Extremely Troubled Relationships
Reviews and Comments by Ken Burke
I invite you to join me on a regular basis to see how my responses to current cinematic offerings compare to the critical establishment, which I’ll refer to as either the CCAL (Collective Critics at Large) if they’re supportive or the OCCU (Often Cranky Critics Universe) when they go negative. However, due to COVID concerns I’m mostly addressing streaming options with limited visits to theaters, where I don’t think I’ve missed much anyway, though better options may be on the horizon. (Note: Anything in bold blue [some may look near purple] is a link to something more in the review.)
My reviews’ premise: “You can’t please everyone, so you got to please yourself.”
(from "Garden Party" by Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band, 1972 album of the song’s name)
As with our posting of April 10, 2024, this week has been busier than I anticipated so the reviews will have to be abbreviated. With LaRoy, Texas I was able to keep to my intentions of focusing on actual 2024 releases, but with Girl Upstairs (just like with Nobody Is Crazy [Federico J. Arlioni] in that previous posting) I’m back to something that was made in 2019; however, it’s also another special request from an independent filmmaker for a review which I was happy to oblige given the fine quality of the work. (But, indie folks, please don't storm the Two Guys site; we can't do this too often.)
SHORT TAKES
If you can abide plot spoilers read on, but this blog’s intended for those who’ve seen the film or want to save some $ (as well as recognizing those readers like me who just aren’t that tech-savvy). To help any of you who want to learn more details yet avoid these all-important plot-reveals I’ll identify any give-away sentences/sentence-clusters with colors plus arrows:
⇒The first and last words will be noted with arrows and red.⇐ OK, now continue on if you prefer.
Here’s the trailer:
(Use the full screen button in the image’s lower right to enlarge its size;
activate the same button or use “esc” keyboard key to return to normal.)
This tale takes place in a (fictional) small Texas town where we first meet Harry (Dylan Baker) killing someone, then struggling private investigator Skip (Steve Zahn)—constantly harassed by the local cops because he doesn’t have a badge—tells Ray (John Magaro)—who runs a hardware store with his brother, Junior (Matthew Del Negro)—that while he was on a stake-out at a local motel he took some photos of Ray’s wife, Stacy-Lynn (Megan Stevenson), who seemed to be there for an affair; Ray tries his best to deny this but knows Stacy-Lynn’s lately showing little interest in him, especially because he can’t help her get a massive loan to open a beauty parlor.* Despondent Ray buys a pistol, drives to that motel one night, is about to kill himself when a stranger (we later learn he’s Brian Tiller [Brannon Cross]), gets in his car, mistakes him for an arranged hitman (Harry, of course), gives him several thousand dollars and the address of an intended victim, insists the kill must be tomorrow.
Ray’s horrified by all this but goes on the job anyway (as he drives away from the motel Harry pulls up, has no idea what happened to his mysterious contact) in order to collect enough for Stacy-Lynn’s salon, trails the guy the next day and night to a bar, but the man (lawyer James Barlow [Vic Browder]) surprises Ray, knocks him out. When Ray comes to they get into a scuffle, Ray accidently kills him, dumps the body by the road in the countryside but mistakenly drops a Stacy-Lynn photo (from Skip) there so the cops take her in for questioning next day, after they find the body, but release her. (On the night before, Ray stopped at Junior’s but he wasn’t home; Junior’s disgusted wife, Kayla [Emily Pendergast], tells him Stacy-Lynn’s affair is with Junior). By this point, Skip seems to be with Ray most of the time, is determined to solve the murder to enlarge his credibility with the law. Meanwhile, Brian confronts Ray because when he went to clean out Barlow’s safe of $250,000 he found it empty, thinks Ray’s got the cash, gives him a day to return it. When Ray and Skip go to Barlow’s office they intimidate an employee (Skip keeps waterboarding him in a toilet) to learn Barlow was aiding client Adam Ledoux (Brad Leland), car dealership owner, in paying off a blackmailing demand 9f $250K due to an affair. Harry meanwhile finds out Brian was his intended employer, demands cash from him, Brian has none so he’s killed in front of his wife, Angie (Galadriel Stineman)—who’d been involved with separate scams (Brian, Adam) regarding the missing money.
*She once won a beauty contest (still has the crown) and now Stacy-Linn's convinced she could aid others in enhancing their appeal, reminds me of a line from Paul Simon’s "Was a Sunny Day" (1973 There Goes Rhymin’ Simon album): “She was a high school queen / With really noting left to lose.”
