Movie Review: Horse Girl

Horse Girl *** / *****

Directed by: Jeff Baena   

Written by: Jeff Baena and Alison Brie.   

Starring: Alison Brie (Sarah), Molly Shannon (Joan), John Reynolds (Darren), Debby Ryan (Nikki), Jake Picking (Brian), John Ortiz (Ron), Robin Tunney (Agatha Kaine), Matthew Gray Gubler (Darren Colt), Toby Huss (Joe), Dylan Gelula (Jane Doe), Paul Resier (Gary), David Paymer (Doctor), Jay Duplass (Ethan).

 

In her TV work from Community to Mad Men to Glow to Bojack Horseman, Alison Brie has proven herself to be a wonderful versatile actress – mixing comedy and drama certainly within the same shows, and sometimes within the same scenes. But the movies haven’t quite given her much opportunity to do much yet – and the fact that she co-wrote Horse Girl with her The Little Hours director Jeff Baena (that weird Medieval nun comedy, many seemed to like more than I did) would seem to suggest that she wanted to show off a different side of herself – show her range as it were. And, to be honest, Brie is the reason to see Horse Girl – it’s a performance of someone whose mental health has never been good, and is now in rapid decline – and who can no longer realizes how far down she has already fallen. It’s a wonderful performance in a movie that doesn’t really have much else.

 

When we first meet Brie’s Sarah, she seems like a nice, socially awkward loner. She works at a craft store, where she is a trusted employee, with a few co-worker friends, she shares an apartment with Nikki (Debby Ryan) – and if the two aren’t exactly friends, they are at least friendly. But while Nikki is out with her boyfriend a lot, Sarah spends her time watching Purgatory – one of those supernatural detective shows on network TV (the clips from that show are laugh out loud funny – in large part because of the performance by Robin Tunney and Matthew Grey Gubler, who have spent time on the procedural network TV drama beat, and play it up just enough for it to be funny, without quite going over the top). We just think she’s shy – that’s all – until the cracks start showing, and eventually become too much to ignore. Though, because she isn’t particularly close with anyone – her mother is dead, her stepfather is distant, and everyone else is just friendly, not friends, everyone, of course, does ignore it. If there is a larger message to Horse Girl, it may just be that – that as a society, we simply chose to ignore the obviously mentally ill, until it directly impacts out lives.

 

Sarah’s descent makes up the entirety of the movie – we get glimpses of backstory, about her mother, about her beloved horse, who is no longer hers, although just try and stop her from visiting it, and giving a lot of unwanted advice to the teenage girl who knows rides her. There are strange dreams, references to her mother’s “struggles” – and how much she looks like her grandmother, whose struggles were a lot worse before she died, before Sarah was born. Brie does an excellent job in the role – never going too far into theatrics or over the top “crazy” acting that most actors would love to play. Instead, she makes Sarah seem almost reasonable and mostly lucid, even as what she believes keeps getting crazier and crazier, and she starts “losing time”. This all leads to a third act that is the highlight of the film – as all these elements come together in a way that is tricky balancing act for Brie, and director Baena – an extended breakdown that feels just outside reality.

 

The film premiered at Sundance, and to be honest, there are more than a few Sundance clichés running through the film – the forced quirkiness, the recognizable stars in cameos, hell even the lighting and cinematography just scream Sundance. And I kept wanting just a little more, well, something – a little more oomph, a little more ambition perhaps.

 

All told, Horse Girl is a good showcase for Brie – she shouldn’t really need one, as her resume speaks for herself, but with Bojack over, and Glow about to be, perhaps it’s time for her to get a truly great film role. She’d be great in one.