Not every filmmaker should be considered the "next Alfred Hitchcock" or the "next Quentin Tarantino," even if they make one movie that slightly resembles those cinematic styles. This is especially true in the case of David Robert Mitchell, writer and director of the neo-noir, stoner thriller Under the Silver Lake. Following a messy marketing plan and release from A24, the actual content of this film has followed suit as well. This movie is an absurdly confusing and muddled mystery tale that never manages to find its footing, despite so many different clichéd ideas. I was genuinely excited about this film, particularly because of the stylish trailers and my fondness for the ambiguous style Mitchell nailed in his previous outing It Follows. However, I was very disappointed to waste two and a half hours with this meaningless and poorly-constructed idea board of a film. Even though the cinematography and production design was barely this story's saving grace, it is difficult for me to join the arthouse crowd in saying that I enjoyed this movie.
Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a jobless, purposeless, young man who spends the majority of his time in his apartment in Los Angeles smoking pot, playing video games, and mindlessly hooking up with girls that are clearly out of his league. When he meets Sarah (Riley Keough), a new neighbor of his that initially seems interested in him, Sam becomes obsessed but learns that she has moved out in the middle of the night and disappeared. Attempting to track her down, he becomes entangled in the strange and dark underbelly of southern California and its riddling secrets. This script, written by Mitchell himself, is where this entire film goes wrong. The entirety of this film was spent as Sam wandered around from one unexplained place to the next trying to find Sarah after her disappearance. None of the events throughout this movie made sense and the endless amount of introduced subplots were nonsense. There was so much clear potential in this film to create an intriguing and concise story, but the sheer amount of directions that this movie took were completely unnecessary. Mitchell's love for film and the homage to many classic films were evident as well, but that did not change how meandering the plot was. The character of Sam was also a huge problem because I did not have any emotion towards him. Garfield's performance was passable, but his character was a grossly unmotivated loser that seemed so blasé. Thankfully there was a central plot but many of Sam's choices were never explained as Mitchell simply dances around what he's trying to say with this film.
The most prevalent problem with Under the Silver Lake is the lack of message or reason. Not every film has to have a moral to its story or even try to get its audience to think critically, but there should at least be some amount of satisfaction involved. Mitchell does not even try to build towards anything throughout this movie, as his now-trademark, ambiguous style simply did not work. It served an excellent purpose in It Follows, but all this film really needed was a better balance of directorial style with a plot that is not puzzling to follow along with. Perhaps this movie might have been executed better had it been written by someone else, but I believe that this film missed its mark with what it was trying to convey to its audience. The script itself is a homage to classic thrillers from the minds of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick among others (there's even a very obvious Hitchcock reference on a gravestone as if Mitchell was trying to say "get it?!"), but at least their films had something relatively relatable to say. Whether it be voyeurism or the dangers of obsession, Hitchcock had a purpose with the films that he made; Mitchell did not seem to quite reach that point. This lack of coherence will certainly be popular amongst the arthouse crowd who can frankly twist any message to suit their own desires, but I could not escape the meaninglessness of Sam's journey.
Mitchell's direction has stayed practically the same since his previous directorial piece, but I just think he had too many ideas and attempted to cram them all in one epic adventure film. He undeniably knows how to create a great atmosphere, however, because I felt uneasy throughout each scene that Garfield inhabited. Despite his pacing being lazy and the story not really taking off until its third act, I loved the way that Mitchell at least tried to bring the plot together. Mike Gioulakis' cinematography is definitely the best part of this film, however. His ridiculous use of different kinds of camera work for the various scenes kept me on my toes the whole time. As cliché as it may be, I can only compare it to that of Tarantino's style, with his wild use of sudden movements and trippy characterization. There's also not any connection between the humor and references scattered across this bleak film, but there is something meta and simultaneously hilarious about Andrew Garfield waking up and getting his fingers stuck on a Spider-Man comic book.
Although I don't exactly know the reasons as to why A24 screwed over the marketing for this film, after watching this for the first time, I can begin to see why they did not believe it would do too hot. Under the Silver Lake may have some neat camera tricks and a catchy rhythm for these streets of Los Angeles to fall victim to, but a mediocre performance from Andrew Garfield and an utterly garbled script make this film a hard miss for me.
My Rating: ★★½
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