The Overnight

To say I have mixed feelings about The Overnight would be an understatement of some note. I kind of admire the idea behind it — or at least what I think the idea is. Therein lies part of the problem. Other than being mildly daring — and I use the term “daring” in something of the same sense I would in describing Paul Mazursky’s Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), which is to say what passed for daring 46 years ago — I’m not sure what the point of Patrick Brice’s little movie actually is. (And it is a little movie — clocking in at 79 minutes including credits.) Taking it at face value, I’m inclined to think it’s the modern equivalent of that movie Rex Harrison talks about having seen in Preston Sturges’ Unfaithfully Yours (1948) — the one he describes as having “questioned the necessity of marriage for eight reels, only to conclude it was essential in the ninth.” But I don’t think we’re meant to take its “the status quo has been maintained” ending as something that simple. The problem is — after watching the ending twice — I can’t swear to that. The ending is at once too inconclusive and insufficiently ambiguous.

The story is simple enough. L.A. newcomers Alex (Adam Scott) and Emily (Taylor Schilling) are at a park with their little boy, RJ (R.J. Hermes), when the kid strikes up a friendship with another little boy, Max (Max Moritt). Suddenly a strange man enters the scene — wearing a hat that may be hipster, Hasidic, Amish or something a creepy bad guy in a Stephen King book would wear. This turns out to be Kurt (Jason Scwhartzman), Max’s father. His demeanor is not that reassuring. He’s too friendly and too nervous for comfort, but Emily (who’s desperate to make some L.A. friends) ends up prodding Alex to accept his invitation for dinner. It will be an interesting evening to say the least. What starts out innocuously enough, slowly turns into something else once the kids are put to bed.

Essentially, The Overnight is a four-character chamber piece. The children are there only as a plot device — and near the end as a kind of kiddies ex machina. Any other characters are strictly atmosphere. Most of the film takes place in Kurt’s house and might almost be a play. In fact, the film slightly calls to mind Roman Polanski’s Carnage (2011), but don’t take that idea too far. Carnage was a finely honed piece of work with carefully crafted, incisive dialogue. The Overnight is a meandering work with dialogue that often sounds like improvised mumblecore. Its attempts at shock are often juvenile or awkwardly achieved. The subject matter of Kurt’s paintings is the sort of thing Beavis and Butthead would laugh at. The faux male frontal nudity is so obviously done with prosthetics and several forests’ worth of merkins that it becomes distracting the more it’s onscreen.

Where the film succeeds, however, lies in its ability to go from unease to dread to genuine discomfort — and finally to something largely unexpected. It also manages to not entirely cop-out with its ending, though it gets awfully close. Certainly, it’s bolder than, say, Humpday (2009), or its more obvious Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice underpinnings. (How intentional the Bob & Carol connection is is open to question, but there’s no denying that the musical score has a cheesy late 1960s vibe.) The whole “seduction of innocence” aspect of the film is surprisingly complex — at least when the film moves from “shock” to empathy. I can’t actually say I recommend The Overnight, but neither do I find it without merit. It’s just that its merit doesn’t overcome its missteps. Rated R for strong sexuality, graphic nudity, language and drug use.

Playing at Fine Arts Theatre.