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| Scene from Under the Silver Lake |
The existence of director David Robert Mitchell's follow-up to It Follows has a history just as confounding as the plot. Under the Silver Lake is a film that played at Cannes, and had a winter release planned stateside. It was nothing too out of the ordinary until many criticized the plot into an editing frenzy that only saw it released in Europe (by the time it was on home video, it was still months away from the U.S. release). For a follow-up to a film that is regarded as premiere horror of the decade, Mitchell's post-modernist take on Millennials and neo-noir being dumped on V.O.D. platforms feels both fitting and disappointing. It was always going to be a confounding sell, but what's keeping it from a middling box office that legitimizes its inevitable cult status? The film may be all but gone from the public radar, but hopefully, its second act (its release) is just as true to the film and slowly unwinds into something bigger and crazier. For all of its flaws and wound-up insanity, Under the Silver Lake is one of the most delightful, deranged, hilarious odes to Los Angeles absurdism since Inherent Vice. Its answers may disappoint you, but that's kind of the point. It's a film lacking meaning as it finds it, and that's part of its frustrating charm.
