Viper Club

The best thing about this film is the portrayal of a middle aged nurse facing this crisis. Well written character and well acted. The editing is choppy. The storyline is murky. Too many sentimental flashbacks and hallucinations. They seem formulaic. If the whole film had the authenticity of the main character as a strong woman in pain, it could have been engrossing. It did not.

Viper Club (2018) on Youtube subscription.

Iranian director, Maryam Keshavarz, returns after a seven year hiatus. Her previous brave movie, Circumstance (2011), showed the plight of Iranian lesbians in a harsh political country filled with hypocrisy and misogyny. In Viper Club, she places the USA under a microscope and reveals plenty without being overloud.

The basic premise is that of a mother attempting to deal with the issue of her kidnapped journalist son in the Middle East. While the FBI and the government are stalling (because one doesn't know what the other is doing), the frustrated mother turns to a wealthy fundraising group with connections in high places. All this while attempting to keep down her job as a shift nurse, doing long hours and deprived of sleep.

Director Keshavarz creates a social structure of the USA within that story frame. The obvious one is the bureaucratic red tape from the Government and the games they play for political purposes. Then there is the wealthy groups and the power they have when they lend a helping hand is raising the ransom. Most importantly is the hospital where the mother works as a nurse. It is the hub of a multicultural society. A workplace where people of different cultures get along, even under duress. There is one underplayed sequence during an emergency rush hour of gunshot victims, obviously from another U.S. shooting spree, but that is never spelt out. It is scenes like this, and others, where the filmmakers have placed faith in their audience to decipher.

The main thrust of the story is the mother's ordeal. She is only a small player in this kidnapping saga because she really has no control, and all the while has to juggle the heavy load of shift work and life. This is revealed in short scenes, with some lingering shots on Susan Sarandon's tired and emotionally drained features that were powerfully effective.

This was all achieved by a somber tone. Almost like being in the same shock trance as the mother. It also had a powerful sense of realism, with the slight handheld camera movement and the care it took in showing the mother's daily life. Almost reminiscent of a Ken Loach or Mike Leigh style of filmmaking, where the characters are more important and carry the story.

Great performance from Susan Sarandon giving us the sad and hopeness mother's point of view on that story.

Maryam Keshavarz is a true visionary director. She makes art about subjects that matter. Viper Club is moving and intelligent. The cast, the writing, the visual poetry. So skillfully done!!

Susan Sarandon stars as a hard-working nurse, single woman, and grieving mother missing her son. Julian Morris was a journalist who traveled to the Middle East and taken hostage by terrorists. As she waits for the return she knows will never happen, she tries to continue her life: Richard Simmons exercise videos, constant struggles with her supervisor, give extra attention to emergency patients, etc.

Then one day, Susan gets some information that her son is being held for ransom. She contacts the FBI, who tells her to keep quiet, but then a friend, Edie Falco, contradicts that information. Keeping quiet is the last thing she should do. She should be as loud as possible, fundraise, and pay the money. However intriguing this movie sounds, I found it rather pointless. It felt like a slice of life of an uninteresting woman. Besides the initial premise, there really isn't much struggle, suspense, or reason for continuing. When the movie was over, I felt I had wasted my time.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie will not be your friend. Almost the entire movie is filmed with a handheld camera and that will make you sick. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"