
Victoria
The best thing about Victoria isn’t actually its technical prowess—it’s the lead performance from the mesmerizing Laia Costa as the title character.
The best thing about Victoria isn’t actually its technical prowess—it’s the lead performance from the mesmerizing Laia Costa as the title character.
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The set-up of "The One I Love," Charlie McDowell's directorial debut,
starring Mark Duplass and Elizabeth Moss, is filled with tremendous
possibilities, all of which are explored throughout the film. The
set-up, reminiscent of some of Hitchcock's films, works like a
well-oiled stopwatch: once the situation starts, it cannot be stopped.
The film unfolds with a sense of inevitability, and while the events are
odd, they never lose their logic. There's a reason "The Twilight Zone"
is referenced in Justin Lader's script. "The One I Love" is a romance
and a mystery and a drama, with really only two characters in it,
characters who are sketches approximating human beings, but played with
sadness and humor by the two lead actors. Not knowing the "twist" going
in was part of the film's pleasure, and it's enough to say that nothing
is what it seems.
Ethan (Duplass) and Sophie (Moss) are in marriage counseling for a
variety of commonplace reasons: he cheated on her, they don't
communicate well, they don't have sex anymore. They mourn their former
"irreverent" selves, the selves who "did ecstasy at Lollapalooza."
(That's as wild as they got.) Their relationship now consists of trying
to re-capture the happiness they had in the past, with predictably
hollow results. The marriage counselor (Ted Danson) suggests that they
go on a "retreat" for the weekend. He has sent many couples to this
place and they have all come back refreshed and renewed. Ethan and
Sophie figure they have nothing to lose.
The "retreat" is a weekend alone in a big old house on a large property,
complete with a pool and guest house. There are no other guests. There is
no guru leading them through trust exercises. There is no Steve Carell
in "Hope Springs." It is just Ethan and Sophie, hanging out, exploring
the grounds.
Cinematographer Doug Emmett fills the screen with dark gloomy shadows,
and strange points-of-view, the two characters seen through a doorjamb
from an adjacent room, or through the windows from outside. These
touches give a creepy horror-movie perspective to the point of view. Is
something lurking out there for them? Are they being watched? Even the
early marriage counseling scenes are filled with stark noir shadows on
the wall and odd ominous angles. The commonplaces of Ethan and Sophie's
boring marriage are made strange, eerie, in how they are filmed.
On their retreat, alone in the big house, Ethan and Sophie make dinner.
They drink wine and smoke pot. They loosen up. The dynamic between
Duplass and Moss has been tense and sad, and so their laughter brings
with it relief, release, a sense that they are beginning to remember why
they got together in the first place. That night, they crash in the
guest house and have sex. But when Sophie mentions it to Ethan the next
morning, he has no memory of it. Was he really that wasted?
Strange things keep happening, and these strange things seem to be
emanating from the guest house. Ethan and Sophie, freaked out, flee the
property, but then are drawn back, thinking maybe that their marriage
counselor is on to something, that whatever this is, it is something they
need to explore. Remember when they used to be open to new things?
But what they open themselves to is a Hall of Mirrors, increasingly
disturbing, and the secrets start to pile up again, casually at first,
and then consciously and deliberately. The entire film rests on the
chemistry between Duplass and Moss. Except for the counselor, there are
no other people in it. The two actors create a very real relationship,
with a sense of shared joy in one another's company, and myriad problems
threatening to derail the entire thing. We can see how bored they are
with life, with themselves, and with each other. To Ethan, trying
something new means "going horseback riding with a satchel of wine."
Ethan and Sophie are not extraordinary characters. But the situation in
which they find themselves in is.
Unabashedly entertaining at an efficient 91-minutes, "The One I Love" is
an extremely confident first feature, with some really fun things to
say about identity and relationship, connection and destiny.
This message came to me from a reader named Peter Svensland. He and a fr...
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