Of all the things we forget in life, dreams can be the most common. No matter how much you journalize or try to find ways to stick to these subconscious fragments, they always seem to slip away when we return to the waking world. It is then interesting that for every way it fills the films we evoke, only rarely Cinema really catches a feeling of this semi -mounted dream. Too often it is too literal and less hazy, although it is what defines so much of our lives. However, this makes the works that successfully use this all the more special to dream with.
“The actor“Is such a movie. A captivating portrait of a man who may not seem to remember who he is and may never be able to, Duke Johnson’s live-action debut is an enchanting movie that speaks in this language of semi-reminded dreams before falling into something closer to a nightmare. The result is a fun, melancholy and finally resonance experience that shows how it is precisely in the dream -like where life’s truths can be teased. In this case, the man who dreams Paul is played perfectly by The Always Great André HollandHe tries to answer a question both simple but still very existential: what kind of guy are you?
Well, Paul is not so sure. You understand, he is originally sure that he was an actor from New York who travels around with a group of artists. The only problem is that he had unconsciously had contact with a married woman in a hotel room that her husband was not so happy about and, after kicking the door, led to him punching Paul. It leaves the poor guy with memory loss and something else to guide him through life. Paul is still determined to make enough money to leave the fictional little town of 1950s Jeffords, Ohio, to return to New York where he hopes to regain his memories, his life and his identity. But when he meets the friendly Edna, played by a fantastic about something underutilized Gemma Chan, he will start to wonder if he should stay. What if here is who he is more than where he was before?
Based on the novel “Memory” by Donald E. Westlake, a rich text that was entirely published posthumously, Johnson’s adaptation does not give in refreshing any nice answers to these questions because he instead includes the more volatile and beautiful emotional uncertainty in the heart of history. It’s not about knowing things, but about finding a way to wade you through the things that don’t. While Johnson is not stranger to this more audible story, has collaborated the spectacular stop-motion movie 2015 ”Anomalisa“With Charlie Kaufman, there is still something else he plays with here. Part of this is formal because he debuts solo live action, but there is also something more unique for the experience. Scenes will fade into each other, with the darkness that lowers Paul when he goes from one place to another, in an often fantastic surreal way when the film has excellent production design by Paulina Rzeszowska and Mesmerizing Cinematography by Joe Systelli. The film is without any more conventional narrative progression because the element that is important is the emotional journey that Paul is on when confronting his forgotten past and tries to find his future role.
On this trip, Johnson not only takes out lively pictures, but he remains committed to the feeling that everything is a dream. Although the places we bounce to are different, many of the actors are the same and the concerns that address Paul are not reduced by what he hopes to be familiar Hems. The only thing he discovers is actually a haunting feeling that the person he was before and the place he was in was not good. This reaches a peak in the film’s prominent scene where he has to go on a TV show in a small part that takes a more unfortunate tone when he seriously considers his own potential self-assumption. It is one of many tough scenes to pull off when it juggles varying tones and keeps you beyond balance, but Holland rises to the task in each of them. In his pervasive eyes, we see a longing for a place to be happy and loved just as there is fear behind them that he might never find it.
So what kind of guy is Paul? He is a lost man, but he is also a man who was found. He is an actor who tries to beat his mark, read his lines and play the role he thinks he is supposed to play in life. In Holland’s hands, he is also a man who realizes that it may be something else for him. For everything he doesn’t remember and the tragedy to see him forget things during the movie, it is in a last embrace of variety that it pulls you for close to one last time. If movies will ask us to dream with them, it should be more that looks and feels like Johnson delicate achieves here.
The “actor” comes to theaters from March 14.