Ray suddenly realizes Barlow had a briefcase when he was being tailed but didn't take it into the bar so it’s probably still in his (impounded by now) car; Ray and Skip find the briefcase, Skip wants to take it to the cops to further his image, but Ray keeps it for Stacy-Linn’s beauty parlor (he still hasn’t given up on her). But when he finds his wife and Junior (who’s been embezzling money from their store for a long time) at his home he finds out they’ve informed the police about Barlow’s killer, so they show up, arrest Ray. However, on the way to the jail Harry stops them, kills both cops, but Ray slips away, finds Junior and Stacy-Linn (and the money) at a motel, surprises the intended-escapees in the shower, shoots Junior, tells his wife he wants a divorce so she leaves. ⇒Then Harry calls Ray, says he has Skip, wants the money, so they’re on the way to the motel. When he arrives, though, Ray refuses to hand over the briefcase, gunfire’s exchanged, Ray convinces Skip to run away with the cash (to give to the cops, finally earning their respect) with it clear both Ray and Harry will soon die from abdominal wounds. As it all ends, Skip slows down to give Stacy-Linn a ride which she decides to accept.⇐ At the start of Blood Simple (Joel and Ethan Coen, 1984), E. Emmit Walsh’s character gives us some voiceover-narration: “Now go on ahead, y'know, complain, tell your problems to your neighbor, ask for help, 'n watch him fly. Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else...that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an' down here...you're on your own.” Chilling words, indeed, yet true all too often in the Lone Star state.
Those thoughts not only set the proper tone for the Coen brothers’ cinematic debut, they also resonate well with the events of LaRoy …, especially with this current film having clear overtones with not only Blood Simple but also aspects of Fargo (Coens, 1996), Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974), and North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959), maybe others that I don’t recall right now. Therefore, a needed question about rating this current film arises regarding holding back a bit because the impact here is too derivative of the various references I’ve just noted (especially the Coens’ overall body of work, as you could easily mistake this one for part of their output, or at least one of the TV series that have spun off from the original Fargo in recent years) or praising what’s on screen as an example of filmmakers learning so well from their influences that they’re produced something notable on their own (with Atkinson as screenwriter too). Ultimately, I went with the second option, as does the CCAL with 39 current reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes who're 100% positive, although, for those who don’t agree they can always turn to Metacritic where the average score is just 68% (but based on only 6 reviews; you might check later to see if any of this changes).
So if what you’ve read here or at either of those critics’ sites intrigues you to seek out this lives-of-misery film—which has a lot of morbid humor in it, along with consistently-effective acting, especially from Zahn, though Magaro’s on-target with his Sad Sack-persona—you’ll find it on streaming where in 4K quality you can rent it for $6.99 from AppleTV+ or Vudu, in HD you can also get it from those sources plus Amazon Prime Video and Spectrum, which I encourage you to do from whichever platform you prefer, if the body count doesn’t turn you off to the experience (even there, though, the deaths are handled in a modified manner, no gory homicidal actions). I suppose one last aspect of this film could have put me off more than it did, and that’s the reality it’s set in Texas (my former home state, which can deport many of its politicians to Mexico and let the legitimate asylum-seekers keep crossing the border as far as I’m concerned, although I’m sure many I still know in Texas would respond to that idea by sending me down south of the Rio Grande) but shot somewhere around Albuquerque; yet, I’ll admit there’s much of eastern NM that looks a lot like what you’d find over the border into the panhandle of Texas, so I won’t complain there either. Instead, I’ll just finish with my usual tactic of a Musical Metaphor which in this case is a song I heard a lot back in Austin in the mid-1970s, one that connects with the C&W tunes on LaRoy …’s soundtrack and focuses, like the film, on miserable lives offering scant hope for improvement. What I’m talking about is David Allan Coe singing “You Never Even Called Me By My Name” (written while drunk by Steve Goodman, John Prine [although Prine asked to not be connected to it; none of these guys are from Texas, but so what?]; Coe’s version’s on his 1975 Once Upon a Rhyme album) at https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=s4pZFsEdP3Y. Even if you just read about what goes on in this film, I think you’ll find compatibilities with this mournful song (or at least better understand what sick tastes I usually have).
Girl Upstairs (Kevin Stevenson) PG-13 91 min.
Here’s the trailer:
Based on info sent to me from the director in his request for a Two Guys review, this film (also referred to as A Girl Upstairs) was completed in 2019 (end credits show a 2022 copyright, needed for international festivals), but I’m considering it a current release because it’s just coming to other festival competitions and streaming, currently on Tubi for free (ads will likely interrupt, though), then soon you’ll find it on other platforms; given that, you’ll just have to trust my response because you won’t yet find anything on Rotten Tomatoes, Metacritic, or IMDb, but very soon you’ll likely have further access to it on those sites as well as streaming so check JustWatch for the particulars on where and how much. In the meantime, I’ll tell you what I found in this most unique, fascinating film. It’s focused on Dulce (Holly Blair), a young woman with a severe case of agoraphobia, which we later learn is brought on by the horrible experience when she was a child making chalk drawings on the sidewalk outside her home, then was suddenly abducted, mostly kept in a car trunk (although we see one shot where the trunk is burning) until she was rescued; she never saw the face of her abductor so she became fearful of whatever might be lurking in the world around her, withdrawing to her closet or under her bed, until now where she never leaves her apartment/studio where she apparently supports herself through her paintings, handled by telephone with an art dealer, Gianna.
