We’ll call it the “Garfield Rule” — not the comic, the actor. It holds that any performance by Andrew Garfield, on the screen or stage,…
We’ll call it the “Garfield Rule” — not the comic, the actor. It holds that any performance by Andrew Garfield, on the screen or stage, will be worth seeing, no matter the content.
After watching “Under the Silver Lake,” described as a “neo-noir thriller” by writer-director David Robert Mitchell (“It Follows,” “The Myth of the American Sleepover”), I’m still a firm believer in this rule —perhaps even more so — because only a legendarily committed actor like Garfield could make such an ambitiously murky (or murkily ambitious?) endeavor watchable, let alone for almost 21/2 hours.
Up to a point, one can accept the feeling of being helplessly lost in Clawson native Mitchell’s stylish and beautifully crafted but maddeningly mind-bending Los Angeles dreamscape. At a certain juncture, though, you need to feel tethered — to something.
And by that I mean anything. It doesn’t have to be a linear narrative to string these often seductive scenes together. And the constant rabbit holes we’re led down are fine, to a point. But a sustainable core to the character would be nice. Not a moral core, just maybe an emotional guidepost to better understand where he’s coming from.
