Under the Silver Lake (2018) L.A. Hipster / Alternative Reality / Black Comedy Noir

“Silver Lake is an artificial reservoir in a cut between two groups of hills, on the east fringe of San Angelo. Narrow but expensively paved streets wind around in the hills, describing elaborate curves along their flanks for the benefit of a few cheap and scattered bungalows...” (Raymond Chandler - Finger Man 1934)

“L.A.: temperate, sunny, ideal for outdoor living. A wide range of options, until they narrow to live or die.” (—James Ellroy, “The Great Right Place,” L.A. Times (2006)

Written and Directed David Robert Mitchell. Cinematography by Mike Gioulakis, Music by Disasterpeace.

The film stars Andrew Garfield as Sam, Riley Keough as Sarah.

 Andrew Garfield as Sam

Riley Keough as Sarah

Topher Grace as Bar Buddy, Callie Hernandez as Millicent Sevence, Don McManus as Final Man, Jeremy Bobb as Songwriter, Riki Lindhome as Actress, Zosia Mamet as Troy, Patrick Fischler (Mulholland Drive) as Comic Fan, Jimmi Simpson as Allen, Grace Van Patten as Balloon Girl, Bobbi Salvör Menuez as Shooting Star #1, Wendy Vanden Heuvel as Topless Bird Woman, Chris Gann as Jefferson Sevence, Jessica Makinson as Mrs. Sevence, David Yow as Homeless King, Adam Bartley as Cop, June Carryl as Sheriff, Summer Bishil as EX/Billboard Girl and Karen Nitsche as Owl's Kiss.

Story 

Sam. Marijuanero burnout. Slacker. Conspiracy theorist. Peeping Tom. Gone to seed hipster. Unemployed loser. Living off his mother in a Mid Century Modern pastel "apartment complex" called the Rancho Silverlake. It's based on the "cheap motel" aesthetic school of So Cal architecture that basically removes the parking lot and replaces it with a pool. 

It reminded me of a two star dump called the Hollywood Inn in Westlake off Beverly on S. Alvarado. The wife and I crashed their after driving a lemon yellow Mustang convertible on a long Death Valley-Lone Pine detour to The City Of Angels from Vegas. Nothing like driving dangerous curves across dirty sheets in a sleazy L.A. motel to get your proper Noir-ed-on. 

Anyway, Sam spends his languid days peeping on his neighbors, whacking off to various cherished keepsakes of sexual arousal, and banging his blonde Actress gal pal (who shows up for their hide the sausage sessions in her various bitpart costumes).

The topless bird lady

Riki Lindhome as Actress in nurse costume

Riki Lindhome as beer hall frau

During one of his deck lizard sessions Sam spots a potential new neighbor / peeping victim named Sarah at the pool. Despite catching Sam spying on her, Sarah eventually invites Sam to her apartment.

Sarah is a big How To Marry A Millionaire fan with posters and tchotchke dolls of the stars Marilyn, Betty Grable and Lauren Bacall. They smoke a joint and lay on Sarah's bed watch How To Marry A Millionaire on a DVD. 

They start to play footsie together and kiss, but the arrival of Sarah's two roommates and a guy dressed partially as a pirate / sailor (full beard, eye patch, tricorn hat, horizontally striped shirt,) interrupts, its also coitus interruptus for Sam.  He takes off after they decide to hook up tomorrow.

A sexually frustrated Sam heads out to his wheels. A black 2005 Mustang. It's got a giant penis keyed on it's hood. Sam is now doubly pissed. 

He hits the fob door unlock and grabs the handle and gets gooey shit on his hands. He hears distant laughter and sees two kids trashing other cars further up the block. He beats the shit out of them both. 

The next day he goes back to Sarah's and discoveres the apartment empty of furniture and everybody gone. Sam goes to the apartment managers and finds out that they left in the middle of the night. So once slacker Sam now becomes obsessed with finding out what happened to Sarah. 

Sam goes back to Sarah's apartment breaks in through a window. He starts to poke around to see if he can pick up any leads. 

Sam goes back to Sarah's apartment breaks in through a window. He starts to poke around to see if he can pick up any leads. In a bedroom closet he finds a shoe box on a shelf. In it are a photograph of Sarah, a music box ballerina, a couple of barbie dolls some cassette tapes, and a bright red dildo. 

