Rubber (Review)

Quentin Dupieux’s Rubber isn’t all that interested in entertaining the audience. Instead, it spends most of its time looking in the mirror and complimenting itself. What could have been a fun, trashy horror/comedy instead becomes something that tries to elevate itself through ridiculous meta-commentary. Sometimes stupidity is good. Ask Fast Five. When you’re telling a story about a killer tire with psychic powers, maybe the addition of “ideas” isn’t the missing piece that will put your film over the top. Particularly if these ideas don’t make a whole lot of sense.

As the film begins, a police officer treats us to a lecture which sounds less like dialogue and more like the screenplay falling in love with itself. Immediately, the “premise” of the entire movie is explained. Everything we’re about to watch for the next 85 minutes has no explanation. It will be series of random, unexplainable events that allegedly will add up to something worthwhile. Well, no. Every time you find yourself getting absorbed in the plot, the film then throws something new at you that will push you right out. When the film tells the story of the central tire, it becomes rather watchable. Everything else is infuriating.

Despite not having a line of dialogue, the tire is a strangely interesting character. Through the use of certain camera tricks—and an admittedly fun musical score—it becomes the only worthwhile part of the film. Rubber is a movie that should have been intentionally dumb. Instead, its faux-intelligence makes it unintentionally dumb. When a film thinks it’s as clever as Rubber seems to think it is, it almost always isn’t. In some cases, an audience might be willing to go with a story like this. This film is a failure because it actively tries to repel the audience rather than engage them. And you’re supposed to appreciate that?

While the story of the killer tire is told, the audience also meets a group of bystanders who are observing the action as it plays out through binoculars. All of them are watching—and commenting on—the tale that is unfolding before their very eyes. Many of their conversations are meant to sound like discussions that occur while a group of people watch a movie. I don’t like this unnecessary addition of meta-commentary, but I was at least willing to go along with it for a while. When this plot meets a rather macabre end, it’s far less explainable. I’m not sure what Dupieux is trying to say here, but I know I don’t agree with it.

There are genuinely clever moments in Rubber, but they are few and far between. The best moments come when all the characters have some decency and shut their traps for five minutes. I went to see Rubber so I could spend some time with a killer tire, not listen to a bunch of weirdoes sorta-kinda talk about movies to no real end. There’s no form or purpose to Rubber, and it overstays its welcome about 30 minutes in to its 85 minute running time.

It’s obvious fairly quickly that Dupieux is a big fan of a certain other filmmaker named Quentin. What he doesn’t understand is why Tarantino characters talk like they do. He doesn’t understand why Tarantino references other films within his own films. Heck, Tarantino makes his movies out of the spare parts of other movies, yet the result is often some pretty terrific art. Rubber tries to find that balance of trash and art, and it ends up failing on both accounts. Dupieux thinks being weird for weirdness’ sake equals brilliance. Obviously, it doesn’t. Rubber is pointless, unpleasant, and—worst of all—far too proud of its own self-indulgence.

GRADE: D+