By Design, 2025.
Written and Directed by Amanda Kramer.
Starring Juliette Lewis, Mamoudou Athie, Melanie Griffith, Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney, Alisa Torres, Udo Kier, Clifton Collins Jr., Betty Buckley, Ruby Cruz, Cristobal Tapia Montt, Jessie-Ann Kohlman, and Cricket Arrison.
SYNOPSIS:
A woman swaps bodies with a chair, and everyone likes her better as a chair.
Juliette Lewis’ Camille – a well-off, somewhat popular but empty inside and going through a midlife crisis – says that resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. Later on, one of her friends makes an offhand remark that she never understood what Camille meant by that. You will get the point of By Design long before it’s over. Writer/director Amanda Kramer’s deadpan weirdo experimental comedy By Design is straight to the point in its metaphor with a handful of ideas regarding what to do with its concept, but a shaky, indulgent execution that drones on as the mind drifts until the point is eventually lost.
That’s also frustrating since Juliette Lewis, including a supporting cast featuring Mamoudou Athie (who, between this and working with Yorgos Lanthimos on last year’s Kinds of Kindness, is gifted at matching the wavelength of playing idiosyncratic characters while also giving them a sense of personality and motivated thrust), Samantha Mathis, Robin Tunney (playing sycophantic friends of Camille), and Melanie Griffith (a narrator credited as The Voice) are all committed to the bizarre concept that sees Camille wishing and successfully swapping bodies with a standard wooden chair that she perceives as beautiful and having more purpose than her. Once Mamoudou Athie’s Olivier comes into possession of the chair as a parting gift from his girlfriend Marta (Alisa Torres) leaving him, it turns out the chair, now containing Camille’s soul, is desirable. Look, I said the movie was weird!
However, while By Design isn’t afraid to get out there (sometimes they include interpretive dancing involving the chair, other times it involves other characters talking to Camille’s unconscious body as if she is depressed that someone else purchased the chair, which is what prompted her to desperately beg for the body swap in the first place), it never approaches its metaphorical commentary without any bite. It never rises above functioning as an amusingly kooky film that struggles to go deeper.
Questionably, some of the more tedious sequences, such as a bit involving a pervert played by Clifton Collins Jr. in an extended, creepy bit involving Camille’s physical body that’s going for laughs and admittedly starts funny, transition into a lengthy, equally sleazy monologue that has no restraint. Again, the mind begins to drift. This is also a recurring issue with the film, which is also a problem since it’s already only 90 minutes long.
Naturally, Amanda Kramer has much to say about women feeling as if they are objects or as if they would be happier being more desirable, not to mention the obsessive ownership men can project onto a woman who fits a docile role and fulfills a purpose (in this case, a wooden chair.) However, the targets for By Design feel too simplistic and broad, not fully taking advantage of how off-the-wall (or off-the-chair) this concept is. The film isn’t without humorous exchanges, funny moments, a great idea, and a weirdo wavelength that’s easy to appreciate, but one also won’t be sitting with one’s thoughts for too long once it finishes. It’s strange, but also not confident or fully aware of what to do with that.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
