Someone made some good Twin Peaks fan fiction.
Horse Girl is directed by Jeff Baena, and stars Alison Brie as Sarah, a sweet girl who works at a fabric shop without much of a social life. Sarah starts experiencing time lapses, combined with recurring dreams of a white place where she lies next to the same people she’s never met. Is she being abducted by aliens? Or is her family history of mental illness catching up with her?
I’m a simple man, I’m at the stage of my life where I see Alison Brie in a leading role, I click. Years of watching and re-watching one of the all-time best sitcoms in Community, has led me to believe that you cannot overlook Alison Brie… I know she is the star of the Netflix original series Glow as well; I will get to that someday, I swear. But for now, she is Horse Girl. Brie gives it all to this role, having to act sweet, supressed, goofy, crazy and disorientated. And naked; yeah, if you’ve always wanted to see Annie’s Boobs, this time they’re not a monkey.
The actual going-ons in this movie might be too batshit to explain. I could totally understand if some viewers found the journey not worth the final conclusion, as the movie presents a muddled path to rearrange in your mind, but I think my time spent entering David Lynch’s world of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive has prepared me for the eerie and dreamy surrealism that this movie offers – more on that later.
I love Sarah’s investigation into her own hypothesis; much of the movie follows Sarah as she aims to solve her own troublesome behaviour. The movie is also good at letting us in on how the other characters are perceiving Sarah at the same time, which keeps us weary of her and on guard – like the horse owners who aren’t all that comfortable with Sarah’s frequent, yet seemingly innocent, visits to their farm. When the situation starts to become too much for Sarah, there’s a real shift in perspective, and through the counselling scenes, among others, the weight of mental illness feels all too real. You want to have fun with the supernatural elements of this movie, but the movie reminds you how serious her experiences would be treated if someone was presenting with them in the real world. I had some problems with The Invisible Man recently, and here is one example where Horse Girl did it better – the perspective of the other characters isn’t taken for granted, and you feel the severity of what Sarah is suggesting, as she makes claims for her sanity. The Invisible Man and Horse Girl do share similar tracks; both about women facing eerie circumstances that lead to hospitalisation in a mental ward, despite containing different antagonists, admittedly.
Poor Darren (John Reynolds), all he wanted was a simple date, but you can actually pinpoint the second his heart rips in two; the fear that the cute girl you just met is serious about alien abduction and human cloning is always real, and a tough break for some. Molly Shannon, plays Sarah’s colleague at the fabric shop, and is great as always in her few scenes, specifically one scene where she warmly comforts Sarah, who has supposedly just jumped right off the deep end – she’s the sort’ve friend you want in your life, she is very well written. Horse Girl is a good example of an unsettling thriller without the need for unrealistic sounds or sudden scares too. I found this movie way creepy, getting goose-pimples three times; the biggest wave coming when we see Sarah’s roommate for her last time and how she has changed. And seeing Sarah staring at the wall in the middle of the night disturbed my sleep that night.
I couldn’t even begin to accurately conceive this movie’s relation to the bizarre world of Twin Peaks, but I would argue it contains some deliberate homages – the horse, the white rooms (like where we last saw Audrey), the dirty man rummaging through garbage, the temporal lapses, the body switches and the camera’s long lingers on a troubled young girls face while dreamy music plays; there are too many to be a coincidence! I like to interpret Horse Girl as a prequel story for Sarah Palmer, the mother of murdered girl Laura, who has a clear connection to the other realm. Both characters are named Sarah, love horses and Horse Girl Sarah goes back in time to begin a new life with a knowledge of the supernatural. Maybe this theory mightn’t make sense with what we saw in Twin Peaks: The Return, but you know, any explanation is on the table in such a crazy universe. Maybe Horse Girl Sarah’s pink grandmother dress is more reminiscent of a character like Senorita Dido or some other other-realm dweller in Twin Peaks – you can honestly slice and dice that TV show in every which direction, and I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I found my knowledge of Twin Peaks added another layer to my enjoyment of Horse Girl. It’s more probable that Horse Girl is its own thing, and I’m just amusing myself. Twin Peaks: The Return lost my attention in some parts honestly, where Horse Girl never did, so maybe it’s one thing to imitate and another to emulate.
Horse Girl is better watched before explained, but since I am reviewing it, I will say…. I’m a stickler for time-travel in movies, and I think Horse Girl holds up, which is more credit to its competency. Also, I would watch the hell out of that fictional show starring Matthew Gray Gubler and Robin Tunney; Purgatory, about two prime-time cops solving paranormal crime – it’s one of those in-movie tv-show parodies that looks so bad it’s good.
If you’re looking for a whimsical adventure, Horse Girl will take you on a ride. Enjoy!
4.0
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