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| Aubrey Plaza and Christopher Abbott in "Black Bear" Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com |
Writer-director Lawrence Michael Levine’s psychological drama, “Black Bear,” is one of those movies where, even after you’ve been watching a few scenes, it’s difficult to get a grasp on what’s going on as a whole. There isn’t a lot of setup, so we’re sort of just thrown into whatever’s happening, not having a prayer for the mysteriousness being lifted anytime soon.
Allison (Aubrey Plaza) is a filmmaker who’s in need of inspiration for her next movie. She decides to stay at a lake house belonging to a couple, Blair (Sarah Gadon) and Gabe (Christopher Abbott). As Allison begins her search for an idea and spends more and more time with Blair and Gabe, their lives will enter a complicated web of deceit.
Although Plaza shows glimmers of the deadpan humor for which she’s known, this role allows her to dig deeper into dramatic acting. While she offers a look into this other side of her in the first half, Plaza is given a chance to go stronger with it in the second half, showing someone who’s emotionally shattered in what’s going on in her life. Plaza shows a side to her acting of which we haven’t seen much of before, and it’s because of this that there’s an unpredictability as to what we will see her do, making that unexpectedness one of the film’s main source for its thrills.
Gadon and Abbott elicit plenty of vicious sparks as Allison’s presence causes the two of them to become increasingly hostile with each other. The tenseness of Gadon and Abbott’s time together on screen places you right in the position of Allison as you’re forced to be an observer as Gadon and Abbott spitting venom at each other, offering a “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” vibe that keeps you hooked to the screen as you wait to see how far they will take their argument. Gadon and Abbott start off with quiet barbs at each other before escalating into something more, and their verbal battles throw you in uncomfortableness as you watch their relationship fall into turmoil.
Levine’s screenplay consists of two distinct halves, yet they mirror each other in intriguing ways, with both halves dealing in some way with the creative process. I can’t go into too much detail about each segment, but when you’re plunged into the second half and the movie becomes something very different, you being to question everything you have watched and are watching. This creates a narrative where your mind is always spinning to try to figure out how everything connects, and you’ll be making theories in your mind and then quickly rebuking them as you think of other explanations for the events of the film. It’s compelling how separate these two halves seem at first, but it’s even more fascinating as you begin to see the resemblances.
Levine has the movie take place in the lake house for both acts, with each of those halves telling a new story. As we go from one act to the next, we see how Levine possesses an ability to make the setting feel different between the two halves because of what he shows us within the lake house and how he uses that environment to tell each particular half of the story. This results in each half being thrilling in its own way. The first half is nerve-racking in how you feel watching the tension rise between the three main characters, with many of the scenes happening at one place for an extended length of time. In the second segment, Levine has many moving parts that he has to coordinate, and the way in which he does so when working with Robert Leitzell’s handheld camerawork keeps you on edge as you always wait to see what will go wrong next within the disarray that unfolds in the second half. As the camera moves from one room to another, you become even more familiar with the interior of the lake house and are given the idea that anything can happen anywhere.
In a movie that puzzles your mind in the best possible way, “Black Bear” is never at risk of a dull roar.
Grade: A
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