Under the Silver LakeIt's terrifying to consider that our values and thoughts have less to do with free will than with what we consume, as we go about our routine lives like rats obediently following a Pied Piper. Under the Silver Lake is a neo-noir mystery and thriller about Sam (Andrew Garfield)--a lazy schlub behind on his rent--who investigates the mysterious disappearance of his lovely neighbor, Sarah (Riley Keough), only to discover link after link in what appears to be a conspiracy beyond his comprehension. As Sam tries to solve this series of riddles, his life begins to disintegrate all around him, altering his perspective of the world.
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Written and directed by David Robert Mitchell, Under the Silver Lake revels in coincidences, and entices audiences to identify patterns and similarities to place them in Sam's mind, though Sam's reliability as a protagonist is almost always in question. Sam is not exactly heroic; he spends his days loafing around in his apartment and spying on his neighbors through his binoculars. Impossibly, the layabout maintains a sexual relationship with an attractive actress (Riki Lindhome)--who always shows up in what is arguably a fetishwear costume--yet Sam ogles Sarah from his window all the same, even after distracted intercourse. After awkwardly introducing himself to Sarah while she cleans up after her Bichon Frise, she invites him back to her apartment for a drink and to get stoned--and the implication of sexual congress--while asking him if he was pleasuring himself as he peeped at her from his balcony. Sure, Sam is handsome enough, but the depiction of women in Under the Silver Lake comes from what is referred to as a "male gaze", i.e. that most of the women in Sam's worldview exist as a part of his own fantasy fulfillment. Furthermore, they embody that which gives him comfort and a sense of security or happiness; when challenged, his worldview is destabilized. Though Sam may be ensorcelled by the allure of consumerism and prefabricated perceptions of identity, he is not alone. Consider Sarah's unhealthy obsession with the movie, How to Marry a Millionaire; a poster of the movie hangs on her bedroom wall while she watches it with Sam wouldn't be that weird, but she even has Barbie dolls dressed up as the stars of the picture arranged like a shrine next to her television. (Even the title becomes ironic later on.) It is not surprising that Under the Silver Lake is set in the shadow of Hollywood, where fantasy and reality are at their blurriest. After Sarah goes missing, Sam follows a group of three women around town, eventually leading him to a decadent rooftop party, filled with vapid and superficial rockstars and actresses. The party is coyly called "Purgatory", and performing is a rock band called "Jesus and the Brides of Dracula"; their lead singer--who literally calls himself Jesus (Luke Baines)--looks like Jim Morrison, but carries the unsettling presence of Charles Manson. Various people in the background espouse stock socio-political rhetoric and pop culture soundbites--empty commentary from empty people. Before Sam got pulled into this widening gyre of mystery and conspiracy, he might have just been another voice in the crowd; but now, he begins to see the strings manipulating the other puppets.
What makes Under the Silver Lake subversive as a mystery is how it uses its prodigious hints and subtle clues to defy the tropes of the genre. Lots and lots of nods and details are presented as though they will have greater import later, becoming a "nesting doll" that baits his delve along a self-perpetuating path of paranoia and fantasy fulfillment. The way Sam identifies patterns is absurd, suggesting that he is losing his mind--but Under the Silver Lake continuously affirms his maniacal quest for secrets and codes in these seemingly innocuous places, as if testing to see just how far down the rabbit hole he is willing to go. One of the biggest enablers in his downward spiral is the author of a local "zine" (Patrick Fischler), whose periodicals are such a favorite of Sam's that he seeks out the author to discuss Sarah's disappearance. The author finds conspiracy theories in familiar places--like the back of a dollar bill or sexually-suggestive advertisements--as well as less common ones, like a map on the back of a box of stale cereal. The zine writer shows Sam his collection of celebrity "life masks" adorning his wall in a moment that seems to comment about the compulsive obsession for millennials to archive everything (e.g. with their phones, Instagram, Snapchat, etc), while claiming that he wants a family if only to have someone to leave this "important" stuff to when he dies. He believes that there is greater significance to the objects and things he has collected over his life, as if that would give him some greater sense of purpose. Although in real life this would be a tragedy, these totems become key items that guide Sam in his quest. Under the Silver Lake is loaded with the detritus of pop culture nostalgia, celebrity worship, and false idols--even classic video games, like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Sam's adventure includes everything from collecting keys (even those shaped like a cookie) to an underground dungeon to explore, and he sees Sarah as his "princess" to rescue. Sam seems to idolize Kurt Cobain, and keeps an autographed Nirvana poster above his bed (even if it is signed not by Kurt, but his daughter). When his idolatry of the ill-fated grunge singer is questioned by a songwriter (Jeremy Bobb) who mocks his love for their famous song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Sam is incapable of coping with the existential crisis that comes from learning that the music emerged from somewhere artificial, devoid of genuine angst. Seeking greater meaning in our lives is a universal need, but in Under the Silver Lake, everyone's pursuit of it is haphazard and warped. There is even a collective of people who regard the burial practices of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs as enlightened, emulating the ritual that even includes the removal of select body parts in their "ascendancy". Sam's life experience is ruled by consumerism; almost everything that guides him from station to station comes from products intended to sate that pervasive malaise and ennui, with the exception of a "hobo code" used by the likes of the "Homeless King" (David Yow). All of it becomes pieces to a puzzle that didn't exist before Sarah's disappearance; like the zine writer, Sam tries to attribute greater meaning to his possessions rather than face the reality that his "legacy" is a hollow one.
