After a sneaky rewatch of Two Hands (1999) a few weeks ago. Prompted by Jason Di Rosso's interview with writer/directory Mary Bronstein. This led me to expect a performance from Rose Byrne something like Gina Rowlands's in A Woman Under the Influence (1974), and for her character to be unlikeable. Whatever her merits the scenario does not allow her to reach any significant heights, and more problematically, this character is boring as she lacks backstory and motivation.
In essence this mother is left to tend to her only child who has an eating disorder while she tries to function as a therapist. (Husband Christian Slater appears mostly as an annoying voice on the phone and in a brief what-did-you-do ending scene.) A housing disaster causes the mother/daughter pair to move to a motel for most of the movie where they encounter the underdrawn Ivy Wolk at the front counter and co-resident A$AP Rocky who does what he can. (He has one of the few characters that make sense and is totally different from Highest 2 Lowest (2025). He tries to sort her out on the dark web!) She's got a drowning-woman thing for fellow shrink Conan O'Brien (good and somewhat amusing as the straight man in a bent situation) and finding psychedelic experiences in holes. Danielle Macdonald (The Tourist (2022)) went looking for help in all the wrong places. Bronstein herself is flat as the doctor treating the daughter.
I found it hard to watch. Many scenes don't work; one has a hamster in a car that just sequences cliches and too many others are similarly uninspired. The cinematography was often too murky for me to make things out or too annoyingly jittery. I had an abiding sense of waiting for it to get good and it just didn't. Byrne's performance had shades of Julianne Moore's from Magnolia (1999). The body horror tropes evoked David Cronenberg, the apartment horrors Rosemary's Baby (1968), and the scenario just maybe The Exorcist (1973). It's autofic and I should have skipped it (as I have Celine Song’s output): I am not in the target demographic that demands relatability, either in the form of characters recognisably themselves or in Bad Mother variation. The dodgy psychologising and spacey logic tediously aimed to validate.
A Critic's Pick by Jeannette Catsoulis. I acknowledge that it tried to be funny. Dana Stevens: "Uncut Gems (2019) for motherhood." — Safdie brothers adjacent. Byrne is impossible to stop watching. Epic self absorption. Unmodulated script. Relieved when it was over.
