Possibly my overall favourite film of 2014’s Edinburgh Film
Festival, and although I’m not sure I can put my finger on exactly why, I think
it was the slightly euphoric feeling at the end of having seen a piece of
incredibly clever, brilliantly realised cinema.
This is a film with only three actors and essentially one
basic location – an abandoned motel near a remote beach. And yet, it uses these simple ingredients to
concoct as complex, interesting, entertaining and cinematic a movie as pretty
much any other you will see.
The plot is simple and intensely intricate. At the simple
level, a man (Dean) takes his girlfriend (Lana) to a motel on their anniversary
to recreate their previous year’s anniversary which had taken place at the same
location. But the motel has closed in
the previous year and is now abandoned. Things go from bad to worse when Lana’s
ex (Terry) turns up and eventual she leaves with him. Dean stays on in despair at the motel and
over the course of a year builds a time-machine. On their next anniversary, he
travels back a year to make things right but things don’t go as planned.
One of the keys to the success of the film is how funny it
is, with writer-director Hugh Sullivan wringing exactly the optimum amount of
laughter to entertain his audience without making the story trivialised or an
afterthought. There is some serious concern
about Dean’s mental state, which is neither glossed-over nor shoehorned in to
make a point – it instead provides context and background to both plot and
character.
I still have no idea how Sullivan kept track of the plot and
characters at each point. I like to
think he had one of those World War II bunker room maps with lots of little
Deans but he probably did it by being a lot smarter than me! But although the
film dazzles you with its cleverness and it is causes a bit of a headspin by
the end, I never felt lost, which is again tribute to both the intelligence of
the plotting, the confident storytelling and fantastic performances.
The acting is superb. Josh McConville as Dean manages to
make each Dean feel slightly different but very much part of the same
person. He brings through the
obsessiveness and need to control everything that drives the plot but makes
sure Dean a sympathetic and multi-dimensional character alongside this. His need to make everything right is the thing that makes everything wrong but this isn't made into a quirk but a sign of a genuinely well-intentioned person who is just slightly off from the world. Alex
Dimitriades as Terry is fun support. And Hannah Marshall as Lana reminds you
just how badly written a lot of Hollywood love interests are. In a big blockbuster she probably would have
had one character “setting” to react with - probably impatience or being insufficiently
supportive, before finally being won over with some empty romantic gesture or
because she has been saved, fulfilling little role but as a plot lever. But in The Infinite Man, Lana realistically
reacts to where she is in the plot and how much she can manage of Dean and
their unusual relationship trajectory. She genuinely cares about Dean and is
mostly patient with him, but at the same time sometimes has to bring a reality
check when his obsessiveness starts to take over and damage their lives. She
wants him to get past this, but is also sometimes confused and hurt by the way
that Dean (or the Deans) treats her and the way he expects her to just go along
with whatever he is now convinced will finally solve everything. Her reactions and character are nearly as
crucial to the plot and the way events play out as Dean’s are.
The direction is snappy and dynamic, essential with such an
intricate plot and the use of more-or-less only one location is very effective,
particularly with the plot’s references to getting stuck in a close loop – the
use of location emphasises the narrowness of Dean’s focus – he only leaves the motel
complex briefly if he is trying to break from the pattern he has caught himself
in.
Overall, a simply brilliant film that I want to see again
and that I hope a wider audience gets to see as well. It is entertaining, rewarding, engrossing and
dazzling in the best possible way.
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