Sam is a lazy bum who blows all of his money on a fancy muscle car he can't afford, then makes excuses rather than pay his rent to his landlord (Rex Linn). He whiles away the hours watching Vanna White while looking for patterns in her head nods, trying to justify his arousal instead of doing something productive or lucrative. At one point, Sam becomes frustrated in his quest and goes home to satisfy himself to his favorite vintage Playboy magazine, laid out on his bed with other objet d'erotica et al. The scene is deliberately mean to subvert those scenes where a detective looks over all of the clues he has acquired in his investigation before stumbling upon that "Eureka" moment. (Coincidentally, "Eureka!" is the state motto of California.) When an actress/escort (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) inquires what he does for work, Sam all but takes offense at the question, convinced that his current diversion to track down what happened to Sarah is more important than anything so plebeian as making money. Sam's interactions with other people are almost always superficial, and he gains no deeper insight or meaningful guidance from it. Sam's bar buddy (Topher Grace) is a quintessential hipster, who expounds at length about his theory that people are incapable of coping with the psychological impact of modern technology, all while peeping at an attractive woman via a GoPro Karma drone; he should be telling his buddy to get his act together and get a job. Sam frequently runs into a man named Allen (Jimmi Simpson) at various Hollywood parties--who is almost always wearing a woman's blouse and acts like he is on cocaine--but Allen seems to have no interest in Sam's problems, and just likes to hear himself talk. Even Sam's mother (Deborah Geffner) only calls him on the phone to tell Sam about her favorite Janet Gaynor movie, 7th Heaven, failing to note why her son always sounds depressed or lethargic. Sam's behavior marks him as a loser, which is underscored when he is sprayed by a skunk wandering through his apartment complex, making his mere presence undesirable. But Sam doesn't want to admit this and pursues his mission with reckless abandon, trying to find something meaningful and important in his sorry existence.
It later becomes clear that Sam is still grieving after being dumped by his former girlfriend and billboard model (Summer Bishil), despite having what must be a solid enough relationship with someone who is willing to haul over heavy cans of tomato soup to his apartment for him to bathe in and buy him sushi for dinner. Despite all of this and his pursuit of Sarah, Sam still ogles pretty girls whenever he gets the chance. At yet another party, he runs into a young woman who earlier performed a "balloon dance" (Grace Van Patten), and she takes him deeper into an underground club that uses replica celebrity tombstones as tables. The balloon girl espouses a hedonistic philosophy of life and suddenly invites Sam for sex while they are dancing; suddenly, Sam seems to have forgotten entirely about Sarah. It's also intriguing that Sam invites her to dance to the tune of R.E.M.'s, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", a song about a man trying to make sense of a world that runs on consumerism, originating from an attack on reporter Dan Rather by a man with paranoid delusions about hidden patterns and conspiracies. It is also ironic that Sam behaves a bit like a "dog"--at least in the ways that he objectifies women--since Under the Silver Lake includes a side plot about a mysterious "Dog Killer" at large, who has been killing and mutilating dogs in the neighborhood. The Dog Killer becomes like an urban legend, similar to the story of the "Owl's Kiss" that the zine writer tells Sam, about a beautiful, naked woman in an owl mask who seduces then kills her prey. These tales from the inked pages of the writer's zine fuels Sam's own paranoid fantasies that his world conceals greater mysteries, which is what makes Sam such a fan of it in the first place--it justifies his delusions.
