Horse Girl

We decided to go with "Horse Girl" a movie with a very generic name, that came out about 2 weeks ago and we knew almost nothing about.

The movie is playing with a lot of different genres, supposedly it's a thriller, but there was also a little bit of comedy and sci-fi in there. To my sisters big disappointment the movie really wasn't about horses. It's about mental illness. And it just works.

Somehow we found ourselves laughing at the movie, but also being saddened by it, because this is reality to some people.

I wont go into too many details of the movie, but I encourage you to watch it, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would.

There were a couple of well shot scenes. With spectacular "showing" and not "telling". The movie felt slightly underwhelming or incomplete. More like a short movie than a feature length. I liked the story concept and Alison Brie did well as a homely weirdo with crazy things happening to her. Worth watch maybe as an experimental viewing. It's on Netflix so you might as well. I am glad Netflix is investing in these movies. Keeps me coming back.

Horse Girl (3 out of 5 stars).

Horse Girl is a fair drama film that plays around the psychological, delusional, or realism concept. Which took me for a surprise with the final several minutes of what was happening. The performances by Alison Brie was great playing a character that starts losing her reality and becoming delusional. With a decent performance by Debby Ryan as her roommate. The plot is decent. The direction and script was kind of dull with making the characters underwritten.

The plot follows Sarah (Alison Brie) who works at a fabric store. She is more of a loner, who keeps to herself, and is obsessed with her tv series called Purgatory (which is similar to Supernatural). She visits a ranch and is obsessed with a horse that once belonged to her family. On her birthday, she starts having dreams and memories. The déjà vu feeling of having seen people before she has yet to meet. She sleeps walks. Losing track of time and her surroundings. She becomes obsessed that she is a clone of her grandmother who also suffered the same condition.

It is a nice character study psychologically with the story. The story is thin and forgettable. It is mainly about Sarah and how she losing her mind and becoming delusional. The ending does become something were it gets the audience talking about. Without giving away spoilers. It does become like a WTF moment on what just happened.

Alison Brie is great playing as Sarah. Outstanding performance. Debby Ryan is okay as her roommate who gets concerned about Sarah.

The direction and script is dull and tedious at times. Overall, Horse Girl is a fair movie.

"Horse Girl" is the story of a lonely, awkward woman who has recently experienced severe trauma and is struggling to deal with it without a suitable support structure. The dialogue here was not scripted out in advance; just a detailed outline from which the actors improvised their lines. There's a unusual feeling of authenticity because of it- not because it seems like a documentary (far from it!), but because in the midst of all the super-weirdness there are surprisingly human and relatable characters.

This is a quirky indie movie, but it's also an existential mediation; it's a bizarre out-there odyssey while also being a bedroom character study. How far you go with it will depend on your toleration for this kind of melting-pot of different genres. But if you're a fan of surreal films that grapple with the nature of reality and how we experience it, then, while you might not revere this as a masterwork, it's definitely worth your time.

Horse Girl is unfortunately marketed as a quirky, surreal romantic comedy. The elements are all there: an aloof protagonist waiting to blossom, Sarah, played by an outstanding Alison Brie; a boss/friend/maternal figure/dispenser of good advice, played by Molly Shannon; a shy, good natured love interest, played by John Reynolds; plus the pretty mean flatmate with her jock boyfriend and a few more minor characters to entertain us. From the beginning we understand that she is peculiar, has no friends, lost her mother, and loves horses. In fact, she's obsessed with one horse in particular that she used to own but had to sell for some unexplained reason (possibly an accident?). Sarah spends most of her time in a fantasy world, obsessively watching a Buffyesque TV show called Purgatory. At some point, she starts having strange dreams, from which she wakes up finding herself in unusual places, such as in the middle of the road wearing a nightgown. Through her flatmate's boyfriend she meets a nice guy who falls for her and asks her out, so that we, the audience, are led to believe that her lonely life may have a happy ending. Unfortunately, that's when trouble begins. I'm not goign to spoil the rest of the film for those who haven't watched it, but the only thing I want to say is that it was really badly marketed (by Netflix or whoever). This film is not a comedy; it's a silent, understated tragedy; a study of slow, irreparable descent into mental illness. Sarah is one of those unreliable narrators that are so fashionable these days, so it is hard to discern what is true from what's part of her imagination, who is real and who's not. But one thing is for sure: she is ill, she needs help, and she has no one to give it to her. After one of her episodes, she tells a doctor about her mentally ill grandma (whom she ends up believing she's a clone of) and how she was kicked out of a mental hospital due to lack of funding and ended up dying alone and homeless - something that may as well happen to Sarah. The film subtly criticises capitalist neoliberal individualist america, but never quite makes a strong enough statement for everyone to grasp. Overall, I liked this movie, even though I cannot say I enjoyed watching it. It surely left an impression on me and I would recommend it to people, as long as they understand what it is they are about to watch.