Under the Silver Lake

Under the Silver Lake 2018

• Director: David Robert Mitchell
• Based on book: no
• Cast: Andrew Garfield, Riley Keough (Elvis Presley’s granddaughter!), and a million others
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Andrew Garfield – Breathe, Never Let Me Go, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Boy A, Doctor Who
• Riley Keough – Mad Max Fury Road, The Runaways
• Why? Andrew Garfield
• Seen: 12 January 2020      

       Sam (Garfield) is a lying, smoking, drinking voyeuristic drifter living in a luxury apartment in LA, about to be evicted for not paying his rent. He’s intrigued by the ‘Under the Silver Lake’ comic books, secret subliminal codes, and a mysterious lovely neighbour Sarah (Keough). Sarah disappears, dogs are being murdered, cars are being vandalised. The TV has reports of a missing billionaire who turns up dead.

       Connection? It’s a long time coming.

       Is this intellectually, artistically and symbolically profound and I’m not clever enough to get it? Or is it a pretentious, juvenile, ‘I’m-so-cool-and-hallucinatory’ twelve-year-old boy’s wet dream? I can’t decide.

       It’s fun to see Garfield - who I’ve only seen in rather straight, earnest, good guy roles -play such a creepy loser.

       I don’t like it but there’s something oddly fascinating about it, so it gets a few stars.

2 ½ * of 5