Under the Silver Lake is a highly "cineliterate" movie, overflowing with references and nods to classic detective films, romances, psychodramas, and even black comedies. Some of these come by way of slight asides, like how Sam follows a trail of dog cookies as E.T. chases Reese's Pieces, or through a visit to the Griffith Observatory, made famous in Rebel Without a Cause. Sam's descent into a veritable underworld of decadence and madness is reminiscent of Martin Scorsese's After Hours; even the protagonists' motivations are comparable in how they pursue a pretty woman because the promise of sex looms at the end of the gauntlet. Even Sam's ultimate intimate encounter with his topless neighbor and avian enthusiast (Wendy Vanden Heuvel) recalls the end of After Hours, as does his Kafkaesque admission into a party via a cookie invitation. Sam plays the role of an unlikely detective unraveling a conspiracy in Los Angeles--a trope commonly found in some of Hollywood's most iconic detective movies, like Chinatown. Moreover, Under the Silver Lake recalls Robert Altman's anachronistic private eye story, The Long Goodbye; both feature an unlikely hero who stumbles his way through the plot--and both of them have neighbors with a propensity for public nudity. Sarah's obsession with How to Marry a Millionaire is not merely a plot device, but identifies her as a surrogate for the most alluring of tragic Hollywood icons, Marilyn Monroe. She's so darned pretty that Sam can't get her out of his mind, giving him a "fever" that is compounded by her close proximity to him, recalling The Seven Year Itch. His dream of her, paradoxically, echoes a scene from Marilyn's unfinished final film, titled Something's Got to Give, although it seems unlikely that Sam would have seen it unless he went out of his way to look up Marilyn's "nude scene" for potentially dubious reasons. When Sam espies Sarah from his balcony in her bikini and sun hat, her youthful allure combined with his lascivious stare recalls Humbert Humbert from Lolita--another sexual deviant who regards women with sex at the forefront of his mind. But arguably the most deliberate acknowledgement is in the multitudinous nods to the works of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, especially Rear Window and Vertigo--or even subsequent homages by Brian De Palma, like Dressed to Kill. (This is even lampshaded when Sam goes to see a movie playing at a graveyard, and a few characters he questions are reclining on what is ostensibly Hitchcock's tombstone.) Superficially, Rear Window is about a man watching his neighbors through a pair of binoculars while trying to solve a mystery, which is what Sam does almost down to a tee. When he follows the trio of girls from Sarah's since abandoned apartment, he tails them just like James Stewart's character does in Vertigo, almost always descending downhill as well. Even the musical score by Disasterpiece is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's magnificent contributions to Hitchcock's films, adding a sonorous layer to the mystery of Under the Silver Lake. All of these nods makes it seem like the film is wearing the skin of those Hollywood gems of yesteryear--or even resurrecting the "dead", like with Kim Novak's transformation in Vertigo. Just consider how many of its characters ironically adopt the characteristics of those silver screen icons--a generation trapped in an endless loop of what has come before, deprived of claiming their own individual identity for themselves.
Recommended for: Fans of a self-aware neo-noir mystery and conspiracy thriller that gleefully toys with the conventions of the genre to upend its audience's expectations and subvert tropes by questioning the significance of "clues" and "red herrings". Under the Silver Lake also explores perspective in cinema, and makes the audience question the nobility (or lack thereof) in Sam's motivations, all while slyly addressing gender roles and social mores.
