The very first of this year's Sundance releases and I'm already massively disappointed. While this film never got any stupendous buzz or major awards, I was still expecting to like its weird and quirky premise. That was not the case, however, as Jeff Baena's Horse Girl is an incredibly strange and misguided story of mental health and alien abductions (?). This movie had a lot of potential from the very beginning with a few different possible genres to explore but the way that this film completely misses the mark on delivering anything satisfactory is much more prevalent. While I love Alison Brie and her tenacity in embodying this role, I just could not get on board with this film at all. I'm learning, mistake after mistake and film after film, that I just might not be a huge Jeff Baena fan, as I did not enjoy his previous work Life After Beth either. Baena definitely has a certain style that he has become known for and has connections to composing fantastic casts, but I feel like he has a while to go before he directs a film I genuinely enjoy.
Sarah (Alison Brie) is a lonely and estranged woman who gets by day after day working at a local crafts store run by Joan (Molly Shannon) and watching supernatural thriller shows in her apartment with her roommate Nikki (Debby Ryan). While she volunteers at a local horse stable, she also has an affliction for having strange dreams and as much as she fights to keep them out of her head, they begin to infiltrate her life slowly but surely. The script, written by Jeff Baena and Brie herself, is where I find the entirety of this film's problems. This movie starts out as more of a romantic-comedy and while its atmosphere seems weird, it suits well for the protagonist and how spacey she often seems. I was completely on board for this story of a strange woman finding love and herself, and who better to do that than the charming Alison Brie? However, the deeper into this film that the audience gets, it takes so many peculiar turns that never really pay off. Sarah's relationship with Darren (John Reynolds) is where I had to place most of my hope throughout this movie but only about halfway through, that is obliterated as the film turns into an almost paranoid thriller of its own. As Sarah becomes convinced about aliens and cloning happening to her, the film just digs its own grave deeper and deeper. I really wanted to like the character of Sarah but the choices she makes and unexplained plot points that revolve around her made me not care at all. The supporting characters are actually far more interesting, but I was supposed to be caring about Sarah's plot, which Baena and Brie made it extremely hard to do. To top it off, the movie ends with an ambiguous and strange ending that neither confirms nor denies anything that Sarah had been rambling about throughout the film. I wholeheartedly despise these kinds of endings with no context or attempted conclusion and Baena's direction once again proves to not be for me.
The color grading of this movie is beautiful and from the first, creative shot, I knew that I would at least enjoy the technical pieces. Which I thankfully still ended up doing, as the cinematography from Sean McElwee and score by Josiah Steinbrick and Jeremy Zuckerman are what keep this film from entirely falling apart. I liked a lot of the interesting shots that McElwee uses to tell Sarah's story and flesh out her world and the music helps to make the audience feel just as uneasy. This film, from the very start, is teeming with second-hand embarrassment, and while it might not exactly make one feel comfortable, Baena nails that tone well. It is obvious that is what he is going for and so I will give him props on that, but that would not have been accomplished as well without the performance from Alison Brie. Her character and choices might not be too relatable, but if there was anyone able to pull off the utterly weird and offputting Sarah, Brie would be the one. Having personal experience with horse girls probably did not help with my viewing of this film and I just could not escape the awkwardly eccentric characteristics that people like that portray. Cringey source material can be done right but with Baena in control, I don't actually know what I was expecting. Much more avant-garde and arthouse crowds will adore this film and treasure it just as much as Baena's previous works, but his writing abilities and translation onto the screen are just rough to watch. This kind of film is definitely not for me, but if one is able to truly connect with the vague and unlikable characters throughout this movie, then I tip my hat.
Horse Girl is as strange as the groups of women that the film is named after and while I desperately wanted to enjoy this, I could not bring myself to it. The first few months of 2020 are always very rough when it comes to new releases and I just can't wait to get this time period out of the way so I can start seeing some of my more anticipated films and not waste my time with forgettable stories like this one. I still love you Alison Brie, but please... no more horses.
My Rating: ★★
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