Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Erin Vassilopoulos
Starring: Alessandra Mesa, Ani Mesa, Pico Alexander, Jake Hoffman, Stanley Simons
A favourite premise of the made-for-TV movies that prop up the
Christmas Channel every year is that of a messy woman returning to her
snowbound hometown to reconnect with family and usually fall for an old
platonic friend who is now a hunky small business owner. Much of
Erin Vassilopoulos's directorial debut Superior, which she expanded from an earlier short, plays into those sort of
tropes, sans the hunky small business owner. But there's an element of
darkness that gives it the quality of a Hallmark Christmas movie
directed by Donald Cammell.
The messy woman in question here is Marian (Vassilopoulos's co-writer
Alessandra Mesa), a rock musician whom we witness run over her
abusive husband, Robert (Pico Alexander), as blood drips from a
wound in her head. Marian subsequently makes her way to the
snow-blanketed small town in upstate New York where her estranged twin
sister Vivian (Mesa's real life sister Ani Mesa) lives with her
uptight husband Michael (Jake Hoffman).
Marian and Vivian may be identical physically, but their lives couldn't
be more different. The former apparently fled their hometown six years
ago in search of excitement while the latter settled down and is hoping
to become pregnant one of these days. Marian likes to visit bars and hit
on strangers while Vivian prefers to do gardening.
Marian keeps her marital details secret from her sister, who insists
that she take a job at a local ice cream parlour so she can contribute
to her bed and board. After a few shifts at the parlour, which is run by
a pot-smoking 16-year-old (Stanley Simons), Marian begins to moan
about having to perform manual labour. Vivian proposes that they swap
identities and she pretend to be Marian, working at the parlour just to
get out of the house. While Marian stays home, Vivian has her eyes
opened to a new world beyond domesticity.
As the two sisters switch identities, so too does the film trade its
focus from Marian's flight - from either her hubby (if he's still alive)
or the police (if she killed him) - to that of Vivian's liberation. The
latter simply isn't as interesting as the former, as it feels
underplayed and should really have more time devoted to it. Unlike the
similarly themed
Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene, the threat to Marian from the life she's fled never quite feels
tangible here. In fact, we forget all about it in parts until the movie
does something to remind us about it.
Superior works best when it moves away from its very
Sundancey, quirky subplot to explore its darker material. With its 1980s
setting (likely to avoid the storytelling inconvenience that is the
modern cellphone and internet) and grainy 16mm photography, it has an
alluring visual appeal, like some lost '80s oddity restored by a
boutique blu-ray label. The movie seems heavily influenced by Cammell's
Performance, with its protagonists' gradual trading of identities, while some of
its darker moments wouldn’t be out of place in Cammell's underseen '80s
thriller White of the Eye. Ultimately it all feels a little derivative, but in Vassilopoulos,
who displays an ability to create a striking image, and her twin leads,
we feel like we're seeing the emergence of a trio that will go on to
great things. Like her film's protagonists, it feels like Vassilopoulos
is experimenting with someone else's established style. I look forward
to seeing what she might produce when she finds her own identity.