Sam pockets the photo, then picks up the dildo. He hesitates for a microsecond and, you guessed it takes a whiff of the business end. How Noir of him?  While he's still dicking around with carnal thoughts. The apartment door opens and one of Sarah's roommates walks in. Sam puts the box back on the shelf and slips back out the window. 

He watches through the blinds as the roommate walks into the empty bedroom, grabs the left behind box, closes the bedroom door and leaves. Behind the door is a curious symbol a side by side double diamond.

Like a good detective in any Noir story Sam tails the roommate. Up at the corner she gets picked by two other women in a car. Sam runs over to his Mustang and follows. The women stop outside a ballfield with a score board and wait. 751 appears on the board and the girls point at it then drive off, it must be a signal. Sam writes this down and follows. 

Sam gets help from his bar buddies and from the recluse author of an underground comix "Under The Silver Lake."  

The comic creator is also a conspiracy guru, who claims on his comic book cover "that only he knows the secret of Silverlake. In time I well reveal the truth, behind the mysterious crimes, murders, and disappearances that curse this community. I have the answers... I will reveal all.... Under The Silver Lake. The guru with feverish eyes shows him that the double diamond he discovered is a hobo sign for keep quiet. Shows Sam the owl on the dollar bill, and tells Sam about the Owl's Kiss, a naked woman with an owl face mask who is out to get him. He also reveals how ads suggest sex and that a box of stone pebbles cereal has a secret map on the back.

Sam continues his quest for Sarah throughout the film. Showing her picture at various hipster parties, deciphering cryptograms, playing records, following cereal box maps and meeting the "Homeless King," trying to piece together clues. He is on a personal descent into Noirsville. 

Noirsville

Writer Director David Robert Mitchell tries to create a labyrinthine "Lynchesque" Silver Lake that mimics the Twin Peaks Universe. A Silver Lake of daydreams and nightmares mixed with urban legends. A reality that is all controlled by a mysterious illuminati. A Silver Lake zeitgeist that has a Homeless King, a birdlike femme fatale who runs around naked wearing only an owls mask, airheads, hipsters, a real cemetery that doubles as a outdoor theater, a dog killer on the loose, a balloon girl, a millionaire who is at first missing, and then found burned to death, a ancient looking musical wizard whos tunes and messages in the music controlled and defined American culture. 

Mitchell has homages and references films, Rebel Without a Cause, Cool Hand Luke, Strange Compulsion, Taxi Driver, Robert Aldrich's Kiss Me Deadly, Frank Miller's Sin City, How to Marry A Millionaire, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Something's Got To Give, and probably more with another watch, various Hollywood stars, TV programs, celebrities, cereal boxes, Nintendo, comic books, and porno.

Andrew Garfield does a good job as the accidental detective Sam on his WTF quest for poontang lost. The majority of the rest of the huge cast are all spread a bit too thinly so they are relegated to mostly shallow portrayals that tend to all blend together. Noticeable among them are Riley Keough as sweet Sarah who gets to "marry" the millionaire with her two other roomies, Patrick Fischler who gives a entertaining performance as the crazed bug eyed conspiracy theorist. Pepi Sonuga who has but one line but looks amazing as one of the hipster Party characters called Emerald Beauty (later she appears as a equally Blue Beauty at a pool party). And last but not least Riki Lindhome as Andrews friend with benefits gal pal. They both use each other to get off and with Riki its to fantasies of being plowed by Kurt Cobain whose poster is hanging over Adrews bed. I only knew Riki as the stringbean blonde half of Garfunkel and Oates the sometimes raunchy comedy folk duo. 

Anyway, the Cinematography is excellent, the Art Direction and Set Decoration often uses the proven Neo Noir dingy palette of puke yellows, carnal reds, dry bone whites, intestinal greens and dead body blues in often mildly unsettling, clashing juxtaposition. The effect is familiar but twisted. An interesting film. Check it out 6..5-7/10.

A Scathing Critique on Modernity (IMDb)

rsj6245 November 2020

Warning: Spoilers

First and foremost, dude better not have actually written in permanent black marker on the zelda fold-out map from Nintendo Power Magazine Issue #1... Just sayin. Okay, onto the review!

