"I busted a mirror and got seven years bad luck. My lawyer says he can get me five." - Steve Wright
"Dark Horse" is another depressing film from writer/director Todd Solondz. The plot? Jordan Gelber plays Abe, an overweight man who lives with his parents and works for his father. Stuck in arrested development, Abe collects toys, struggles to date women and uses fancy jewellery and expensive cars to help foster, for himself, the illusion that he may one day "grow up" and "be someone". In this regard Abe sees himself as a dark horse; someone who will one day overcome suffering and set backs to find eventual happiness. The truth, of course, is that these beliefs are defence mechanisms which Abe uses to protect himself from reality. What is this reality? Abe's life has always been one of unhappiness/suffering, and is likely to always be one of unhappiness/suffering. Solondz then asks his audience this: should Abe give up on hope? Should Abe give up on life? Can people change and/or escape themselves?
If you've seen Solondz's other films, you already know the answers. It's all very grim.
Mirrored to Abe is Miranda (Selma Blair), the young woman from Solondz's "Storytelling". She's a failed writer with a disease and suicidal tendencies. Like Abe, she's given up on life. Both Abe and Miranda are avatars of Solondz, people he at one point feared he might himself become. The film then ends with Abe - always unlucky – dying due to a ridiculous series of freak events. People quickly forget about him, with the exception of a lonely co-worker, another dark horse who privately hopes whilst quietly suffering.
Most who view the film react with hostility toward Abe. His suffering is "all his fault", he "is a jerk", he should "man up", "grow up" and stop being a "fat, rude loser". Others spin ridiculous theories: "Abe is a victim of a collapsed housing market", "Abe is suffering financial problems" etc. Why has Abe's life really gone off the tracks? Solondz provides clues (divorce, over sensitivity, inferiority complexes, hair-loss, weight problems, low self esteem, sense of entitlement etc), but the point is that it doesn't matter. With "Palindromes" Solondz already expressed a firm stance: blaming the victim for being unable to escape traps solely because others may have escaped similar traps is a fallacy rooted in a very specific type of optimism. For Solondz, destiny is always fixed, Abe's demise should be treated as a priori and Abe doesn't triumph simply because Abe does not triumph. Anyone in his exact situation would have met the same fate. It is not his fault. It is simply a slow, inexorable inevitability. Forces – social, familial, genetic, psychological, emotional, whatever – are at work here which require huge counter forces to escape. Can Abe muster the energy necessary to escape? He thinks he can, he comes close at times, he maintains throughout much of the film a fiery, heated sense of optimism. But there's only so much he can take, and in the end the universe wins.
The film ends with the reminisces of one of Abe's co-workers. The intention here is to share her moment of grief. To mourn, with her, the passing of Abe, and of course to empathise with her own exclusion. But Solondz can't quite handle the moment. The film's too ironic, too knowing, too smug, to capture the emotional waves which Solondz wants us to ride. It may be a psychologically accurate film, but it's also one which is caustic and depressing rather than sad and touching.
Abe's parents are played by Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow. Farrow gets the film's best scene, in which she consoles her son after he confesses his hatred of the world; life's repeatedly burnt him and so he harbours deep pain/resentment. The film's been compared to the work of Woody Allen and the Coen's Brothers - other directors who wallow in one-note existentialism - but Solondz is far more bleak.
8/10 – Worth one viewing.
"Dark Horse" is another depressing film from writer/director Todd Solondz. The plot? Jordan Gelber plays Abe, an overweight man who lives with his parents and works for his father. Stuck in arrested development, Abe collects toys, struggles to date women and uses fancy jewellery and expensive cars to help foster, for himself, the illusion that he may one day "grow up" and "be someone". In this regard Abe sees himself as a dark horse; someone who will one day overcome suffering and set backs to find eventual happiness. The truth, of course, is that these beliefs are defence mechanisms which Abe uses to protect himself from reality. What is this reality? Abe's life has always been one of unhappiness/suffering, and is likely to always be one of unhappiness/suffering. Solondz then asks his audience this: should Abe give up on hope? Should Abe give up on life? Can people change and/or escape themselves?
If you've seen Solondz's other films, you already know the answers. It's all very grim.
Mirrored to Abe is Miranda (Selma Blair), the young woman from Solondz's "Storytelling". She's a failed writer with a disease and suicidal tendencies. Like Abe, she's given up on life. Both Abe and Miranda are avatars of Solondz, people he at one point feared he might himself become. The film then ends with Abe - always unlucky – dying due to a ridiculous series of freak events. People quickly forget about him, with the exception of a lonely co-worker, another dark horse who privately hopes whilst quietly suffering.
Most who view the film react with hostility toward Abe. His suffering is "all his fault", he "is a jerk", he should "man up", "grow up" and stop being a "fat, rude loser". Others spin ridiculous theories: "Abe is a victim of a collapsed housing market", "Abe is suffering financial problems" etc. Why has Abe's life really gone off the tracks? Solondz provides clues (divorce, over sensitivity, inferiority complexes, hair-loss, weight problems, low self esteem, sense of entitlement etc), but the point is that it doesn't matter. With "Palindromes" Solondz already expressed a firm stance: blaming the victim for being unable to escape traps solely because others may have escaped similar traps is a fallacy rooted in a very specific type of optimism. For Solondz, destiny is always fixed, Abe's demise should be treated as a priori and Abe doesn't triumph simply because Abe does not triumph. Anyone in his exact situation would have met the same fate. It is not his fault. It is simply a slow, inexorable inevitability. Forces – social, familial, genetic, psychological, emotional, whatever – are at work here which require huge counter forces to escape. Can Abe muster the energy necessary to escape? He thinks he can, he comes close at times, he maintains throughout much of the film a fiery, heated sense of optimism. But there's only so much he can take, and in the end the universe wins.
The film ends with the reminisces of one of Abe's co-workers. The intention here is to share her moment of grief. To mourn, with her, the passing of Abe, and of course to empathise with her own exclusion. But Solondz can't quite handle the moment. The film's too ironic, too knowing, too smug, to capture the emotional waves which Solondz wants us to ride. It may be a psychologically accurate film, but it's also one which is caustic and depressing rather than sad and touching.
Abe's parents are played by Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow. Farrow gets the film's best scene, in which she consoles her son after he confesses his hatred of the world; life's repeatedly burnt him and so he harbours deep pain/resentment. The film's been compared to the work of Woody Allen and the Coen's Brothers - other directors who wallow in one-note existentialism - but Solondz is far more bleak.
8/10 – Worth one viewing.