alberto-928-249754 Review of Under the Silver Lake

Under the Silver Lake (2018)

Brilliant film, but many people are not going to like it. I'll tell you why.

[10/10 · 29 December 2018]

I saw this movie by accident. Literally. I was in Madrid and I had two hours to kill (the movie premiered in Spain before it did in the US so I knew nothing about it). It could be one of the happiest accidents I've had in a long time. As the elements of the plot grew thicker and weirder, I kept asking myself -how the hell is the writer going to make sense of all this information? Shockingly, he does. I walked out of the film feeling exhilarated. As a screenwriter I thought it had some issues but it wasn't until I woke up the next morning that I finally understood how everything fell into place. This is a movie about a young and handsome Hollywood wannabe on the verge of eviction, who embarks on a mysterious adventure to discover the fate of young and beautiful women who -just like him- dream big, but can't afford to live in Hollywood. The film is filled with smart references to Hitchcock, de Palma and other masters of suspense, The music is amazing. The surreal mystery of the story is grounded in the real drama of young and beautiful people who soon realize that there's no gold pot waiting for them in Hollywood-and they can't even afford living in San Jose. Thinking back about the film, the lines I found most memorable have nothing to do with the mystery, but with the real drama of the main character who is losing everything -his job, his home, his car, his status, his youth-, all buried in this weird magical adventure where almost every string -maybe all- are nicely tied at the end. The ending is beautiful and tragic: the main character ends up buried in the same place where the object of his desire is. That is the only possible happy ending for him-and for her. I see many negative reviews here, but unfortunately they all seem to come from people who expect films to be purely entertaining, movie fans who are unfamiliar with the brilliant movie references the film presents. Can you call yourself a "movie fan" if you've never seen "Rear Window", really? "Under the Silver Lake" ends up been an indictment of the entertainment industry and its mesmerizing and devastating effect. If you look carefully, the real danger is not the mystery killer- is your own landlord. This is not only a great movie, it's an important movie.