Early on in this story, she gets a delivery from Gianna (I guess Dulce also has food delivered, as she never leaves her secured dwelling, seems to eat a lot of pasta) with some vellum (normally a writing material made from animal skin) for the artist to paint on (when she’s not having troubling dreams, while also mildly choking herself). Dulce has a vicarious interest in her downstairs neighbor, Benji (Gustavo Cintra), whom she spies on through a peephole in her wall, paints an Expressionist portrait of him,* along with constructing a “bed partner” from clothes and newspapers seemingly inspired by him, until she sees him with another woman so she slaps a lot of blue paint on his picture, goes to bed angry. However, the portrait falls off the easel onto some of the vellum resulting next day in a nude young man in her apartment. Initially, Dulce’s terrified but comes to accept her new companion who seems to have the mind of a child as she has to teach him some vocabulary, how to eat, etc. Ultimately he becomes a bedtime “cuddle buddy,” yet it’s all platonic, no sex with this guy she decides to name Webster. Then, we have faint overtones of Bride of Frankenstein (James Whale, 1935) as this odd man wants a companion more like him so Dulce takes the portrait of fictional Mimi she often talks to, pairs it with vellum, and—lo and behold—actual Mimi (Catt Bellamy) comes to life.
*Reminds me of Bob Dylan's self-portrait on the album cover of the same name (1970), a song-cluster he’s called a joke; critics generally dismissed it as did I, disappointed in its odd collection.
However, Mimi has more of a personality, more independence, which soon leads to trouble because she wants to go down the stairs, out the front door to see what awaits her. ⇒Dulce begs her not to go, confesses her fear of the world to Webster and Mimi in hopes they’ll understand why she just wants to live with them in isolation. Mimi’s not convinced, though, so she takes action by setting fire to Webster’s portrait, which kills him, leaves Dulce in a state of hysteria. In the next scene we see Dulce (without bangs, in a dress instead of her usual paint-stained overalls), go out into the sunlight, enter a coffee shop where Benji’s the barista, introduces herself as Mimi, so apparently the 2 women have merged.⇐** This film is a marvelous blend of what in literature is called Magic Realism with a bit from the Psychological Horror genre added as well, topped off by a dramatic confrontation intended to purge ingrained, interior terrors. Blair is terrific in her role which carries the whole film, while her castmates are equally effective with Cintra able to stay believable as an organic-entity without much inner substance (in that Dulce knew virtually nothing about Benji so she had little background to inspire her portrait) just as Bellamy in her few scenes creates more of a presence than Dolce ever intended (likely the result of talking to this portrait so frequently, sharing her inner thoughts which gave more of a personality to Mimi—yet, without the fears that so haunted Dulce); further, Dulce always signed her paintings with her own blood so that probably also helped bring aspects of her into her mysterious human creations. The cinematography is effective as well (also by Stevenson), with lots of well-framed closeups and mid-shots constantly giving a sense of extension, even within the confines of Dulce’s marginal dwelling. Finally, speaking as a former painter (BFA, U of Texas at Austin, 1970) I had lovely sensual memories from those shots of globs of paints on Dulce’s full palette, making me wish it hadn’t been so long since I’ve put a brush to canvas.
**I have no assumption that director Stevenson nor screenwriter John Gee have any connection to this, but I can’t help but think of another fascinating tale of transferred identities, the short story "Axolotl" by a brilliant Argentine writer, Julio Cortázar, first published in his book Final de juego (1956), translated into English as End of the Game and Other Stories (1967), which also contained the tale inspiring Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966; after-the-fact review in our September 14, 2023 posting) with the book title later changed to Blow-Up and Other Stories (1985). Nor do I think the team behind Girl … intends any reverse-allusion to the novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde, 1891), although such a consideration is something so interesting to contemplate.
And—one last off-screen element here—this is an astounding cinematic result from a tiny $8,000 production/post-production investment (info supplied by Stevenson); over those years when I haven’t been painting I’ve seen hundreds of movies that don’t work as well as this one in its tight impact (running time feels just right), despite those others costing enormous sums more than Girl Upstairs, so keep an eye on JustWatch to learn how you can also take advantage of seeing this stunning work. As usual, I’ll close with a Musical Metaphor (which may seem a bit silly considering the seriousness of this film, yet it still works for me), the Beach Boys’ “In My Room,” (on their 1963 Surfer Girl album) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3OuxCbFrEw where Dulce also can be somewhat secure, “lock out all [her] worries and [her] fears […] do [her] crying and [her] sighing,” although she hasn’t been able to “Laugh at yesterday” until Mimi enters her closed world. I hope you’ll join me in appreciating the enormous struggles Dulce must endure which ultimately lead her to a resolution she never would have imagined (but I’m glad some worthy filmmakers did, as they’ve constructed a consistently-creepy atmosphere with haunting aspects, in both the images and music).
Related Links Which You Might Find Interesting:
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