Director: Macon Blair
Starring: Melanie Lynskey, Elijah Wood
Year: 2017
This film’s title is too long, so I would just call it IDFAHITWA, but that’s too long too, so I guess we’ll just refer to it as “this film”. I believe the title comes from a song played during the movie, and it sums up the general feeling behind the story, so I won’t knock it completely, it’s just long. The film itself is not, and won’t take a ton of effort to watch, coming across as Tarantino-lite, which has a certain enjoyable quality to it, especially when the violence picks up. And it does, don’t be lulled to sleep by the beginning, this is a heist/robbery/comedy at its core, it just takes a minute to get there. If you’re confused now about exactly what kind of film this is, you’re probably not alone; it’s a mixed up movie in a mixed up world, which is basically what makes it fun.
Ruth doesn’t enjoy her life much. An assistant nurse, she often sees people die and afterward wonders whether there’s really a point to living. Everyone around her is an asshole, her neighbor’s dog poops in her yard, no one is polite anymore, she lives in a shitty part of town, and really, why even get up in the morning. To top it all off, one day her house is robbed. It’s not the actual theft that bothers her, it’s the principle of the matter, the fact that someone cared so little about her possessions and her home, that humanity is slowing circling down the toilet. So Ruth decides to do something about it, to find the guy who broke into her home, no matter how dangerous the mission might become. With her new friend Tony and his trusty dog Kevin at her side, she’ll try to do her small part to make life a fairer, if not necessarily better, place.
It’s a kooky premise and a nutty movie, there’s no denying that, but there’s fun to be had at the expense of the characters, and that’s worth something. What starts out as silly quickly become violent, but that just adds to the surreality of the whole journey, the intensity of Ruth’s search for some semblance of decency in a fucked up world. Melanie Lynskey is one of my personal favorites, and she kills it (pun intended) here; basically she can do no wrong. And Elijah Wood is a nice surprise, a crazy little guy with a morning star who isn’t afraid to stand up for his friends, even if they are brand new and make him go to scary places. You’ll be surprised by the amount of odd humor hidden within the script, but I can’t say that the film was a success when taken as a whole. It’s a little unpolished, a touch amateur, and tends to fly around in multiple directions at a whim. But give it a chance if you like dark comedy and bungled burglaries; there’s enough here to enjoy that I wouldn’t want to steer you away.
My rating: ☆ ☆ ☆