What makes Under the Silver Lake subversive as a mystery is how it uses its prodigious hints and subtle clues to defy the tropes of the genre. Lots and lots of nods and details are presented as though they will have greater import later, becoming a "nesting doll" that baits his delve along a self-perpetuating path of paranoia and fantasy fulfillment. The way Sam identifies patterns is absurd, suggesting that he is losing his mind--but Under the Silver Lake continuously affirms his maniacal quest for secrets and codes in these seemingly innocuous places, as if testing to see just how far down the rabbit hole he is willing to go. One of the biggest enablers in his downward spiral is the author of a local "zine" (Patrick Fischler), whose periodicals are such a favorite of Sam's that he seeks out the author to discuss Sarah's disappearance. The author finds conspiracy theories in familiar places--like the back of a dollar bill or sexually-suggestive advertisements--as well as less common ones, like a map on the back of a box of stale cereal. The zine writer shows Sam his collection of celebrity "life masks" adorning his wall in a moment that seems to comment about the compulsive obsession for millennials to archive everything (e.g. with their phones, Instagram, Snapchat, etc), while claiming that he wants a family if only to have someone to leave this "important" stuff to when he dies. He believes that there is greater significance to the objects and things he has collected over his life, as if that would give him some greater sense of purpose. Although in real life this would be a tragedy, these totems become key items that guide Sam in his quest. Under the Silver Lake is loaded with the detritus of pop culture nostalgia, celebrity worship, and false idols--even classic video games, like Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda. Sam's adventure includes everything from collecting keys (even those shaped like a cookie) to an underground dungeon to explore, and he sees Sarah as his "princess" to rescue. Sam seems to idolize Kurt Cobain, and keeps an autographed Nirvana poster above his bed (even if it is signed not by Kurt, but his daughter). When his idolatry of the ill-fated grunge singer is questioned by a songwriter (Jeremy Bobb) who mocks his love for their famous song, "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Sam is incapable of coping with the existential crisis that comes from learning that the music emerged from somewhere artificial, devoid of genuine angst. Seeking greater meaning in our lives is a universal need, but in Under the Silver Lake, everyone's pursuit of it is haphazard and warped. There is even a collective of people who regard the burial practices of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs as enlightened, emulating the ritual that even includes the removal of select body parts in their "ascendancy". Sam's life experience is ruled by consumerism; almost everything that guides him from station to station comes from products intended to sate that pervasive malaise and ennui, with the exception of a "hobo code" used by the likes of the "Homeless King" (David Yow). All of it becomes pieces to a puzzle that didn't exist before Sarah's disappearance; like the zine writer, Sam tries to attribute greater meaning to his possessions rather than face the reality that his "legacy" is a hollow one.
Sam is a lazy bum who blows all of his money on a fancy muscle car he can't afford, then makes excuses rather than pay his rent to his landlord (Rex Linn). He whiles away the hours watching Vanna White while looking for patterns in her head nods, trying to justify his arousal instead of doing something productive or lucrative. At one point, Sam becomes frustrated in his quest and goes home to satisfy himself to his favorite vintage Playboy magazine, laid out on his bed with other objet d'erotica et al. The scene is deliberately mean to subvert those scenes where a detective looks over all of the clues he has acquired in his investigation before stumbling upon that "Eureka" moment. (Coincidentally, "Eureka!" is the state motto of California.) When an actress/escort (Bobbi Salvör Menuez) inquires what he does for work, Sam all but takes offense at the question, convinced that his current diversion to track down what happened to Sarah is more important than anything so plebeian as making money. Sam's interactions with other people are almost always superficial, and he gains no deeper insight or meaningful guidance from it. Sam's bar buddy (Topher Grace) is a quintessential hipster, who expounds at length about his theory that people are incapable of coping with the psychological impact of modern technology, all while peeping at an attractive woman via a GoPro Karma drone; he should be telling his buddy to get his act together and get a job. Sam frequently runs into a man named Allen (Jimmi Simpson) at various Hollywood parties--who is almost always wearing a woman's blouse and acts like he is on cocaine--but Allen seems to have no interest in Sam's problems, and just likes to hear himself talk. Even Sam's mother (Deborah Geffner) only calls him on the phone to tell Sam about her favorite Janet Gaynor movie, 7th Heaven, failing to note why her son always sounds depressed or lethargic. Sam's behavior marks him as a loser, which is underscored when he is sprayed by a skunk wandering through his apartment complex, making his mere presence undesirable. But Sam doesn't want to admit this and pursues his mission with reckless abandon, trying to find something meaningful and important in his sorry existence.
