Suspension of Disbelief, 2012.
Directed by Mike Figgis.
Starring Sebastian Kock, Lotte Verbeek, Emilia Fox, Rebecca Night, Eoin Macken, Lachlan Nieboer, Frances de la Tour, Julian Sands, and Kenneth Cranham.
SYNOPSIS:
Suspension of Disbelief is the story of Martin, a talented screenwriter and novelist currently going through a difficult patch in his career. But after the death of the mysterious and alluring Angelique and the arrival of her twin sister Therese, Martin’s world starts to change. In this noir thriller, nothing is quite what it seems.
The above synopsis is straight from the press notes for this film and whatever excitement you may be feeling after reading it, I can tell you that it is as much as this film can muster.
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I read the synopsis for this film as there have been many recent examples in cinema that have tried and failed to create a truly stylish noir thriller – the obvious exception being Brick. My spirits were buoyed however by Mike Figgis’ name being attached, but within ten minutes of the opening credits I came to realise that this is in fact not a noir thriller, but a tedious attempt at exploring the genre itself.
Suspension of Disbelief is a convoluted thriller that’s poorly acted, shoddily directed and is so completely lacking in suspense that at one point I almost fell asleep.
From the offset, the film states that this is a story within a film within a film. A pompously meta idea at its best and at its worse, a smugly self-indulgent passion project that should never really have seen the light of day. The story revolves around the idea that a death following on from a party may either be in the writer’s mind or perpetrated by the writer himself – something that is never fully realised and becomes too on-the-nose to enjoy.
The film references itself continuously, including scenes such as a film class discussing the merits of the drama / thriller genre, or when one of the characters reads the screenplay for the scene she is currently in. This could be a good idea in something better handled but in this piece, it feels so skin-crawlingly happy with itself, you may end up jumping out of the nearest window as a way of keeping yourself entertained.
I could further berate the film for its jarring use of a range of ill-fitting music, or chastise the camera work which is comparable to a group of first year media students testing a new camera, but I won’t.
Instead I’ll just summarise by saying that if you are a pretentious cinema auteur fan who only likes films that your friends haven’t heard of, this is for you. If you’re like me however and can’t stomach a film so dripping with self-satisfaction that you want to gouge your own eyes out, steer well clear.
In brief, I can only say that while it has an idea or two which could have been interesting, this is an intensely annoying work that will make you wish you had never bothered.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Ozzy Armstrong is a Stargate and Rocky superfan. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published September 9, 2013. Updated April 11, 2018.
