We review an early screener of Blood Cells.
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| "Hi there. This is an ad featuring a ex-hipster selling some kind of technology." |
The drifting drunkard movie has been done
to death over the years, including but not limited to Barfly and Leaving Las Vegas. The latest addition to the ongoing trend of
low budget minimalist character studies is Blood
Cells, the story of a man who must choose between another beer and his
family ties despite his penchant for self-imposed exile. Written and directed by newcomers Joseph Bull
and Luke Seomore (who also provides the film’s ambient electronic score) and
financed largely by the elite clothing line GUCCI, Blood Cells is an intentionally understated (sometimes too much so)
naturalistic drama that looks and sounds much classier than its content
merits. More of a glitzy travelogue of
the outskirts of London and the homeless living in between than a concrete
piece of storytelling, it’s one of those movies that draws you in like a magnet
technically only to let you down with little payoff.
A sort of half-hearted transposition of
Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan to
Great Britain with a dash of Bob Rafelson’s Five
Easy Pieces thrown in for good measure, Blood
Cells is the cinematic equivalent of a Vanity Fair ad from a visual and
editing sense. It looks gorgeous and the
soundtrack of floating ambient veering towards occasionally corrosive
industrial creates a rich and pretty atmosphere, yet the story itself is a bit
underwhelming in hindsight. Both the
poster and the film itself have the sleek cleanliness of a fashion model coffee
table book, minimalist and abstract just enough to suggest something grand
which never arrives. Barry Ward as the
troubled protagonist Adam and the supporting cast are quite good and the
pathetic wanderer’s lanky and skeletal figure couldn’t help but remind of some
of the A&E show Intervention’s
darker moments. While I was drawn
superficially into Adam’s cripplingly selfish and short-sighted worldview, I
also felt ultimately it was much ado about nothing particularly due to the
absence of interior monologue.
I wanted to sincerely embrace Blood Cells, really I did. The small town character driven drama with an
unlikeable protagonist on a journey in search of his own life affirming answers
(and ours) is one of my favorite subgenres which is almost always exemplar of
the notion of less amounting to more.
Despite some shocking revelations near the end including but not limited
to prostitution, my hands closed on air as Blood
Cells achieved conclusion. For all
of the pretty images of British countryside, mountains and montages of lens
flares and hyperkinetic as well as naturalistic colors, there’s just not a
whole lot going on here and the general response most viewers will have to both
Adam’s plight and the film itself is one of apathy instead of empathy. It’s a shame because it looks and sounds
beautiful, if only those traits were put to more efficient use.
-Andrew Kotwicki