"This is how actors play rock stars in movies."
St. Vincent sets out to make a documentary about her music, but when she hires a close friend to direct, notions of reality, identity, and authenticity grow increasingly distorted and bizarre. The Nowhere Inn is an absurd, comedic, and thriller that I'm still trying to wrap my head around. It's hard to pinpoint the genre, but whatever it is, it's working. This played apart of the midnight selection at Sundance 2020, and I remember it looked interesting (all of the midnight ones did that year) but I didn't understand what it was about. Even watching the trailer, it barely covers what it's about. St. Vincent (Annie Clark) and her real life friend Carrie Brownstein wrote and starred in the movie, of course. They have this amazing chemistry that didn't need any building beforehand. Everything you see is genuine. Though they're playing themselves, they have a unique character that we know isn't how it's like in real life. St. Vincent does fantastic with the transformation she goes through. It's so fun to watch her go through it all. And Carrie Brownstein, who I haven't really seen much before has really good acting skills. Had those two not been cast in their own movie, and I'm not sure if they originally started out writing themselves in, I don't think they could've pulled it off.
The story is extremely satirical. Once you start to realize what the movie is about, and it makes a point to it, you can see some of what will unfold. It pokes fun at documentaries and rockstars and performers and they way it's done is really cool and fun. When you consider the movie as a whole, then it gets a little more confusing. It's like a movie within a movie within a movie (I think that's right). What we mainly see is a mockumentary style story. There's different aspect ratios and styles to differentiate what story or movie we're focusing on. And the cinematography is pretty good. There's sequences shot on film, mostly the concerts, that are beautiful to look at. And it's edited really well. There are many achievements to be noted. With how trippy it is, it can be hard to figure out what the movie is trying to say. But that's also a point made in the movie where someone says something along the lines of "I don't think she really understood the movie we were making." A little more clarity would've helped, but I like having the mystery there. For a little bit the same things keep happening and I wanted a little more variety. It's one of those things where I thought they'd move on and show something else, but they keep going back to it. As a character, it's frustrating for Carrie but she lets it happen for some time. Nevertheless, this is a really fun movie. I was in the middle of watching it when my apartment building had a power outage so I had to watch it in halves. You need to be attentive and ready for anything when watching. By the end it goes completely off the rails and I'm not sure how to interpret it. Maybe a little more reading will help. Overall, The Nowhere Inn is a surprising movie that I would like to revisit again. It does land with everything, but for a psychological movie (that's the genre I'm going with) it has great craft and great start for Bill Benz to make more movies!
