Slow Machine (Joe DeNardo and Paul Felten, 2020)
Added 2020-09-27 06:33:25 +0000 UTC
A fascinating first effort, Slow Machine belongs to a grand tradition of highly ambitious American independent cinema whose reach exceeds its grasp. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and will be closely watching to see what this team does next. But I worry, because projects this unusual and unresolved often take years to follow up. (Cf. Kyle Henry's Room, Scott King's Treasure Island, Andrew Repasky McElhinney's A Chronicle of Corpses.)
Sort of a low-budget meta-thriller about New York, circa 2020, as a place where nobody really belongs, Slow Machine orbits around Stephanie (Stephanie Hayes), a Swedish actress who ostensibly blacks out drunk on the street in Brooklyn one night and is rescued by Gerard (Scott Shepherd), an NYPD operative with connections to covert anti-terror operations. DeNardo and Felten use the pair's opposing politics as the pretext for an unlikely meet-cute, all the while signalling that neither party is entirely certain the other won't slit their throat, given the chance.
The film engages in other awkward hipster business, including Stephanie's uncomfortable housemate situation with the members of a New Pornographers-style band fronted by Eleanor Friedberger. One of the housemates, Jim (Ean Sheehy), hits on Stephanie in a manner that is probably intended to evoke cringe-humor but is genuinely nauseating. But Slow Machine, which all told would have been a more suitable New Directors / New Films item in a regular year, is at its best when exploring the sexualized antipathy between Stephanie and Gerard, mirroring the kind of Trump-era hookups that are probably a sad commonplace in the singles' bars of America.