"We crave Mystery, because there is none left".

This single line uttered during the runtime of Under a Silver Lake perhaps hit me the hardest of them all. I have spent most of my cinema going time as of late journeying through the 60s and 70s, in search of the next great thriller/horror or mystery film I had yet to see. So even thought this line within the context of said film is meant to imply more of a loss of originality and imagination in the modern world, it spoke volumes to me on a personal level. Under the Silver Lake a modern day take on the classic mystery films of old, and boy does it deliver on all the key ingredients that made its many inspirations so great in the first place.

Under the Silver Lake stands as one of the few rare films in recent times that follows no rules but its it's own, and ventures fearlessly into the limitless realm of cinema at it's most adventurous and entertaining. But let me state that it is by no means a perfect film before I gush all over it. It does feel way on the long side at an over 2 hour runtime, and many segments felt like they were used to pad out and better pace the film. The ending is a bit of a letdown and some loose ends are never addressed, yet, those are hardly complaints when considering the scope and ambition and mystery of the warped LA world we are introduced to, not to mention that even at its worst I was still more entertained than I ever thought it'd be.

It's a scathing critique of modernity, pairing pop culture with conspiracy theory in which director David Robert Micthell employees the same dizzying world logic he used in his last film "It Follows", to provide us with what feels like a surreal journey through a beautifully nightmarish landscape, populated by characters as alluring as they are apathetic. It's all about the layers here, and there are plenty of them to peel back. It's aesthetics, both good and bad saturate the world in which nothing is what it seems, yet everything is as basic as it appears. Andrew Garfield's aimlessly incorrigible take on a clueless protagonist blundering through an amateur detective-esque parade of bizarre occurrences and inconsequential encounters, just to find a girl he likes, simultaneously feel like a whole lot of nothings, within a whole lot of somethings. It's quite the achievement in my opinion for a film to balance so many opposing elements, yet all frame under such a titled, but cohesive narrative.

But most importantly it's just a fun movie to watch. It doesn't take itself as seriously as it seems, yet it's obvious a lot of work went into making everything feel as finely crafted as possible, something I feel few films outside of maybe The Lighthouse, Little Women, and Marriage Story from last year managed to successfully do. Again, this isn't to say its perfect, and those other films I mentioned are a better watch in my opinion, and indeed Under a Silver Lake could even be considered 'goofy' at times, but it's nice to see a film be so genuienly daring.

Here's to hoping at the very least in time it finds it's audience, and can become a cult classic. I recommend this one to any film lover who feel things have been a bit stale lately, and need a good dose of the wild and weird.

Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out gave the film a perfect five rating, calling it "Hypnotic, spiraling and deliriously high" and stating "the ambition of Under the Silver Lake is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you'll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird."[21] Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave a positive review, calling it "a bizarre and outrageous drama grounded in the consistency of Garfield's astonishment at every turn... It's fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist."

Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave a positive review, calling it "a down-the-rabbit-hole movie, at once gripping and baffling, fueled by erotic passion and dread but also by the code-fixated opacity of conspiracy theory. The movie is impeccably shot and staged, with an insanely lush soundtrack that's like Bernard Herrmann-meets-Angelo-Badalamenti-on-opioids."[23] A.A. Dowd of The A.V. Club gave the film a B rating, stating "Mitchell is taking a big swing with his third feature, trying something not just new but also more unconventional, ambitious, and even potentially off-putting."

Emily Yoshida of Vulture stated about the film's message: "I kept coming back to the women in this extremely boy-driven movie—Mitchell suspects that they're all on one big conveyor belt to be chewed up and spit out by Hollywood, or if they're lucky, locked away in the dungeons of the rich and powerful. It's a rather pedestrian imagining for an otherwise admirably cuckoo film—you keep hoping for Mitchell to land on something weirder, more radical."[25] Despite praising Garfield's performance and the film's originality, Bilge Ebiri of The Village Voice gave a negative review, stating: "If you're going to make a postmodern neo-noir sex-conspiracy... set in Los Angeles, it helps to have some personality, or at least a sense of style... Mitchell has interesting ideas, and his actors seem to be having fun, but that's not enough when the film itself lacks atmosphere, or tension, or emotional engagement."