Film review: Under The Silver Lake
“Was it possible that at every gathering, concert, peace rally, love-in, be-in, freak-in, here, up north, back east, wherever, some dark crews had been busy all along reclaiming the music, the resistance to power, the sexual desire from epic to every day? All they could sweep up for the ancient forces of greed and fear? Gee he thought…I don’t know.” — Inherent Vice
It’s hard to think of an L.A. Noir, or any Los Angeles based film, that didn’t inspire the new film from director David Robert Mitchell. Films like Mulholland Drive and The Long Goodbye are present, as are the lavish color palettes of La La Land, while the films of Alfred Hitchcock are practically their own character. UNDER THE SILVER LAKE is a film that leans heavily into its cinematic heritage, but excels when it manages to tell it’s own story.
Up front, we aren’t given much information about Sam, a hapless, jobless, single white male who can’t or won’t pay his rent on time. Andrew Garfield inhabits this role with an earnestness that only a self-righteous asshole can attain. Sam sleeps with a (literally) nameless woman, pines over (and stalks) a girl he meets only once and watches guiltlessly as his best friend uses a drone camera to watch a woman undress. Sam is a scumbag, a textbook example of toxic masculinity, but Garfield manages to make the audience root for him as we follow him down the rabbit hole of delusion, despair and obsession.
“Where’s the mystery that makes everything worthwhile?” muses Topher Grace’s nameless character as he plays another level of Mario Bros. Of course the mysteries of the world that these characters are longing for are the ones promised at childhood and in pop culture. Sam’s childhood exists almost parallel to his adult life; he plays video games listen to music and even looks at porn that he discovered as an adolescent. In Sam’s world you can’t resist eating a 20 year old marshmallow from a box of your favorite cereal, the music you listen to does contain hidden messages and of course, society’s darkest secrets are hidden your old Nintendo Power Magazines.
Mitchell doesn’t paint Sam in a great light, but the filmmaker has a lot of compassion for his creation. Sam isn’t a bad person, but he’s fallen victim to his worst tendencies as his life goes to shit. Under the Silver Lake is a lot of things, but perhaps its greatest insight is into the creation of, for lack of a better word, the millennial mindset and contemporary grief. Once he realizes that the life he was promised as a kid isn’t materializing, it’s easier for Sam to believe that there are secret societies conspiring to ruin his life than it is to accept the fact that he’s a broke loser who can’t get laid.
It’s sometimes hard to tell what Mitchell is trying to do with this film. At times it seems like he’s following his own clear vision, but at other times it feels like he’s only interested in ripping off better movies. Under the Silver Lake is a great film, even though it proves to be a deeply messy one. Some of the best cinematic moments of 2019 are contained in this film, even though they are often littered with some baffling filmmaking decisions. Under the Silver Lake has thus far proved to be highly rewatchable and as more and more people discover the secrets at the bottom of the Lake, this is destined to become a classic in its own right.
Riley Shingler is a film critic and writer who can be found on Letterboxd and at shinglerfilms.com
