The Mend

Life as slow crawl, a waking nightmare, spiraling anxiety in cinematic form. It's like watching a nervous breakdown; like a metaphor for my OWN nervous breakdown, that I'm living over and over again. It's a very strange movie, disorientingly elliptical without ever feeling like there's anything actually missing. Powerhouse performances from Josh Lucas, Lucy Owen and Stephen Plunkett.

Magary manages to avoid cliche and capture very well the barely-hanging-on nature of the lives of these brothers. Magary's use of the film's form underlines this--elliptical editing that keeps us guessing about motivations and actions of characters, a crowded mise-en-scene that constantly brings the actors in close with each other, and a busy jazz-inflected soundtrack that's use of ambient sound reminds a bit of Jon Brion's Punch-Drunk Love score.

A brave swing and a miss at a hybrid Altman-Cassavetes – the aggressively splintered editing is interesting at first, but grows wearisome as it progresses, making already dull and obnoxious characters even more difficult to connect with; well performed, with Lucas a minor revelation as the hedonistic, misanthropic lead, and if Plunkett’s more measured character had served as solid ballast, this might have been an interesting character study.

maybe i'd be less impressed if i'd seen more of its influences (e.g. desplechin), but it's great to see a US indie film savagely blow apart your typical pat sundance set-up, beginning where most would climax and degenerating into a thrillingly unstable existential freak out. helps that it's insanely quotable and littered with weird, inventive details which help to externalise the unhinged headspaces of these tricky to pigeonhole characters, from the helicopter to the ice cream van.

that apartment went from 'oh that seems fun' to 'this is a nightmare'. Josh Lucas kills. So does Stephen Plunkett, but on a more lowkey level.

Although it gradually reveals itself to be at the very least somewhat more formally ambitious than it initially appears to be, this film is still nowhere near accomplished enough to warrant the Desplechin and Cassavetes comparisons that it has. If anything, it's closer to third-rate Baumbach (or a less risky Alex Ross Perry). To be fair, it improves somewhat after the rather interminable first act, but it's style of post-mumblecore pseudo-naturalism feels overly familiar at this point.