That’s no enough plants!

Noooo! Not the cute dog!

So I guess this script has been generated from Netflix user polls? “Do you like: 1) Dogs”

Right.

The aesthetics of this is just offensive. It’s “Netflix gave us almost no money but we have to shoot this thing anyway” aesthetics.

It’s so weird how all the actors here remind me of… somebody more famous. So this isn’t Stellan.

And this isn’t that guy from those shows.

(I could be more erudite, but I’m so drnk.)

Or is it that guy?!?!

No

I can’t be?!

But that’s her!! Isn’t it? Yes it is! Veronica’s Closet!

And that guy is the guy! From… Ugly Betty? IMDB agrees with me.

Perhaps all of them are what they seem.

And they’re all from sitcoms from 20 years ago!

This is quite amusing.

What! It’s her! Isn’t it?

From 2 Broke Girls!

Yes!

This movie has all of the sitcom actors!

But this is fun. It’s got serious pacing issues, though.

This is so cute.

It’s very modern. The precariat and all.

This is really cute. And I love all the actors. And it’s really cute. Did I mention that it’s really cute?

But it’s got bits that just aren’t that exciting? I feel terrible writing this, because I love every individual scene. I’m just not loving the aggregate.

Single All The Way. Michael Mayer. 2021. ⚃

So is this a Brazil rip-off? It’s got that Terry Gilliam thing going. Kafka Lite.

This is Ayoade’s second and final movie, so I’m guessing it didn’t do well.

So it was an utter box office failure.

I wonder what the Dostoyevsky novella was like before the script writer Brazilised it.

This is bad.

Really bad. It’s like a mash up… all these things. 91 Von Trier and 84 Gilliam and 82 Scott and quotes from Hitchcock and bits from Kieślowski and sound from Lynch and possibly Tarkovsky and the mood from 71 Cronenberg… put Jesse Eisenberg in it.

So we’re getting all the directors Ayoade likes but it’s not going anywhere.

Hey, isn’t that…? I think it is.

So now we’re doing Kaurismäki?

I think one of the many problem this movie has is that the viewpoint character has absolutely no… character. We’re not even given any hint about why we should care about him? He’s supposed to work as a blank you’re supposed to identify with, I guess? But the only traits he’s given is that he’s kinda creepy? Using a telescope to creep on women I mean His True Love? So this is a movie for creeps?

But skip all that, and perhaps we’re just supposed to be interested because of all the… Kafkatuity (that’s a word) of it all. But….

Perhaps it’d work with a different actor. Jeremy Irons?

This is just brutally uninteresting.

The Double. Richard Ayoade. 2013. ⚁

I love these titles.

This is brilliant!

It’s just how I’d imagine a movie by Richard Ayoade, if I had imagined it, which I hadn’t. But I read a couple of books of his, and I got his movie, because he seemed like a right smart un.

Darren Evans (the guy playing Chips) is absolutely amazing.

I wonder whether this is autobiographical. I can hear Ayoade’s voice in all the lines.

I’m loving the cinematography and the scenes and the actors… but I’m not loving the movie? It seems kinda choppy? And it can’t make up its mind whether it’s going for cringe or honesty?

I mean… Everything seems obviously autobiographical (I mean, bits of it), but with all the specifics filed off. So we’re left with a generic movie about a nerdy British teenager with a generic relationship with a Magic Pixie Dream Girl (with a Louise Brooks wig), and it’s all rather odd.

I really like Ayoade’s books, but he really lost the plot here. It’s so generic. It could have been made by any nerdy British director.

Submarine. Richard Ayoade. 2010. ⚂