The Melbourne International Film Festival, Reviewed
The best, the worst, and the weirdest of what's coming to Australian movie screens in coming months.
The Film That, For Better Or Worse, Will Slowly Drive You Crazy:
Queen Of Earth, dir. Alex Ross Perry
Starring: Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston
Reviewed by: Meg Watson
If you know New York filmmaker Alex Ross Perry best for last year’s bumbling mumblecore comedy Listen Up Philip, you should know going in: this film is different. Jason Schwartzman and his acerbic wit is nowhere to be seen, and Perry has ditched his generous, weaving narrative in favour of a single spotlight. In this new psychological thriller, Philip supporting actor Elisabeth Moss takes centre stage and the sheer focus on her is almost blinding.
After the death of her father — a wealthy and well-regarded artist — we’re introduced to Catherine as she’s being dumped by her long-term boyfriend. The claustrophobic frame never wanders from her face as she grows increasingly aggressive and upset, which seems completely appropriate as the whole film is essentially an increasingly disturbing portrait.
Catherine quickly makes her way to stay with her best friend Virginia (Katherine Waterston) who lives in self-imposed exile in her parent’s lakehouse, and it’s here that the entirety of the film takes place. Circling around one another in surreal passive-aggressive silence, the pair dwell on their respective grief and small resentments and generally freak the audience the fuck out.
Though there are moments of genuine intimacy between the two friends, the relationship’s been tainted from a prior trip when Catherine had remained indifferent to Virginia’s own crisis. And, through recurrent flashbacks, Queen of Earth dives into these emotional fractures and open wounds with total glee. Heavy silences linger unabated, long takes with shifting focuses wilfully distort reality, and constant close-ups lock you into the mess of the whole thing which grants even the smallest event startling psychological weight.
The problem, for me, was that I didn’t want to be trapped in there. Privileged, self-obsessed, and unsympathetic, every character was purposefully unlikeable to the point it was used for humour. The film’s best moments were the laughs it granted in piercing, over-the-top insults or the straight-up absurdity of Moss’ wild eyes floating sleeplessly around the house with no specific purpose, but even that awkwardly clashed with the seemingly serious back-narrative of her father committing suicide after suffering from depression. On paper, this is a character who deserves sympathy; she’s falling from grief into full psychosis. On film, she’s absurd; I’m almost hoping she’ll snap and murder someone just to spice things up.
Of course, this is the point. Cinematographer Sean Price Williams does a masterful job and the tension that hangs throughout is at once niggling and all-consuming, but still: I left unsatisfied at the lack of resolution, unlikely to return for a second viewing, and very unhappy with my new go-to vision of Peggy Olsen.
For fans of: camp ’60s thriller, pensive glances, feeling a little ill
Opening in Australia: TBC