Redlands

A truly unique film with some of the best, and most subtle (!) dialogue and plot development I've seen since… Well, I won't date myself. The film is beautifully photographed, and its long takes, with tension and anxiety constantly building in each scene, blew me away.

The actors include America's Next Top Model winner Nicole Fox, playing a beautiful amateur nude model, Sam Brittan as her d-bag indie-musician-hat-wearing-beard-growing boyfriend, and Clifford Morts as an eccentric-or-strange photographer who gets close to the duo. If this reminds you of the setup for a Patricia Highsmith movie or book, you wouldn't be wrong, and I think Highsmith must figure as one of director John King's influences.

I think this is just one of those movies that you'll either love or hate. If you're like me, and you like movies that explore what cinema can be, movies that even make you uncomfortable, and movies that REFUSE to be Hollywood clichés, this one might be for you. Another reviewer said Redlands was "Hard to watch, Harder to turn away from..." & I have to agree with him, in all the best ways.

I watched the film through Vimeo on Demand, and it worked well for me.

"Redlands" is fascinating and difficult film. It tells the story of three people and how they interact. First up is Allan, a poor shlub going through a difficult divorce who has decided to try being a photographer. Next is Vienna, a receptionist and part-time model who met Allan at a photography seminar and is now working on a series of artistic nudes with him. Finally, Zack, Vienna's boyfriend (and escort) who is an aspiring musician.

We watch their lives unfold in a series of single take static shots -- the camera sits there and watches things happen, never moving, never cutting (with one shocking exception, which I will not disclose). The relationships are fascinating -- Allan is in a bad situation, yet he and Vienna bond over a shared art project. Vienna is sweet and supportive of Allan, does thoughtful vlogs, tolerates Zack, and yet is strangely unkind to a worker at her office. And Zack is a first-class prick from beginning to end. And when things go bad -- and they do -- it's jolting and truly tragic.

As I said, it's not an easy film to watch. Some scenes are uncomfortable to watch, some seem to go on way too long, and others seem to have no bearing on anything that is happening. At 1 hour and 50 minutes, it probably could have used some editing to clean it up and yet, in another way, its meandering is part of its power.

The acting is very solid for a group of actors I've never heard of -- Clifford Morts plays Allan with real pathos, Sam Brittan is detestable as Zack, and Nicole Fox (winner of one of the seasons of "America's Top Model") shines as Vienna. Nicole's experience as a model clearly helped her define her character, as she manages to really convey a model's attraction to artistic photography. She also has a couple of non-sexual nude scenes that she manages to play convincingly and naturally.

Some places are marketing this as a "horror film" but it most certainly is not. I can definitely recommend it and as my title said, this may be a hard film to watch, but it's harder to turn away from.

I don't watch many films like this, and I only watched it because of Nicole Fox. So after the hour and fifty minutes were up, I thought about the film a lot, because it really was quite... odd. The strange thing about this movie was that it posed to be extremely boring with all those static shots and dialogue, but it wasn't. It was like watching the lives of three people before your eyes, it was real, deep and quite thought provoking, making it quite an enjoyable watch. There was a whole heap of tension built up between the characters, with scenes of dialogue, photo shoots, long moments that adds nothing to the film, and yet I was completely surprised when the climax happened. It seemed so sudden and unexpected, and while it wasn't exactly brutal or eye- closing violent, it just hit me right in the stomach. The way it happened left me struggling to find reason... I think this movie is one where you need to find your own understanding of it, it really is a peculiar film.