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The One I Love
Feb. 6th, 2015 11:48 amI have been trying to broaden my movie-watching tastes a bit, as I periodically do, and in the service of this project I watched The One I Love, which is a cheerful sunlit horror movie. No gore, no jump scares, just an unhappily married couple going away to a charming isolated house in the California wine country. The property has a main house and a guest house, and in the guest house, they each meet their spouse's doppelganger.
Or rather, they each meet a more easy-going, open, whatever-you-want-honey version of their spouse. Ethan is appalled; Sophie, on the other hand, is intrigued, and suggests that they should stay at the house to explore this interesting phenomenon. "DON'T DO IT" I screamed at the screen, as they discussed ground rules for this experiment. But of course they didn't listen.
The story is quite unlike anything I've seen, and I've been thinking about it on and off since watching it. But the style in which it's told very much screams "indie movie" - and it's interesting, I think, that indie movies end up having a house style just as much as Hollywood; they're for people who want something different, but it ends up often being the same kind of different.
The One I Love has the strengths of the indie style: the self-consciously beautiful cinematography; the willingness to give the characters room to be strange and complicated - but also the weaknesses, in spades. In particular, the movie seems absolutely petrified of explaining anything. Part of the horror arises from the fact that the characters barely understand what's going on, and have no way to find out, but it also feels a little like cheating.
In particular, the refusal to explain makes the ending seem rushed: they want to end on a moment of uncertainty and horror, but it's not quite uncertain enough to be horrifying.
Or rather, they each meet a more easy-going, open, whatever-you-want-honey version of their spouse. Ethan is appalled; Sophie, on the other hand, is intrigued, and suggests that they should stay at the house to explore this interesting phenomenon. "DON'T DO IT" I screamed at the screen, as they discussed ground rules for this experiment. But of course they didn't listen.
The story is quite unlike anything I've seen, and I've been thinking about it on and off since watching it. But the style in which it's told very much screams "indie movie" - and it's interesting, I think, that indie movies end up having a house style just as much as Hollywood; they're for people who want something different, but it ends up often being the same kind of different.
The One I Love has the strengths of the indie style: the self-consciously beautiful cinematography; the willingness to give the characters room to be strange and complicated - but also the weaknesses, in spades. In particular, the movie seems absolutely petrified of explaining anything. Part of the horror arises from the fact that the characters barely understand what's going on, and have no way to find out, but it also feels a little like cheating.
In particular, the refusal to explain makes the ending seem rushed: they want to end on a moment of uncertainty and horror, but it's not quite uncertain enough to be horrifying.
