MicroCinema Scene

“Jerica Rhian has been avoiding her past for quite some time, but on this particular evening, her past will no longer be avoiding her. While Jerica must employ the help of new kid in town Xavier Newton to protect her pregnant (not to mention clairvoyant) best friend Cassie Chailyn from her psychotic ex-girlfriend, Jerica also crosses paths with a number of familiar faces, including her sadistic former partner in underground crime and her ex-boyfriend who she deserted nearly a year earlier.”

It’s hard to attempt to describe this movie. While all of the above seems enough to create at least an entertaining genre picture if handled properly, the fact is Outside of Nowhere is one of most incompetent cinematic experiences I’ve ever sat through. This is not cinema, nor a play; although it is talky enough to be listened to on the radio if it could at least have had a proper sound mix, or just a sound mix at all, for that matter. Lazy coverage turns the piece into a tiresome ping-pong of talking heads. You can’t help noticing the lack of lighting on the sometimes dreadful, mostly wooden, occasionally passable performances. With one or two exceptions, the actors are reciting their lines without probably understanding them, or they seem too busy trying to remember said lines.

There are occasional redeeming moments in the dialogue, but these are few and far between, either separated by endless hordes of wordy clichés or buried by disinterested acting.

The Pulp Fiction-structured story involves an outsider returning to her supernatural town filled with vampires, werewolves, drug addicts and drug dealers, former lesbian lovers, and a ghost. Yes, it is as ridiculous at it sounds. Or maybe not. Actually you can do a really fun movie with those elements. But is this a comedy? I wouldn’t be able to tell. The tone is impossible to decipher since it is drowned by its painfully dull execution. The pacing is so poor, the editing choices so nefarious, that at times it feels like a purposely-experimental film, where the filmmakers want to intentionally draw us out of the storytelling. This could have gone the direction Godard went with Alphaville, by openly making fun of the genres with a strong vision and cynicism on the material. Not the case here. This is not postmodernism, not even Ed Wood.

One star

Related Articles:

• No related posts