Black Bear (Lawrence Michael Levine) is a brilliantly baffling film. Its dream-like ambiguities make it difficult to reduce to a plot synopsis, but this is not to its detriment. If anything, the less you know before watching, the easier it will be to relish the delicate handling of its feverish mysteries.
In short, the film is about a filmmaker, Allison (Aubrey Plaza), who goes on a retreat to stay with a couple, Blair (Sarah Gadon) and Gabe (Christopher Abbott), in their isolated forest home. I won’t go into much more detail beyond that simple premise, but this is neither a buoyant R&R holiday in the spirit of Grown Ups (Dennis Dugan, 2010), nor is it a slasher movie where a serial killer picks off the protagonists for questionable sexual transgressions as in The Rental (Dave Franco, 2020). What Black Bear is, is a conceptual film about a creative process, and what that process can do to both a creator and those around them. It explores the danger of mining personal conflict for creative gain, not just for those whose traumas are being uprooted.
The performances are spectacular: never before has Plaza been so hypnotic on-screen (which is saying something), as we are drawn into a minefield of Allison’s manipulation of those around her. Her character is the ultimate s***-stirrer (even more acidic than April Ludgate), and we are never certain of where her true motivations lie. This role is perfectly suited to Plaza, who can soar from charming, to contemptuous, to incredibly vulnerable, all within the same sentence. Her physical and vocal performance tell you so much about her character’s complex history, whilst also leaving Allison as an utterly fascinating enigma. I was mesmerised.
Abbott and Gadon also pull more than their weight, skilfully bouncing off one another with the demands of the scenes. One such scene, in which lots of wine is drunk, sees Gabe and Blair contradict every single thing the other says, whilst Allison drinks up the tense atmosphere with a sadistic glint in her eye. It is a painful scene to watch. The tension simmers to a boiling point and the resultant dread invokes a sense of inevitable tragedy. Or is this just a mind-game that Allison is now playing on us, the audience?
Occasionally the latter section of the film meanders out of focus, losing this otherwise robust atmosphere to misty surroundings. One such scene involves a film crew, and the camera follows different crew members away from the central characters. Whilst narratively and thematically this detracted from the film for me, it certainly presents each of these characters as actual people with personalities, flaws and goals. This is somewhat refreshing, considering most crew members depicted on film seem to be vacuous vessels who respond to every whim of their ruler, the director.
This was the second strange film about filmmaking and the creative process that I had watched this week after the similarly brilliant I Blame Society (Gillian Wallace Horvat, 2020). They make quite the double bill and offer a strong riposte to anyone complaining that Hollywood has run out of ideas. These are two films with fundamentally very similar ideas, but the execution of their filmmaking result in completely different and thrilling examples of contemporary cinema. The sparse yet stylised soundscape of Black Bear, alongside its stunning visuals, would have been wonderful to see on the big screen. Until that’s possible again, it more than merits the premium price to watch at home.
Black Bear is released on digital 23rd April.
