Scalene (2011, Zack Parker) (Patreon)

53/100

Been meaning to check out Zack Parker's earlier films ever since I saw Proxy, and finally found this one streaming via Hoopla. Has the same WTF-am-I-watching? vibe, in this case due to a gimmicky structure: three sections, each from the point of view of a different character and employing a different temporal framework. (Hence the somewhat cutesy title, which I only vaguely recalled from geometry class a billion years ago and had to look up.) Opening movement is in hindsight the least effective, though it provides a fine showcase for Margo Martindale as Janice, a woman who's murderously angry with a female college student for reasons as yet unknown; scenes unfold in reverse order, which mostly serves to create a deliberately misleading impression of what's going on. Then comes a too-brief interlude (just a few minutes) depicting the fragmented consciousness of Janice's brain-damaged adult son, Jakob (Adam Scarimbolo), including a few shards that pointedly contradict what we'd gleaned from Janice's story. The last and lengthiest section unfolds linearly and follows the college student, Paige (Hanna Hall), as she's hired by Janice to care for Jakob.

I'm dwelling on synopsis here not just because few of you will have seen Scalene, but because there's not much else to discuss—the film amounts to one huge shock reveal, which "works" to the extent that you can't quite believe you're watching it happen*. On the one hand, this decision is nearly impossible to swallow, given the non-horrific alternatives available to the individual in question (one of which we see aborted for no very good reason at all). On the other hand, Parker and the actor in question commit wholeheartedly to said decision's emotional ramifications, which lends a degree of integrity to what might otherwise come across as cheap provocation. I'm not troubled, as some apparently are, by any ostensible wider implications of what occurs; this scenario is way too bizarre to be perceived as commonplace, and the character's motives are clearly honorable, even if the corresponding actions are misguided. But I do think that the film winds up in a place so genuinely distressing that its Rashomon-y questions about truth's subjectivity (including a final scene that's irreconcilable with the opening scene) wind up seeming jejune. Would likely have pegged Parker as an ambitious young talent worth keeping tabs on—"it'll be interesting to see what he does next," etc. And it was.

* Though something kinda similar, albeit only half as "problematic," takes place in The World According to Garp. (On the page, at least—don't remember if it's in the movie.)