The Film That Wouldn’t Die

Southland Tales – 3/5

Donnie Darko, the debut from writer-director Richard Kelly, was a stunning and original debut and seemed to announce the arrival of a major new talent on the scene. So it was with no small sense of anticipation that critics approached the premiere of his new film, Southland Tales, at the Cannes film festival in 2006. The movie they saw, rather than having them standing in ovation, had them sharpening their knives – by all accounts it was dreadful – a complete mess with no regard for either narrative or character. Eighteen months later a drastically re-cut and re-edited version finally arrives on our screens. And to be honest, it’s still a complete mess, but it’s a mainly entertaining one, which makes it simultaneously a crushing disappointment and a pleasant surprise.

The first three chapters are gone – replaced by an animated introduction giving the background story. The narrative is still a mess, character motivation unclear, if not totally lacking. The dialogue veers from odd quotes from poetry, to the knowingly and amusingly bad (“scientists now say that the future will be much more futuristic than we thought”) to the just plain bad. The acting is just as varied – Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, in the lead role is hammier than William Shatner on a bad day, but still watchable, Seann William Scott and Justin Timberlake surprisingly good, Sarah Michelle Gellar does dumb blonde again, whilst Miranda Richardson looks for some scenery to chew.

To be far to Kelly, the narrative in David Lynch’s Inland Empire, released earlier this year, was just as confused and fragmented, and the critics loved that (possibly because they were too scared to admit they didn’t get it). And Kelly seems to have borrowed some of Lynch’s favourites, especially a predilection for mysterious dwarves who pop up to spout pretentious nonsense. Kelly’s crime is that he does so without the reputation of Lynch and with his tongue veering sharply into his cheek for most of the film.

The story shares some of the ideas of time paradoxes with its predecessor Donnie Darko, but throws in thoughts of unintended consequences of the war on terror. Set in the near future, America is at war on many fronts around the world. An actor (Johnson) with political connections disappears only to re-appear with a porn star (Gellar). Then there’s a cop and his twin brother (both Seann William Scott), a scarred veteran of the war who watches all from the pier (Timberlake) and various politicians, scientists and neo-marxist rebels. As previously mentioned, it’s a mess, but one with moments of inspiration. A bigger budget than Darko seems to have bought a less convincing visual style.

All in all, you can’t shake the feeling that, come the DVD issue, this film might exist in more versions than Blade Runner or Alexander and all equally messy. Still worth checking out though, if you can cope with a dose of weirdness.