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Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Bellflower (2011)


I am overjoyed to live in a cinematic world where Bellflower exists, and that I was able to see it at my local theater, where freaking Dolphin Tale was playing in the room right next door. That Evan Glodell was able to make a film as striking and assured as this with absolutely no money is an astonishing feat. Its existence is an example of all that is right with the movie landscape today. However, that doesn’t mean I have to like the film itself. Bellflower is audacious, to be sure, but it is frequently wrongheaded in its approach and it never gives the audience reason to care, particularly when everything derails in the final act. The most important and striking moments of the film feel cruel rather than earned, the most scenes drag on and on until they lose all impact, and most of the frankly amateurish filmmaking becomes grating rather than endearing. It’s clear what Bellflower is going for, and on many counts it is successful. What’s problematic is that Glodell never makes it palatable.


Glodell is also the star of Bellflower, and his character goes by the name of Woodrow. He and his roommate Aiden (Tyler Dawson) don’t seem to be employed, as they spend most of their free time inventing cool things for the upcoming apocalypse. Over the course of the film, they invent a flamethrower, they trick out a car so that it dispenses whiskey, and they just generally enjoy making things blow up real good. While out on the town, Woodrow meets Milly (Jessie Wiseman), a strange girl to whom he immediately takes a liking. They begin a relationship, but what begins as a match made in heaven quickly dissolves into misery. I won’t reveal any more, but it goes to some truly strange and disturbing places after that.

Bellflower has all the pieces in place for a great film, and it has more than enough ambition to go around. Glodell just isn’t quite able to make it seem worthwhile. In fact, Glodell himself may be the film’s biggest problem; not the writer/director, but the actor. He just isn’t the world’s most compelling screen presence, and at various moments his performance seems agonizingly strained. He’s best when Woodrow begins his period of moping about, but that’s because not all that much emoting is required. This is obviously a very personal film, but Glodell’s decision to put himself front and center doesn’t pay off like it should.

His filmmaking choices are far more interesting, if just as occasionally maddening. At times resembling a mumblecore film set in an age just before the apocalypse, Bellflower feels too much like a single man’s demons forced upon us rather than an accessible piece of art. This film attempts to make several statements about relationships and—as the trailer states—“the idiocy and confusion of young manhood,” but it never really says anything new. Dudes like cool cars and flamethrowers, but they also hate when their romances fall to pieces. That’s all obvious enough, but Bellflower hits you over the head with these ideas until you just want to escape. The running time of this film is apparently only 106 minutes. If you’re not invested in every moment—as I wasn’t—then it’s going to seem a whole lot longer. Of all its sins, one of the greatest is the film’s absolute shapelessness. It drifts from moment to moment with little conviction, and then finally ends when it runs out of steam.

Despite its flaws, Bellflower is not a mere trifle, nor is it easily forgettable. There are moments here that will stick in your mind for weeks and possibly months to come, but all disagreement will be in regards whether the film earns all the third-act madness. For my money, it doesn’t pull it off, and most of the bloodshed (when it comes) just feels tasteless and without reason. Take, for instance, Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. When it finally resorts to brutal violence, it feels natural because we are fully invested in Travis Bickle’s plight; thanks in large part to Robert De Niro’s masterful performance. Evan Glodell is, unsurprisingly, no Robert De Niro. He’s not even Ryan Gosling from Drive, which is another film that similarly builds up to bursts of graphic violence. Not enough work is done to separate Glodell’s character from Glodell himself, so we don’t empathize with him when he gives in to his darker side. It’s just disturbing, and not in the right way.

I have a laundry list of problems with Bellflower, but I understand why so many others have been more sympathetic. I also understand why this, of all the no-budget films out there, has been chosen as one of this year’s breakouts. It’s an uncompromising, fully-realized vision that you don’t often get from first-time filmmakers. However, sometimes that vision isn’t executed in the best possible way. I am ecstatic to see what Glodell accomplishes in the future once he has more resources and chooses not to cast himself as the lead in his own movies. This is an up-and-coming auteur with quite a bit to say. He just needs to learn how best to say it.

Grade: C

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