Queen of Earth

Queen of Earth is a character study of a depressed woman who unravels following death, scandal, and a break-up. She spends a week at a high end lake side house belonging to a friend.

The visit, which should have been a calm, nurturing respite from her personal tragedies turns into a gut wrenching week. Her friend lacks the patience and empathy to help her heal. Instead she pushes her further into depression and decompensation.

Elizabeth Moss is brilliant with this long, slow disintegration. I could compare her performance to Elizabeth Taylor in 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf' or Nicole Kidman as Virginia Woolf.

Katherine Waterston, daughter of the beloved Law and Order actor San Waterston, plays a hard edged, unkind, and self centered rich girl. She is unable to help her friend with debilitating depression. In fact she worsens the situation with her criticism, and harsh comments. She is a slender brunette with Ali McGraw looks. Look for more good work from this actress.

The movie moves slow as a glacier. The visual elements are very simple. The lovely house, the lake, and the faces of the two actresses are the main elements. Extremely important is the music.

The musical score establishes the mood, the dread, the tension, the intense unease which characterizes this film. A woman walking down a flight of steps turns into a tense and anxious scene because of the musical score. Another writer/director would have used a voice over to communicate with the audience. Director Alex Ross Perry uses music.

I believe this is only the 4th film by Alex Perry. I think it is a very ambitious undertaking. It is similar in pace and mood to the Lars von Trier film Melancholia. I look forward to more films from Alex Ross Perry.

This is not for every one. It is a very slow and unhappy movie. The characters are not likable. The men are horrid. It is a study of two women and a friendship which is no longer viable. It is a study of a woman who loses her grip on reality and has no one to help her. It is an excellent film with a brilliant performance worthy of an Oscar by Elizabeth Moss.

'QUEEN OF EARTH': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

A psychological thriller flick written and directed by indie filmmaker, and actor, Alex Ross Perry. It tells the story of two childhood friends, that reunite at a lake house, as adult women, and find out they no longer feel close. The movie stars Elisabeth Moss, Katherine Waterston and Patrick Fugit. Perry and Moss were also producers on the film, along with Adam Piotrowicz and the very prolific Joe Swanberg. The movie is very impressive, stylistically speaking, but it's also a little bit of a mess, from a dramatic storytelling point of view.

Catherine (Moss) and Virginia (Waterston) are two women, who were very close while growing up. They've continued to reunite, every summer, at a vacation lake house; owned by Virginia's family. Over the past few years, they've started to grow apart; and became very bitter towards each other. Their recent relations with men, have really driven the two to a breaking point; as Catherine also starts to lose her sanity.

The movie is very beautifully shot, and the music is haunting and very memorable; with a classic (and very campy) B movie feel to it. The film is played out like a thriller, but it's actually more of a dramatic character study; and it's an excellent examination of female relationships (and mental illness) as well. Moss and Waterston are both really good in the film, and Perry's direction is excellent. It's not a perfect film, but it is a memorable one.

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Greetings again from the darkness. Friendship doesn't just happen. It requires constant maintenance along with give and take from both sides. When a long time friendship between Catherine and Virginia devolves into a passive-aggressive game of emotional "tag, you're it", the result is an unusual psychological expose' on self-indulgence and grieving.

Writer/director Alex Ross Perry follows up his critically acclaimed LISTEN UP PHILIP with a glimpse into the complexities of friendship between two women who seem mostly clueless to both their world of privilege, and their not-so-subtle narcissism. Both Catherine and Virginia have experienced personal tragedies at different times, and their friendship has basically crumbled due to the responses of each woman towards the other.

A startling opening scene serves up a very emotional Elisabeth Moss (Catherine) as she and her boyfriend (Kentucker Audley) argue their way through an ugly break-up due to his infidelity on the heels of the suicide of Catherine's dad and mentor. The rest of the movie covers the week (each day marked by a scripted placard) that Catherine spends with her best friend at Virginia's (Katherine Waterston, Sam's daughter) family lake house. Flashbacks cover the previous year's visit under much different circumstances, but it's the intimate … and often quite uncomfortable … moments between the two women that provides the crux of the film.

Director Perry focuses a great deal of attention on the faces of Catherine and Virginia – many of these are extreme close-ups that leave thoughts unspoken, yet quite clear to the viewer. There are elements of 1970's schlock horror films … but not in a bad way. The music, atmosphere and camera angles have a certain retro feel, but the tension between the two friends is palpable and timeless.

Perry's script and the performances of Moss and Waterston tap into that nasty bit of human nature that makes us believe our problems are much worse than anyone else's. Building on that, the animosity felt when our friends aren't "there for us" in times of trauma, can lead to a dangerous slope that affects judgment and mental stability. Watching Catherine and Virginia go at it has elements of truth and dread.

Patrick Fugit appears in a few scenes as Virginia's neighbor, and his sole purpose seems to be to torment Catherine – at least that's how she sees it. The juxtaposition of the two visits (separated by one year) makes for some very interesting character observations, and helps us understand the delusions and bitterness. It's an interesting and stylish little film that doesn't so much entertain as spur introspection.

Slowmoving psychological drama about a woman with a mental state that's on a downward spiral after her father died.

Has a bit of a eerie 70's mystery feeling to it stylewise both visually and emotionally (even though it takes place in now time).

But instead of getting intrigued I just found it rather dull instead, perhaps a bit to do with the fact that I didn't find anything particularly likable about any of the characters (or interesting for that matter) and they were all fairly self-absorbed.

And some scenes just go on forever with mumbling monologues of which I often found myself not knowing what exactly they were talking about because for one they mumbled quietly and also the eerie music was really loud, so that didn't really help, and the ending is rather abrupt.

So yeah what can I say, not for me I guess.

I loved "Listen Up Philip" and found "The Color Wheel" very interesting (if also annoying), so I was very psyched for this latest by ARP. I'm not sure what it ultimately adds up to, script-wise, or how much weight it would have at all if not for the lead performance. But what a performance. Moss is remarkable. It's one of those descent-into-madness performances that's so riveting it almost doesn't matter that the narrative and explicating psychology are sketchy at best. I suppose that's partly the point--that our understanding of what is happening to the character is as fragmentary as her own understanding of it--but nonetheless it's a little frustrating. That doesn't matter all that much, though, because Moss is so fascinating to watch. Eventually I'll see the movie again, not only to experience that performance a second time, but also to see if the film has more substance to it (independent on that star turn) than it appeared at first glance.