Under the Silver Lake

Riley Keough channels Marilyn's oodles of oomph in Under the Silver Lake

David Robert Mitchell's Under the Silver Lake opened with a resounding thud in the spring of 2019, but I thought it was...OK. Cinematography, editing, set design and music are all first rate. Mitchell rarely makes a mistake with his camera. His dollies and pans help create a Los Angeles that is a labyrinth, one full of rabbit holes, hidden bunkers, trap doors and secret passages: a fitting setting for a mystery. Mitchell's aim was to make a modern noir with a lysergic edge and black comic elements; akin to The Long Goodbye, The Big Lebowski and Inherent Vice.

Unfortunately, all of those films are more successful than Under the Silver Lake. At least a half hour too long, Under the Silver Lake seems like a case of a director coming off a success (It Follows) who bites off more than he can chew. Disorientation and alienation are the chief themes of Under the Silver Lake, a difficult duo with which to underpin a popular entertainment. What is needed is a star's charisma to bind it together: say Cary Grant's charm amidst the paranoia and bad faith of a Notorious or North by Northwest. Andrew Garfield lacks that special oomph. He is technically proficient, verbally dexterous and physically adept. He just lacks "It". His character in the film is repellant, in a number of ways. Therefore his success with the ladies in this film seems dubious. Riley Keough is technically lacking next to Garfield, but has oodles of oomph and "It", too. She is near perfection here. The cast is a joyous, Altman or Paul Thomas Anderson like ensemble. Callie Hernandez and Jeremy Bobb are particularly memorable.

Under the Silver Lake seems to loom as a future cult film. It could be classified as a drug film, but it also addresses the underside of narcotics, namely psychosis. There are many layers to the film, perhaps too many, but I admire its ambition and its cinephilia. A doctoral thesis could be written just on its film references alone. I was particularly touched by Mitchell's invocation of Janet Gaynor, almost a forgotten figure today. This film could be taken as a critique of information saturation, but it is too incoherent a text to ever totally decipher.