Under the Silver Lake (2018)

	Directed by: David Robert Mitchell	COUNTRY USA GENRE Black comedy/Mystery NORWEGIAN TITLE Under the Silver Lake RUNNING TIME 139 minutes
	Produced by: Michael De Luca Chris Bender Jake Weiner Adele Romanski David Robert Mitchell
	Written by: David Robert Mitchell

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Sam	Andrew Garfield
Sarah	Riley Keough	½
Bar Buddy	Topher Grace	½
Millicent Sevence	Callie Hernandez	½
Final Man	Don McManus	-
Songwriter	Jeremy Bobb	-
Actress	Riki Lindhome	-
Troy	Zosia Mamet	-
Comic Fan	Patrick Fischler	½
Allen	Jimmi Simpson	-
Balloon Girl	Grace Van Patten	-
Jesus	Luke Baines	-
Homeless King	David Yow	-

Review

One cannot fault David Robert Mitchell for a lack of ambition with Under the Silver Lake, his follow-up to the compelling and highly successful It Follows from 2014. This time, he leaves his native Michigan behind and ventures into a contemporary Los Angeles populated by overly pop-culturally aware young adults who find themselves caught in the hopelessness of living up to the city's century-long tradition for celebrity and artistic success. Aesthetically, Mitchell wants to make a noirish L.A. movie mystery of classic proportions, with a narrative style and a musical score homaging mid-20th century noir, but the narrative he weaves around it is a teenage boy fantasy which is hard to take seriously, and the pop-cultural nostalgia very soon becomes too glaring and insistent to really transcend into anything. The film feels like a fan fiction follow-up to The Goonies told by a stoned-out underachiever from the Goonies generation. Still, there are a few haunting scenes, such as our protagonist's visit at the songwriter's house. Andrew Garfield delves into his character with a certain conviction and hopefulness, but chances are he would have been just as underwhelmed by what he ultimately was presented with as his character Sam is.