No Such Thing
Originally published at Susan Hated Literature. You can comment here or there.
Writ & Dir: Hal Hatley
- Sarah Polley … Beatrice
- Robert John Burke … The Monster
- Julie Christie … Dr. Anna
- Erica Gimpel … Judy
- Helen Mirren … The Boss
- Baltasar Kormákur … Artaud
So there I was, flicking around this afternoon when I came across No Such Thing. My wonderful browse feature told me it was the story of a young female reporter who tried to find out what happened her missing fiancée only to discover a foul-mouthed monster whom she befriends.
Only it was a lot stranger than that. The first hour or so was all about Beatrice. On her way to Iceland to track down her fiancée her plane crashed into the sea. She was the sole survivor, but was terribly injured. In the world of this film the media have taken over and pretty much run the world, but must contend with a public who grow bored of anything after only a few hours.[1] Beatrice’s boss tried to make her go public and tell her story, but Beatrice doesn’t want to so she is pretty much abandoned in the hospital, where she must undergo an extremely painful operation, with only limited painkiller/anaesthetic.
Linknotes:
- I reckon there is some meaning there, I just cant quite figure out what it is… ↩
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After 6 months rehab she decides to return to her earlier goal of tracking down her fiancée and ends up in Iceland, where after much warnings from locals and travelling she ends up as a sacrifice to the monster.
I don’t really want to give away too many plot points, but then again the plot isn’t all that important in the weird-ass Beauty and the Beast retelling. Only it isn’t a love story. And the beast really is a nasty killer type. He even rummages through human remains, rib-cages and bother assorted bones, to find Beatrice’s fiancée’s runner and prove to her that he really did kill him, and the rest of his film crew.
The whole film is sort of off-kilter, which makes it interesting to watch, and is probably the reason I didn’t change the station. But it is also slow, sombre, and every now and then over the top in a melodramatic way. I did like The Monster, who doesn’t enjoy an immoral alcoholic indestructible depressed lonely and misanthropic monster.
The problem is that it is just too stilted and the messages far too obvious. I’m also not totally convinced by the ending Show Spoilers ▼
I got the impression that the monster part of the film was all in Beatrice’s head. That 6 months hadn’t really gone by but this was simply how she was dealing with the pain of the surgery. But I’m not totally convinced by that thought either. It might just have been a mirroring of what she went through. I haven’t made up my mind which I think yet. Which I suppose is a good thing.
If you do come across this film I’d recommend you watch it, it has a very interesting premise and could have been an excellent film, as it is it is still interesting and worth watching.
IMDb | Salon |
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