Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 29, 2024, 11:16:28 AM

Login with username, password and session length

I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore.

Started by zomgmouse, January 01, 2018, 05:08:01 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

zomgmouse

There were a few posts about this in the horror thread, though I by no means would call this a horror. I saw this a few days ago and was really impressed. Did a light enough tone but put up a hell of a violent display as well, and a good degree of escalation. Written and directed by Saulnier's favourite boy Macon Blair, who also appears in a cameo. The amounts of humour in this pleased me especially for how much darker the darker bits were.

Here's some previous posts about it just to get all the words in the one place, I really do think this needs its own thread.

Quote from: Moribunderast on February 27, 2017, 09:19:45 AM
Not sure if it counts as a proper horror but I've seen Blue Ruin described as such so this thread seems a reasonable place to mention I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore. New film that dropped on Netflix last week, starring the lovely Melanie Lynskey. Reminded me of Blue Ruin and Green Room in it's tone but I probably preferred it to both. The villains are proper scummy and Lynskey and co-star Elijah Wood are really entertaining leads. The film moves at a steady clip and
Spoiler alert
descends into violence quite suddenly.
[close]
For some reason this film just really clicked with me - I enjoyed it on pretty much every level. If you liked those two films I mentioned above, give it a go.

EDIT TO ADD: I should mention, also, one of the proper scummy villains is played by Jesus Lizard man, DAVID YOW.

Quote from: GeeWhiz on February 27, 2017, 10:26:26 AM
I was about to start a thread about this one. I really enjoyed the mixture of tones and the harshness of the violence vs the more amiable, drifting tone of the earlier scenes. It really feels like 'pastoral noir' is having a bit of a moment.

Quote from: Paaaaul on February 27, 2017, 12:46:13 PM
I Don't Feel At Home In This World Anymore.
It was OK, but felt a bit like a watered down Saulnier film.
I found the swing between tones quite jarring, and any built-up realism dissipates each time Elijah Wood is on screen.

Quote from: Goldentony on March 01, 2017, 08:56:23 PM
Watched the above last night and enjoyed it a lot, but wouldn't call it horror in the slightest. Had no idea yer man had directed it and paused for a second to check who had when he turned up because I couldn't recall him being in anything non Saulnier.

As far as it being a watered down Saulnier, the whole thing felt way more like a parody of that style in the lightest possible sense. Fucking loved this anyway. Really, really funny throughout with the occasional burst of horrifying violence and gore effects and loved the lead. Good to see David Yow aswell.

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on March 11, 2017, 10:10:58 PM
Watched this tonight and thought it was one of the blandest films I've ever seen. I found the first thirty or so minutes vaguely appealing, largely due to really liking Melanie Lynskey, and there's the odd decent joke, but the plot was ridiculously predictable and by the end I found myself not caring in the slightest as to who lived or died. 4/10, and that's only as it has a decent cast.

Apologies if I've missed any. Would be rad to have some more discussion of this.

Steven

I enjoyed it, definitely was going for a Coen brothers-y by numbers vibe and almost accomplishes it - sort of got the tone between Fargo and Lebowski. Put it on again for a friend when I was stuck thinking of a film to put on at random and she enjoyed it too and empathised the Ruth character having a shit life where everything that can go wrong does go wrong. The ending is pretty bleak but then does that irritating and inevitable bait and switch to make everything fine in the end, which is the most negative thing I'll say about it.

Sebastian Cobb

I didn't know it was supposed to be a horror. Either way I really enjoyed it, I like a good indie film like that. Also liked the sense of realism in things like Ruth looking like a normal person - perpetually knackered from work and her situation.

zomgmouse

Quote from: Steven on January 01, 2018, 06:07:43 PM
does that irritating and inevitable bait and switch to make everything fine in the end, which is the most negative thing I'll say about it.
To be fair I think it was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing with the whole happy together at a barbecue scenario and the "halo" gag. She still seemed pretty depressed.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on January 01, 2018, 06:17:23 PM
I didn't know it was supposed to be a horror.
It wasn't - just the above posts all appeared in the horror thread.

Steven

Quote from: zomgmouse on January 01, 2018, 09:33:51 PM
To be fair I think it was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek sort of thing with the whole happy together at a barbecue scenario and the "halo" gag. She still seemed pretty depressed.

It was tongue-in-cheek but it was still the ploddingly obvious resolution and I guess I was hoping something would surprise me. I dunno, him being dead could have been handled in some kind of comic way or some other angle taken.. the old 'we imply a dying character is dead at the end then surprisingly reveal he's alive bait and switch' has just been done to illusory death.

QuoteIt wasn't - just the above posts all appeared in the horror thread.

It's meant to be a Black Comedy isn't it? Certainly the whole old blunderbuss scene in the mansion is meant to be a darkly comic bit of gory slapstick, similarly with what happens with the thief lad and cast of his shoeprint and the bus, it's pretty much a 'disparate parts of a heist go wrong which involves a chain-reaction of a lot of unintentionally bad things happening' ala Fargo or The Big Leboski, which is why it feels reminiscient of the Coens, probably intentionally so.
 

zomgmouse

Quote from: Steven on January 01, 2018, 10:07:49 PM
It was tongue-in-cheek but it was still the ploddingly obvious resolution and I guess I was hoping something would surprise me. I dunno, him being dead could have been handled in some kind of comic way or some other angle taken.. the old 'we imply a dying character is dead at the end then surprisingly reveal he's alive bait and switch' has just been done to illusory death.
I honestly don't think I've seen this trope enough or even at all for it to bother me. I thought it was a cute cheeky little gag. Plus the way it was presented alongside her continued malaise really worked for me.

Quote from: Steven on January 01, 2018, 10:07:49 PM
It's meant to be a Black Comedy isn't it?
Yes, definitely.

Gregory Torso

Not a lot to add, just another recommendation from me. I was surprised at how funny this was, I was expecting something more along the lines of Green Room, but as others have said, this had a very Coen Brothers feel to it. I empathised a lot with Ruth, but felt Wood's character was a bit too cartoonish (although I did love the bits where he lost his shit, especially when they went to the house to get her laptop back). Great to see David Yow too - he also turned up in an OK horror anthology called Southbound.
Thanks for starting this thread because I'd probably have missed this otherwise.