REVIEWS
SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS
US. 2011. 85mins Director/screenplay Todd Solondz Production companies Goldcrest Films, Double Hope International sales Goldcrest Films International, www.
goldcrestfilms.com Producers Ted Hope, Derrick Tseng Executive producer Nick Quested Cinematography Andrij Parekh Production designer Alex DiGerlando Editor Kevin Messman Main cast Justin Bartha, Selma Blair, Mia Farrow, Jordan Gelber, Donna Murphy, Christopher Walken
Dark Horse REVIEWED BY JONATHAN ROMNEY
Don’t expect Todd Solondz’s usual level of squirm- inducing provocation from Dark Horse. Low on taboo content (the queasiest humour here con- cerns Hepatitis B), this character portrait cum anti-romcom is no stronger in content than much US TV humour of the Curb Your Enthusiasm school — and arguably, Solondz’s films have helped shift the parameters of what is acceptable in mainstream comedy. Even so, Dark Horse, accomplished and witty as
it is, seems like it is treading water, at times even like a step back for a writer-director who is among the most individual and downright intelligent of his generation. But Solondz’s repute, plus smart casting, will give it respectable commercial pros- pects, with the absence of shock content or overt experimentation making it a more mainstream- friendly contender than other Solondz films Unusually for the director, this film focuses on
one character, Abe (Gelber), an overweight, unam- bitious, toy-fixated man in his 30s, still living at home with his staunchly suburban parents (Far- row, Walken), and discontentedly working for his estate agent dad Jackie as an accountant. Chronically depressed and embittered, Abe
likes to project a cheerful up-‘n’-at-’em demean- our, and considers himself a ‘dark horse’, the sort who will triumph in the final stretch. In the open- ing scene — featuring the trademark Solondz table shot — Abe meets and takes a fancy to beautiful but damaged Miranda (Blair). After one quasi-date, he proposes, and eventu-
ally, unexpectedly, she accepts — only to admit, in a scene of trenchant Solondzian cruelty, that mar-
n 16 Screen International at the Toronto Film Festival September 9, 2011
rying Abe would consolidate her renunciations of all her life’s ambitions. The film continues in this vein of acidic charac-
ter comedy, shot in a vividly coloured four-square style that echoes classic TV sitcom mise en scene. But things later take a fantasy-like left turn, with Jackie’s solicitous secretary Marie (Murphy) undergoing a deliciously unpredictable metamor- phosis — Donna Murphy magnificently stealing the film at this point. Less formally challenging than Solondz’s highly
conceptual Palindromes or Life During Wartime, Dark Horse plays it straighter and sometimes broader than we are accustomed to with Solondz. But the film is nevertheless highly self-reflexive: at one point, Solondz seems to send up our precon- ceptions of his worldview when Abe launches into a monologue complaining that, “We’re all horrible people… Humanity’s a fucking cesspool.” In fact,
Solondz manages to suggestion there is at least some tenderness in the world, if you can move beyond the ugliness and idiocy of everyday life in the West. Cinematographer Andrij Parekh and designer
Alex DiGerlando serve perfectly Solondz’s cartoon- ish vision, especially with colour — variously drab and garish interiors are horribly eloquent about their inhabitants, and the sight of a gruesomely coiffed Walken in screaming orange polo shirt is one of the more outré pleasures here. Indeed, Walken’s grey-faced, grey-minded dad is one of the film’s prime surprises, and the cast typically enjoy themselves with the character extremes. As the abject yet oddly likeable Abe, Jordan Gel-
ber gives a terrific performance that gives the film its emotional approachability, suggesting a solid nugget of compassion at the heart of Solondz’s satirical stance.
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