“Straight Forward” involves a glamourous, but necessarily dysfunctional, Hollywood couple. Ward Cardova (Gorn) is a big-shot screenwriter flirting with the downside of his career peak. His wife Eileen (Vermilyea) is an aging starlet keenly aware of her vulnerability to pretty young upstarts waiting to take their place in the spotlight gaze of an adoring public. Unable to conceive a child on their own, they hatch a plan to find, dupe, and seduce a young stud under the guise of a guerilla filmmaking effort outside the powerful studio system. Thriller conventions, of course, demand that while watching the film we ask this of the plot summary: or is this really what’s going on? Noto aims to leave us swimming in a kind of noir surrealism, but his technique implementing screenwriter/actress Stacia Crawford’s gimmicky narrative ultimately makes psychology only one of many threads that gets yanked and tugged until there’s no rug left to stand on.
Unmet Promises
Strategic desaturation leaves the colour with a dull wash, flattening the cinematography in a way that denies genuine cheer any kind of entry. Documentary footage spliced in Aranofsky-style, along with respectable period set and costume design, works to establish a kind of historicity. It’s all kinky enough to hint at the sinister-underpinnings of the seemingly ordinary, in David Lynch fashion. But J-horror editing intercuts ominous scenes of insanity and surgery with scenes of domestic strife and film noir posturing, a mistake that, while playing into the film’s generic creepiness, also gives away the film’s trick agenda.
Chalk it up to unfulfilled potential. The raw material is there, enough to be disappointed that the film doesn’t deliver what it promises. Then again, it is a challenge to stand out in a crowded field of mind-benders – especially when giants of the genre have defined the thriller formula to the point that just about every sort of plot machination is, by now, clichéd. In these dire situations, salvation comes in the form of distinctive characters. Alas, the condescending anti-climax highlights the film’s indifference to the personalities that populate it. The cast, thankfully, does enough heavy lifting so we’re not stranded on a set with human-shaped cardboard cutouts. But that doesn’t change the fact that, while enjoyable in some respects and possessed of a few good dramatic moments, “Straight Forward” is somewhat less than a straightforward cheat.
Entertainment Value: * (out of two)
Technical Quality: * (out of two)
Echelon Studios presents a film directed by Jason Noto. Starring Kristen Vermilyea, Lev Gorn, Stacia Crawford and Gabe Fazio. 87 minutes. Visit www.echelonstudios.us for distribution and screening information.
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