlin) while interning at a Seattle magazine for a bitchy boss (Mary Lynn Rajskub). When cocky writer Jeff Schwensen (Jake Johnson) proposes pursuing this lead of a guy putting out a classified ad for a time traveling companion, he chooses Darius and nerdy biology major Arnau (Karan Soni) to join him. But his real motivation for the trip is to hook up with his old high school girlfriend Liz (Jenica Bergere), while dumping all the grunt work on his two lowly interns. The man behind the ad is an eccentric supermarket clerk named Kenneth Callaway (Mark Duplass) and Darius seems to be the only one capable of connecting with him on any level, making her the ideal candidate to pose as his potential time traveling partner. She soon finds out that he's dead serious and is frantically putting the wheels in motion for this mission to take place as their relationship grows closer.  Where he wants to go, why he feels he needs to and how it dovetails with everyone's story, would be giving away too much, but it all together constitutes the essence of the film. With Darius' feelings for Kenneth deepening, she must confront the fact that either this guy is completely crazy and needs help or there could actually be something to his time travel project. It's surprising how much evidence points the latter, while the former still remains very likely. 

There comes a point where it almost ceases to matter whether Kenneth is really telling the truth or not, whether he's sane or not, and of course, whether he's really invented a time machine. The story is about so many other interesting things that his plan becomes the vehicle for which the other characters can find a release. In a sense, they're no different than he his and are going through something similar, but in different ways. All three are dealing with major regret in their past while one of them is still at the point where he's capable of preventing it. For Darius it's the loss of her mother, which seemed to have caused a chain reaction that sent her spiraling into a permanent state of depression that's followed her through high school and college into young adulthood. Haunting Jeff is "the one who got away," leading him to a life of shallow womanizing that's continued into his thirties, a time when many of his contemporaries are settling down. At 22, Arnau still has his whole life ahead of him but won't for long if he doesn't get out there and overcome his fears. If not, he's risking a future as filled with regret as theirs is now. Kenneth's situation is a bit more involved, likely because the details of it are constantly changing, becoming a mystery to everyone but himself. His personal history remains a question mark even past the point the final credits have rolled, despite a finish that's anything but ambiguous.

There's a scene late in the third act where someone from Kenneth's past is tracked down and questioned that's so brutally honest it's almost difficult to watch without cringing. This person says nothing that's overtly malicious, speaking the truth as succinctly and sympathetically as possible, but just hearing it is so hard you're glad he's not there to witness it. It's the the most painful of rejections, cutting right to the bone. If he's making his entire story up, we get why, but if he's being honest about everything, then there's even more to talk about. It also can't be a coincidence the filmmakers chose the year 2001 as his destination point, given all its potential implications. That Kenneth or Darius don't acknowledge this will probably be looked at as some kind of sardonic commentary on self-absorbed young people and maybe that's true but this movie perfectly captures the confusion of your twenties and thirties when you first start seeing things through the rearview mirror, realizing mistakes you made then just might be impossible to undo now. All that's left is what's ahead, and suddenly it's sneaking up on you really fast.

Aubrey Plaza is one of those comedic actresses with a rabid cult of supportive fans who probably want nothing more than for her to carry a truly great movie as its lead. And now she has. My doubts about whether she could do it only stemmed from the uniqueness of the dry, sarcastic, eye-rolling screen persona she's perfected on Parks and Recreation each week. It's great in short bursts but I wasn't so sure it would translate as easily to the big screen without some major adjustments made. What a huge surprise it is then that she gives a performance so sympathetic and sincere, not to mention completely unironic. Yet, she can still call on that trademark dry wit when she needs to, like during her first wacky encounter with Kenneth in the supermarket that's strangely reminiscent of April's interactions with her overgrown kid of a husband Andy on Parks and Rec. Or maybe more accurately, due to the dangerous nature of this mission, Andy's goofy alter ego, FBI agent Burt Macklin, who would probably find this whole thing pretty cool.

Though his name is ubiquitous amongst film buffs alongside his brother Jay as a writer/director, this is the first time we've really gotten a read on Mark Duplass' full range of skills as an actor. And he's staggering, delivering a subtly brilliant turn that doesn't take the easy way out in making this guy either endearing or a lovable doofus. You never pity Kenneth and at points Duplass plays it as if he could legitimately be crazy, or worse yet, really dangerous. And in yet another great role for a TV star, New Girl's Jake Johnson plays sleazy jerk Jeff as, well, a sleazy jerk, at least to start out. But as the story of him trying to win back his ex progresses his arc becomes the most emotional and important, with his performance following suit. Late in the film he has a moment (you'll know it when it arrives) that's not only heartbreaking, but a master class in acting, telling us all we need to know with a single pained expression. Though she is billed in the credits, Kristen Bell's brief appearance still feels shocking, but also integral to what's arguably the film's most pivotal scene. Also integral is the score by Guster's Ryan Milller and his original song contribution, "Big Machine," as both fit the picture's tone like a glove.

This is the feature debut of director Colin Trevorrow, who recently made headlines as one of the filmmakers in heavy talks to helm the upcoming Star Wars sequel. Other than a couple of passing references, his only qualification is that he directed a perfect movie his first time out of the gate. From where I sit, that's about as good a qualification as any. This is distinctly human drama with heart before it's sci-fi, but the great thing is that if you chose to view it as either or neither you can't be wrong. By the end, one definitively wins out, and it's earned. Despite seemingly modest ambitions and a tiny budget under a million, this feels much bigger than most movies twice its cost. And it'll probably resonate deepest for those who never felt like they fit in. Outcasts, rebels, oddballs, weirdos. Call them whatever you want, just as long as it isn't "quirky." These characters are anything but. They suffer real pain, regret and rejection and while there are lots of laughs, Safety Not Guaranteed is also unbearably sad in its honesty, going places you never expected it could.