After the absolute barn burner of a debut (heh) "Saint Maude", I was fascinated to see where Rose Glass (amazing name) would go: her eye for detail, ugliness, hopeful redemption and classy sinful sleaze has taken her to honestly the one place befitting her talents: film noir.
A grimy, but not salacious, look at 2 spiralling strangers finding each other, and the myriad of decisions and outside events complicating things and causing them to spiral. It's gripping stuff, with a believable, swet central pairing, both flawed and damaged individuals trying to open up and help each other without letting those vulnerabilities be used. There are fantastic shots of the starry skies and the gym reading "Crater Gym", like Jackie is sent from the Heavens, but destined to leave wreckage when she does, and the imagery and beauty of the film continues in those shots; but is also counter-acted and frequently contrasted with "Saint Maude"-esque grit and grime: everything is off colour, everything is run down, an accurate look at the time period rather than a simple shallow neon-tined facsimile of it through nostalgia blind lenses. In this murkiness and ugliness, the beauty is allowed to thrive, but they also succumb to the worst instincts too. There's fantastic consumption and devouring imagery throughout, all maws and insects and yawning chasms, and the sound design is top notch: squelching and bone crunching and creaking of bones, topped by an all-too-fitting Clint Mansell score. Ed Harris shows up and is ALWAYS welcome in things. I love Ed Harris.
It's classic film noir, dripping with imagery and closeups and told with a queer eye and a twist. Already I'm seeing takes which see the dream-like and metaphorical elements at face value, come on guys: it's Rose Glass. Have some media literacy.
I like it. I want to continue to see where Rose Glass goes from here.
Side note: there are more scenes of "downtown devouring" than there are murders here.
But I DO NOT want to see anybody get their toes sucked, what the fuck movie?
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