Don’t get me wrong – I like weird. But this dark
and self-consciously arty indie thriller about a socially awkward young
man (The Wire’s Aiden Gillen), his horrible life, and the awful secret he
uncovers about a mysterious woman who has fallen for him, is just weird
for weird’s sake. First time director Mark Hanlon is clearly a fan of the
big names in Cinema du Bizarro, and apes the disturbing and off-kilter
worlds of David Lynch and Roman Polanski (right down to casting Roman P’s
wife, Emmanuelle Seigner, as his mystery lady) in every gloomy, grimy
frame and unhinged performance. The problem is that for all the hip
camerawork and moody performances, there’s nothing really new in Hanlon’s
story – we’ve already seen this story about an Innocent Idiot Savant Lost
in an Nightmare World in Blue Velvet and Repulsion and The Tenant
(and
over and over since then in lesser movies like this), so Hanlon’s never
seem fresh or innovative (like, say, Darren Aronofsky or Christopher
Nolan), just imitative to the point of near-fetishism. And though he’s got
a good cast, especially Gillen and Mark Boone Junior as a grubby plumber,
he forces everyone to play cookie cutter weirdos – the great Susan Tyrrell
is reduced to just shrieking and chain-smoking as Gillen’s mean
stepmother, and Seigner inspires laughs as the poetry babbling,
vegan-espousing object of Gillen’s affections. The Big Payoff is gross, to
be sure, but not particularly surprising, so what you’re left with is a
mopey cast and eye strain from Hubert Taczanowski’s none-more-black
photography. Still, there’s plenty of thirteen-year-olds out there that’ll
find this cool, and Image’s Special Edition DVD rewards them with plenty
of extras, including commentary and interviews with Hanlon, behind the
scenes footage, and the original screenplay (in DVD-ROM format) so you can
round up your friends and bum each other out with your own renditions of
this film. Cat food, porno mags, and large bowls of suspicious meat not
included.