It later becomes clear that Sam is still grieving after being dumped by his former girlfriend and billboard model (Summer Bishil), despite having what must be a solid enough relationship with someone who is willing to haul over heavy cans of tomato soup to his apartment for him to bathe in and buy him sushi for dinner. Despite all of this and his pursuit of Sarah, Sam still ogles pretty girls whenever he gets the chance. At yet another party, he runs into a young woman who earlier performed a "balloon dance" (Grace Van Patten), and she takes him deeper into an underground club that uses replica celebrity tombstones as tables. The balloon girl espouses a hedonistic philosophy of life and suddenly invites Sam for sex while they are dancing; suddenly, Sam seems to have forgotten entirely about Sarah. It's also intriguing that Sam invites her to dance to the tune of R.E.M.'s, "What's the Frequency, Kenneth?", a song about a man trying to make sense of a world that runs on consumerism, originating from an attack on reporter Dan Rather by a man with paranoid delusions about hidden patterns and conspiracies. It is also ironic that Sam behaves a bit like a "dog"--at least in the ways that he objectifies women--since Under the Silver Lake includes a side plot about a mysterious "Dog Killer" at large, who has been killing and mutilating dogs in the neighborhood. The Dog Killer becomes like an urban legend, similar to the story of the "Owl's Kiss" that the zine writer tells Sam, about a beautiful, naked woman in an owl mask who seduces then kills her prey. These tales from the inked pages of the writer's zine fuels Sam's own paranoid fantasies that his world conceals greater mysteries, which is what makes Sam such a fan of it in the first place--it justifies his delusions.
Under the Silver Lake is a highly "cineliterate" movie, overflowing with references and nods to classic detective films, romances, psychodramas, and even black comedies. Some of these come by way of slight asides, like how Sam follows a trail of dog cookies as E.T. chases Reese's Pieces, or through a visit to the Griffith Observatory, made famous in Rebel Without a Cause. Sam's descent into a veritable underworld of decadence and madness is reminiscent of Martin Scorsese's After Hours; even the protagonists' motivations are comparable in how they pursue a pretty woman because the promise of sex looms at the end of the gauntlet. Even Sam's ultimate intimate encounter with his topless neighbor and avian enthusiast (Wendy Vanden Heuvel) recalls the end of After Hours, as does his Kafkaesque admission into a party via a cookie invitation. Sam plays the role of an unlikely detective unraveling a conspiracy in Los Angeles--a trope commonly found in some of Hollywood's most iconic detective movies, like Chinatown. Moreover, Under the Silver Lake recalls Robert Altman's anachronistic private eye story, The Long Goodbye; both feature an unlikely hero who stumbles his way through the plot--and both of them have neighbors with a propensity for public nudity. Sarah's obsession with How to Marry a Millionaire is not merely a plot device, but identifies her as a surrogate for the most alluring of tragic Hollywood icons, Marilyn Monroe. She's so darned pretty that Sam can't get her out of his mind, giving him a "fever" that is compounded by her close proximity to him, recalling The Seven Year Itch. His dream of her, paradoxically, echoes a scene from Marilyn's unfinished final film, titled Something's Got to Give, although it seems unlikely that Sam would have seen it unless he went out of his way to look up Marilyn's "nude scene" for potentially dubious reasons. When Sam espies Sarah from his balcony in her bikini and sun hat, her youthful allure combined with his lascivious stare recalls Humbert Humbert from Lolita--another sexual deviant who regards women with sex at the forefront of his mind. But arguably the most deliberate acknowledgement is in the multitudinous nods to the works of the legendary Alfred Hitchcock, especially Rear Window and Vertigo--or even subsequent homages by Brian De Palma, like Dressed to Kill. (This is even lampshaded when Sam goes to see a movie playing at a graveyard, and a few characters he questions are reclining on what is ostensibly Hitchcock's tombstone.) Superficially, Rear Window is about a man watching his neighbors through a pair of binoculars while trying to solve a mystery, which is what Sam does almost down to a tee. When he follows the trio of girls from Sarah's since abandoned apartment, he tails them just like James Stewart's character does in Vertigo, almost always descending downhill as well. Even the musical score by Disasterpiece is reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's magnificent contributions to Hitchcock's films, adding a sonorous layer to the mystery of Under the Silver Lake. All of these nods makes it seem like the film is wearing the skin of those Hollywood gems of yesteryear--or even resurrecting the "dead", like with Kim Novak's transformation in Vertigo. Just consider how many of its characters ironically adopt the characteristics of those silver screen icons--a generation trapped in an endless loop of what has come before, deprived of claiming their own individual identity for themselves.
Recommended for: Fans of a self-aware neo-noir mystery and conspiracy thriller that gleefully toys with the conventions of the genre to upend its audience's expectations and subvert tropes by questioning the significance of "clues" and "red herrings". Under the Silver Lake also explores perspective in cinema, and makes the audience question the nobility (or lack thereof) in Sam's motivations, all while slyly addressing gender roles and social mores.