Queen of Earth (2015)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Best movie ever!

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

A young woman's descent into madness is triggered during a stay at the family vacation home of her childhood friend. I almost didn't watch this film because the title seemed broad and ambiguous. However, after viewing the trailer, I wanted to know why the two female leads had this dark energy between them. I am glad I watched it. It turned out to be a visceral and engrossing psychological thriller The toxic chemistry between the female leads was palpable and authentic throughout the film. This infused the atmosphere with the constant torque of toxic personalities and unpredictable behaviors. The well-crafted dialogue explored the female leads' perceptions about significant people in their lives including each other. It also expressed their personal beliefs as a result of these experiences. I especially appreciated this aspect of the film. We always find out, at some point, why a character behaves in a certain way. What I always want to know is what mental process did you go through that caused you to act that way in the first place? We get that piece in this film and it does not spoil the story because the logic is flawed in the first place. The result is you get an unfiltered look inside the characters' minds, which is what the psychological thriller is all about. This film allows you to walk through the doors of the females leads' perceptions. To the film's credit, there are no outside forces around to characterize the women's' behavior, mitigate flaws in their thinking process or referee any conflict between them. This dynamic makes their interactions appear seamless and organic as their personalities coil tighter and tighter around each other. This is a solid slow-burn thriller that gets under your skin and begins a slow tingling crawl as you begin to see what they believe.

Grief, loss, mental trauma and co-dependency are explored in writer and director Alex Ross Perry's Queen of Earth. A raw psychological drama with a keynote performance from Elisabeth Moss who at times unleashes bile at those around her.Moss plays Catherine who grew up together with Ginny (Katherine Waterston) her best friend, they are spending a week at a remote lake house which they also did the previous year. At that time it was Ginny whose life was in turmoil with Catherine helping her to pull through.Now Catherine is in a dark place with mental instability due to the death of her father and the ending of a relationship with her boyfriend.Over the following days both women realise that they have been drifting apart for some time with Ginny unable to help Catherine through her mental trauma. Catherine seems even more bitter that this year Gina has brought along a new boyfriend with her.The film has a lot of moody shots, Moss looks great with her make up running down looking that she is on the edge of a breakdown but this film is a slog to watch and is just too ponderous.

"Queen of Earth" is a difficult, disturbing movie. It reminds me of Altman's "3 Women", with the use of unbearable silence, dissonant soundtracks, and characters whose motivations are hard to understand, in situations hard for us to contextualise. It is not as haunting as that movie, though, and therefore not as good. I don't think this is one I'm going to be thinking about much after having seen it.The plot concerns two "best friends" who go away for a week together despite the fact that they don't seem to like each other much. One, the main character, has just been dumped by her boyfriend who was with her when she went away with the same best friend last year. There is also a guy, kind of like an antagonist, who was with the friend last year and has shown up this year again, much to the protagonist's discomfort.There are some very intense scenes, such as the main character breaking down at a party, and the movie seems to be becoming an enthralling descent into madness, but then it abruptly changes gear, and not for the first time. It's not going to give you any easy answers like that, but in this case, I also came up short on questions.

=====THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS=====I went to watch this film with an open mind, knowing a relatively small amount about its storyline other than a brief synopsis. This is supposed to be a thriller. I cannot say I felt any tension, any fear, any anticipation. All I ended up doing was become increasingly annoyed at the 1st AC who kept missing his focus marks.The film is essentially Lynch's "Mulholland Drive" crossed with Wiseau's "The Room". Mulholland Drive made no sense and you were constantly introduced to new ideas which led nowhere - this film is the same. Like The Room, it features a dull and clichéed screenplay (though at least in The Room it was delivered in such an entertaining way that one could still watch it with enjoyment) which doesn't hold any sort of story together. You spend most of the film expecting it to lead somewhere, and it never does. Perhaps the director wanted to give a nod to The Room when he introduced the completely pointless character sleeping outside.Cinematically, the film's editor uses tacky fonts to establish settings and continuously cuts to shots of rippling water for no apparent reason. As each day progresses in the story, the same thing just happens over and over again. Sometimes there will be some horrific colour temperature changes from one cut to the next that instantly jump out. Other times you're left watching a generally out-of-focus Katherine Waterston running for a good 20 seconds for no apparent reason.One long scene in the middle of the film could have been left out and would have made no difference. The performance is only impressive if it adds to the story, and with such a linear and mundane storyline, it is lost on the audience, particularly on the strange ECUs which linger far too long and go in and out of focus too many times to keep count.Most unforgivable is the easily avoidable breaking of the fourth wall during a scene where Katherine Waterston is wearing sunglasses and we are treated to a very clear reflection of the boom operator THREE TIMES! I am amazed nobody noticed during filming.Elsewhere on the sound front, there are several scenes which feature horrible audio bytes of character interaction with loud objects, which should be avoided where possible as it's just difficult to concentrate with rustling packets taking prominence over a character's dialogue.Unfortunately, I think any quality in acting which exists in the film is let down by the cinematography and the screenplay. And most other things. And if the director wanted to make it a cult classic like The Room, I'm afraid he hasn't made it.